Latest / DISGRACELAND / Motown Records: Pimps, Prostitutes, the Detroit Mafia and the Sound of Teenage America

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Motown Records: Pimps, Prostitutes, the Detroit Mafia and the Sound of Teenage America · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the rise of Motown Records are insane. The record label's founder,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Barry Gordy, was once a pimp, Star singer Martha Reeves
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: was once held at gunpoint. Star singing group the Four
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Tops patrolled the stage of their concerts, and the Jim
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Crow South with loaded pistols for protection, and the record
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: label's success was believed by many to be a direct
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: result of an illicit partnership with the Motor City Mafia.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Motown Records is, by any measure, one of the most
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: successful music industry endeavors of all time, and was undoubtedly one,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: if not the most successful black owned music business of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: its day. The music and the megastars. Motown produced Smokey Robinson,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Diana Ross, Stevie Want during the Jackson Five defined a generation.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Their impact remains tattooed unto the skin of both black
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and white America, where it lives on, beloved by men
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and women of all ages from all backgrounds. To this day.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You cannot think of the nineteen sixties without hearing an
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: indelible Motown song swinging in the background. But that success
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: story is marred by rumors, rumors at the record label
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and its innovative owner were controlled by the quote unquote
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: black hand of the white American mob, rumors that to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this day still circulate despite claims to the contrary by
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Motown alone, Mafia or no Mafia. There is one thing
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that is one hundred percent certain, and that is that
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Motown Records made great music, undeniably some of the greatest
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: music ever made. That music you heard at the top
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: preset loop for my melotron called Mellow Red Sauce MK one.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: rights to Mule Train by Frankie Lange. And why would
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of Jackass Cheese? Could
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I afford it? Because that was the number one song
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: in America on January eleventh, nineteen fifty and that was
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the day Barry Gordy fought his last fight as an
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: amateur boxer and began seriously considering a career in the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: music industry, thus setting the course to forever change the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: sound of teenage America. On this episode, Pistol Packing, four Tops,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Mule Trained Cheese, Detroit Mafia and Motown Records. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. Jackie Wilson, aka mister Excitement, he
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of the operatic five octave voice and singer of the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: smash hit tune Lonely Teardrops, was doing his best to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: man's playing his way into the pants of the young
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: woman he was ushering back to his Manhattan apartment. It
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: was cold winter in the city, a city that at
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the moment in nineteen sixty one seemed to be ever changing.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: In a reflection of Jackie Wilson himself, exciting, Jackie went on,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you see all these black entertainers talking about how Elvis
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: ripped off their music. Nay wrong. But what they don't
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: say is that all these black entertainers ripped off Elvis's
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: dance moves. That's a fact. Know how I know because
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I saw that boy dance on stage for the first
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: time and knew I had to get some of that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: swivel in my step. That's why they call me Black Elvis. Baby.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Jackie's date was smitten. He could have told her he
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: was the black JFK. As she would have bought it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Jackie was the showstopper and as such a panty dropper,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and he knew it. He liked the ladies at his
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: current date, like the singers previous to Mister Excitement Jackie Wilson.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: She was with mister wonderful Sam Cook, and Jackie didn't mind.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: She was gorgeous and young. Jackie interlocked his arm with hers,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: pulling her tighter to his side. As they made their
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: way down the Upper Manhattan street. He raised his shoulders,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: bringing the collar of his topcoat closer to his neck,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: sheltering it from the falling snow. As he increased his
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: stride down the sidewalk and up the streets to his
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: apartment's front door, he quickly worked the key to the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: hole and pushed it open. The warmth from the entryway
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: hit him first, and then the bullet hit him right
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in the abdomen. He spun around on his feet. His
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: date screamed. A second bullet then pierced the skin of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: his ass. Jackie Wilson fell to the ground and into
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: semi consciousness. He could feel himself spiraling. Fear and adrenaline
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: pulse through him, as did the melody to his hit song,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Lonely Teardrops. Jackie didn't know why and didn't care. He
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening, but he knew enough to
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: hold on to whatever thought he could to not drift
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: away into oblivion. So he thought about Lonely Tear Drops,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: if for no other reason than to not have Elvis's
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: swinging hips be his last mortal thought. The song was
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a smash, and when it was Jackie was as surprised
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: as any. The songwriter, a local boxer from back in Detroit,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a hustler, really was as pugnacious as Jackie was smooth.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Barry Gordy. Some guys get by on talent, other guys
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: get by on drive. Jackie was driven, but more than anything,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: he was a natural talent. Barry Gordy, on the other hand,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Jackie knew it when he met him. Nothing was going
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to stop that little dude from making it. Which isn't
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to say that Barry Gordy wasn't immensely talented. He was,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and Jackie was amazed at the mini Black owned empire
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Barry was building in the way of the success of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Lonely Tear Drops. Jackie Wilson knew how to do one
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: thing with money, spend it. Barry Gordy, on the other hand,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: invested the bready made from lonely teardrops in to himself
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and made the pivot from songwriter to record label owner,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: first with Raber Records and then with Tamla Records and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: of course more hits Barrett Strong's Money That's what I Want,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a song Barry co wrote, and then shop Around by
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the Miracles, a group led by Gordy's new best friend
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and creative partner, the immensely talented Smokey Robinson. Jackie liked
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: smoke he had both talent and drive for days. Shop
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Around went to number one on the R and B
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: charts and number two on the Pop charts, and Barry
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Gordy by now had rolled as record companies under one label,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Motown Records. Motown a phrase he coined to represent his hometown.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: The Motor City Detroit Motown sound that was being developed
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: by Barry Gordy and Smokey Robinson was a projection of
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Gordy's idea vision of what America could be. To Barry Gordy,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: That's what Jackie Wilson and all the others could never understand.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't about black versus white, or white stealing from
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: black or vice versa. It was about black and white.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Why did there need to be two sets of record
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: charts R and B for black music and pop charts
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: for white music? Why did there need to be two
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: types of radio stations, black stations that played R and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: B for black kids and white stations that played pop
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: for white kids. And why did there need to be
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: two types of stars, black and white? Jackie Wilson improved
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: that a star could easily cross over it to another
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: market despite the color of his skin. Motown, as Berry
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Gordy saw, it wasn't black music, and it wasn't white music.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It was just music made by blacks, sure, but made
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: for all of America. As idealistic as that sounds, it
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: also has the benefit of being an incredibly smart business
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: strategy because it meant the size of Motown's audience was
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: potentially twice that of liables that serviced only the black market.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It was an audacious strategy, and it only worked because
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of the vision, drive, discipline, and talent of Barry Gordy.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: He knew that in order to reach this wider market
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and to cross over that motown music needed to have
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: certain qualities. A song, whether it was a dance tune
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: or a ballad needed to be exciting. Lyrics needed to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: be in the present, tense money, that's what I want,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I can't concentrate. Shop around melodies needed to be simple,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: easy to remember. Encounter melodies were encouraged distinguish motown singles
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: by having the lead singer work against the ensemble. Backing
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: vocalists as opposed to in unison and choruses needed to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: stand out. Hand claps, exaggerated drumming, and overall, the song
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: needed to have hooks for days. Not just a hooky
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: vocal melody, but a hooky bassline, a hooky guitar riff.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Even the tambourine needed to sound purposeful. Above all, the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: song needed to feel good. It needed to swing, to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: get kills its black kids and white kids out of
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: their seats and dancing. Barry Gordy took it a step
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: further and mixed everything he recorded specifically to sound good
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: coming out of tiny Ford Motor Company car speakers, which
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: were being made right down the road in Dearborn, Michigan,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: because he knew that that was where the majority of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: his product would be consumed in back seats by horny teenagers.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: The recipe was a success, and the sound of Young
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: America was born. The sound would result in more number
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: one hits for Barry Gordy than Jackie Wilson or Elvis
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Presley would ever have combined. The Black Elvis would eventually
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: recover from his shooting. It was learned later that he
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: was shot by a gilted lover, but he never fully
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: regained his chart shooting stride again, and Elvis Presley would
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: capture America's love and affection once more after his stint
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: in the army. But by the end of the decade,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Elvis's star would be in steep decline, while Motown's empire
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: would be ever expanding with a stable of chart topping artists,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: including The Temptations, The Supreme, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and Marvin Gay, among others. Such success was a ways
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: off for Barry Gordy back in nineteen sixty one, but
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: it certainly wasn't unimaginable. In fact, quite the opposite, It
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: was part of the plan. Success was a personal manifestation.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Just as the Motown sound projected a certain kind of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: post racial idealism, Barry Gordy in his record label projected
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of predetermined success, which is why Barry
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Gordy was standing on his front lawn at two six
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: 'in foury eight West Grand Boulevard, shouting furiously at the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: workers standing high above him on rickety ladders. They couldn't
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: get the sheet off at the sign of the front
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of the house. It was supposed to be the grand
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: unveiling of Motown's new studio and company headquarters, but was
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: instead turning into an anti climactic kitch. The white sheet
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: was flapping off of the right side of the front
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of the modest two floors family, revealing only part of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the sign the letters L L, e U, S and A. And.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: There was a small group of Forgiving staff and family
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: assembled on the front lawn watching Barry pace about the yard. Incensed,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: barking out orders, the sheet mercifully began to slip off
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: more letters. The sign now read v I L, L,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: e U, S and A. Across the street, two men
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: sat in an inconspicuous white Ford Fairlane watching the scene
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: on Gordie's front lawn unfold, sucking on Paul Mall's their
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: bellies full of sludgy black coffee and kicky old fashioned donuts.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: They had no idea what the letters and the sign
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: were going to eventually spell, but it was potentially the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: most exciting thing they'd seen in days. And the sheet
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: slipped again, finally revealing the sign in its entirety. H
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I T T S v I L L e U
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: s A HITSA. Of course that made sense. Both men
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: agree that the boldness was Pureberry Gordy Hitsville, USA. Audacious projecting,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: they called it. That would be it for the day.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: They fired up the fair Lane and headed back to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: their own headquarters. There was no sign on their front
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: door though no letters, but if there was, it would
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: have read fb I. Fat Tony nearly swallowed the butt
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of his Cuban when the Mexican went down in three.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: The black Featherweight was a lock to lose, but he didn't,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and now black Jack was about to make the fat
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: man two hundred lighter. He thought about smacking the kid around,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't his fault. He didn't know he was
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: supposed to go down in three. He fought hard, nearly
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: punching above his weight, winning but taking a beating in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the process, before connecting with an inspired write that put
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the Mexican down for the count. After the fight, the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: featherweight stood outside the Wreck Center, staring at the poster
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: stapled to the telephone pole. On one side there was
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: a picture of Duke Ellington advertising an upcoming concert of
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: his in Detroit. On the other side, the same promoter
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: was advertising an upcoming fight on another night, and so
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: next to the Duke there was a picture of the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: heavyweight Sunny Liston. The difference between the two men couldn't
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: have been more stark. Ellington was sophisticated, refined, regal, looking
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: like he was going somewhere. Liston looked beat up, bruised, brutish, and,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: despite his ferociousness, like he wasn't long for this world.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: The young featherweight Barry Gordy, like everyone else, had heard
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the rumors about Liston, that he was owned by the mob,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: controlled by guys on Fat Tony and Black Jacket, the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: two imposing, impeccably dressed to time event. Sitting ringside for
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: his fight earlier that evening, Barry didn't know if they
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: were true or not. It seemed like the only way
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: for a boxer to get his shot was in partnership
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: with the mob, working for wise guys who told you
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: when to stick and when to land. If this was
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: what getting your shot looked like like Sonny Listed, beaten
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: up and battered a thousand yards stare, then Barry wanted
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: no part of it. He made up his mind on
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the spot. He would work for no man. He would
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: be his own boss, more like sir Duke here, distinguished,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: going places, master of his own domain. Music seemed like
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the right racket to mix himself up in, so Barry
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Gordy quit boxing and opened a record store. It took
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: almost no time before it failed, and so Barry needed
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to do what he had to do to get by.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: In Detroit in the nineteen fifties, there were plenty of honest,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: blue collar jobs to be had, but they were square
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: jobs with bosses. Never again, Barry had stopped lying to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: himself that he would live that life, and he wasn't
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: going back, and so he stumbled into what a lot
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of enterprising and charming black men from the city did
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: back then. He used his charm to put together a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: stable of women and trick them out. It wasn't quite
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Duke Ellington, but it was a job, and he was
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: his own boss. Running girls started to bring in some cash,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and Barry tried sacking it away when he could, using
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: what little was left over from surviving to finance his
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: dream of making it somehow in the music business. Owning
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a record shop was out, so his next endeavor was
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to write songs. Writing songs was easy, Pimping was not.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Barry lacked the killer instinct necessary to succeed. He was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: an easy going pimp and let his girls come and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: go as they pleased, refused to beat on them to
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: keep them in line. As a result, the money was
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: strictly small time until it was non existent, but his
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: hustle out on the street had brought him the time
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: he needed, time to meet Smokey Robinson and his new
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: songwriting part or in Lover the gorgeous and classically trained
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Renama Lilly's Ray. For short, Barry and Ray scored local
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: hits with Smokey, Jackie Wilson, and Merv Johnson, only for
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Barry to hungrily tear open royalty checks and find them
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: worth three dollars and nineteen cents for producing Smokey Robinson
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in the Miracles. Was this a joke? Smokey said Barry
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: should start his own label, and lucky for Barry, the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Gordy family set aside savings every month for real estate
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and business investments less lucky. Without the unanimous consent of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the family, nobody could withdraw a cent. So Barry went home,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but he didn't ask them to invest. He asked them
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: for a small loan, just enough for one pressing of
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: one record to prove his pen, his ear, and his
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: theories about the music industry, and they said yes, so
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: long as he paid interest. Barry, with eight hundred dollars
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: now in his pocket, was relieved, but nowhere near is
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: relieved as Ray, who unbeknownst to Barry, had tricked herself
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: out a short time ago for a measly seventeen dollars
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to put food on their table. But with this meager investment,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the tricking, the pimping, and the fighting all seemed to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: settle in as part of their past, and the future
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: finally looked wide open. Ray soon married Barry in part
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: because she had what he had in any means necessary
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: approach to entrepreneurship, in the sense that whatever Ray and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Barry had to offer the world was meant to have.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't destiny, it was at least spotting their
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: lane and shooting their shot. They could see their future
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like it was already real. Massive success based on tearing
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: down the walls between R and B and pop, between
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: black and white, a world where they didn't work for anyone,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a world where they were their own boss, or more accurately,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: where Barry was boss. They wanted to pluck that vision
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: from their heads and put it into the world. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: at the same time it felt like a magnet in
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: their future, pulling them forward, a north star. And with
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars and no record even pressed yet, it
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: was also for the moment a mirage. Barry bought the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: house on West Grand Boulevard, Hitsville, USA in nineteen fifty nine.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: It was the mirage brought to life their projection, made
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: real Barry Gordy's manifest destiny. Outside it was the picture
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of success, but inside, where the sausage was made, it
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: was a stone cold hit making machine. Barry knew the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: opportunity would only be here once, and he wasn't going
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to mess it up. Unlike the girls he ran. When
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: it came to running a studio, Barry Gordy ran a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: tight ship. In that first year alone, the label released
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: fifteen singles. Two years later, in nineteen sixty one, they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: released fifty one. In nineteen sixty three they released seventy seven.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And this was not volume for the sake of volume.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: These were radio dominating hits, eventual classics, the standards of today.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Can I Get a Witness by Marvin Gay, Heat Wave
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: by Martha and the Vandelas Two Lovers by Mary Wells,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: You've really got a hold on Me by the Miracles
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: when the love lights start shining through his eyes by
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the Supremes, Fingertips by Stevie Wonder, etc. The FBI agents
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: outside clocking the surprisingly successful young black man's every move
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: smelled a rat. This guy was dirty, had to be.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: How else could you explain his success. Plus they knew
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: about his mafia connections through his days as a boxer.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: They wondered what was really going on inside that house
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: on West Grand They couldn't see beyond the front door,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: but if they could, they would have first seen the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: desk of Jamie Bradford, the receptionist working on her own
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: songwriting past her set. The suave Martha Reeves, secretary to
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: head of Motown an R. Mickey Stevenson, as well as
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: gatekeeper to the office of Ray known as Mother Motown.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Ray and Mickey would flit in and out of the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: hall in their offices, checking in on Maxine Powell, who
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: handled Motown's finishing school for new artists. That's right, a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: finishing school. After Barry's family had made good on their
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: seed loan, they insisted he hire Maxie. After they'd heard
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that Smoky and the Miracles got booed off the Apollo
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: stage for bumping into each other during their act. It
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was money well spent. Various Gordies would be heard pacing
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: around the floor above where they now ran accounting and manufacturing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: The sturdy industrial gears of the business, and the smell
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: of the soul food that Miss Lily cooked for lunch
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: every day at one o'clock would waft up the stairs
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: from the kitchen. But the now legendary Motown magic happened
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in the studio in the garage. If the sad sack
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: g men staking out the joint from outside had been
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: so lucky, they'd have seen drummer Benny Papasita Benjamin and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: bassist James Jamerson laying it down thick. Jamerson supposedly developed
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: his heavy sound replicate the look of a well endowed
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: woman's buttocks as it bounce down the street. The other
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Funk Brothers, as the Motown musicians had come to call themselves,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: included Eddie Chank Willis, Joe Messina and Robert White on guitar,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Johnny Griffith, Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke on keys,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Mike Terry and Hank Cosby on sacks, Jack Ashford and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Bongo Brown on percussion. It was a never ending murderer's
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: row of the best jazz and blues session musicians in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, and it turned out in America and thus
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in the world, and listening in on the sessions huddled
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: over the board in the basement control room would be
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the in house hit writing and production power trio known
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: as HDH the brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and Mont
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Dogher And if the Feds made have passed all that
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: in periscope, their view up out of the studio into
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the upper floors of Motown h Q. In a tiny
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: office near Barry Gordy's, they'd find the office of a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: heavy set, impeccably dressed Sicilian man with calloused hands and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: thick knuckles that hinted at his hard scrabble past in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the cement business. He was Berney Ail's, the only white
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: employee at Motown, and he was so very out of place,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so out of place that he's seen that he could
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: be connected. Right back after this word word, Martha Reeves
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: was feeling herself. She was on a roll since moving
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: up the Motown ranks from secretary to lead singer and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: star attraction of Martha Reeves and the Vandelas. She'd scored
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: three consecutive hits Come and Get These Memories, Heat Wave
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and their latest quicksand in her sets on the nineteen
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: sixty three Motortown Review Tour were one of the nightly
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: highlights on a bill packed with chart topping talent, including
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Smokey Robinson and His Miracles, The Temptations, The Four Tops,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and Barry Gordy's knewest attraction Little Stevie Wonder top it
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: all off. Today was one of those days, you know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the kind or no matter what you do or war
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or get into, you just kind of look good. Your
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: hairs sits right, your clothes fit perfectly, and you have
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: that natural constantly in your eye. Martha was waiting patiently
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: for the bathroom, admiring herself in the massive Florida ceiling
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: mirror in the Louisville, Kentucky Holiday Inn. She dug on
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: her outfit, a high neck stripe pullover that did little
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to conceal her natural curves and high waisted slacks tapered
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to expose her ankles. They were off day closed, no
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: show today, just travel. They weren't staying at this hotel,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: just stopping off. Martha kept her eyes on the mirror,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: thought about her hair. The humidity was doing its damnedest
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to mess up her vibe. She needed to reset her
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: hair under her handkerchief when she got into the bathroom.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Then she heard it, that snap, the sound of immediate fear.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: It came from her right. As she bent her neck
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to see what was going on. Her eyes still pinned
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: on herself in the mirror, she managed to only turn
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: her head a fraction before seeing the long barrel of
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a twelve gage shotgun intrude into the right hand side
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: of the mirrored image in front of her. Then she
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: felt it, the cold steel pressed to her skull just
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: above her right ear. Hell are you doing in here? Fugger?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Martha stood still said nothing. She was frozen in fear,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: sickened by the smell emanating from the redneck cop threatening
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: to blow her brains out. It was the smell of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: piss chewing tobacco and sheeped cologne over a body order
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that refused to quit. I asked you a question, fugger.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Martha whispered that she was just waiting to use the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: bathroom in the hotel lobby, and the cop said nothing
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: but lowered his gun, arched his head back, and took
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: in Martha reeves. It was clear to him even with
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: this limited IQ, but this one was not from around here.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Where are you from Detroit? Explained Martha. The cop dropped
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a shotgun to his side. What the hell you doing
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: down here? You know you ain't supposed to be in
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: this Zier hotel. There's a white hotel, and you will
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: use you. Martha quickly made her apology and asked to leave.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: The cop told her she could go as long as
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: she got the hell out of Kentucky and never came back.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Martha got back on the bus and, along with the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: rest of the Review, headed to Nashville for the next
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: day's show. News of the incident was on everyone's minds,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and the four Tops weren't surprised. They expected this behavior
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in the South, which is why they brought guns. Pistols.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Up to this point, they kept them hidden on the bus,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: but that night they packed them for the show. They
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: had a deal with the Temptations. They'd watched the Temps
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: back if the Tempts watched out for the Tops. So
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: that night, while the Temptations rocked the Nashville Coliseum to
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: ten thousand mostly white teenagers, the four Tops stood at
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the side of the stage, loaded for bear, their pistols
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: tucked into their backside waistbands, surveying the crowd, ready to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: shoot out any of the cops or rednecks who might
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: mess with them. And when the Tops took the stage,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the Temptations did the same for them, but without guns.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: With baseball bats held discreetly at their sides, they watched
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the crowd from the wing of the stage. Nothing happened
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that night, but the Southern leg of the tour was
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a steady stream of racist humiliations, shotguns waved in their
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: faces by old town down home crackers, near beatdowns over
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Jim Crows, seating at restaurants and hotels, stray rounds found
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: in the tour bus, a bus that looked extremely similar
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to the freedom Rider buses that had become the flashpoint
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of civil rights activism that summer. Barry Gordy's vision of
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: breaking the color line of music was manifesting in ways
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: more complicated than he ever imagined. A few days later,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: back in Detroit, Very caught wind of the story. He
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was furious, but a few other Detroit locals were too
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: for different reasons, and they wanted to talk to Barry
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: about the tour and the rumors that a group of
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: black musicians were traveling through the South causing trouble for
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: all those nice white folks. It was time, they thought,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: enough fucking around, Bring Barry Gordian and see just what
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the hell he's up to. When Barry got the call,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: when he learned that the FBI wanted to talk to him,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: he was nervous and high tailed in downtown to speak
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to Hoover's boys. But as he made his approach walking
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: down Michigan Avenue, his nervousness turned to anger. His success
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: was the result of him any means necessary approach, sure,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: but why was he getting hassled? His success was obvious.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: He could hear it all around him as cars rolled by.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Smoky Marvin the supremes. They all blasted out of car windows,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: reminding him of what he'd accomplished. His efforts, his creativity,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: his business acumen, and his hustle were literally reshaping American culture,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and he was what being sent for, being hauled in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: by the FEDS to explain himself. It was total bullshit,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and he knew it. He'd been his own boss long
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: enough that he'd forgotten the fe of being under the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: gun under the thumb of the man. But now that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: he arrived at the next level, his artists in the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: South were having the gun flashed upon them, and up
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: north the hand of the man was waving it right
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: at him. When he got to FBI HQ and into
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the office, he could not believe what he saw up
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on a bulletin board where the faces of every living
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Detroit mafioso and small time hood arranged in hierarchical orders,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: starting with Angelo the chairman Melly at the top and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: flowing down to his capos. His brother Frank and nephew,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Little Vince Barry recognized them. Of course. They ran all
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the jukeboxes in the city, had their fingers in a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: lot of club bookings, co owned a few local white
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: record labels. One was even named White Music Company. Barry
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: even recognized members of their respective crews, Big Mike and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Q, Tony the Bowle, and machine Gun Pete, all
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: spread out before him on the corkboard. On a second
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: bulletin board, there were gory crime scene photos made men
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and civilians alike, lying dead like rats on Detroit streets, bloodied, mangled,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: destroyed different kinds of hits than the ones Berrier was
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: used to. And then on a third bulletin board, there
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: was a timeline flowing left to right. It was a
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: biographical map of Barry's life, going as far back to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: his time in the military, serving as a chaplain's assistant
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: in the third Artillery in Korea, then as a boxer,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: then his failed stints as both the record store owner
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and a pimp, to his early days of marriage, and
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: ultimately to his founding of Motown. Tight strings of yarn
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: ran from his timeline the pictures of guys who were
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: also worryingly on the first board, Bigfoot Eddie Wingate, the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: black owner of the twenty Grand Club where the Motown
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: family loved to hang out and play, was apparently running
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the biggest book in Black Detroit under the protection of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the Corrado crew. These ominous branches were followed by a
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: chronological listing of every hit Motown had ever made, Barrett
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Strong's Money, the Marvelettes, Please, Mister Postman, Do you Love
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Me by the Contours, and on and on and on,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and the hit list had branches too, correlated to a
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: list of radio stations spread out across the midwest, east,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: coast west and to the south, and the whole time
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: line culminated with two photos, one on top of the other.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Berry's photo was on top. Under it, there was one
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: word Boss below Berry's image an FBI given title. There
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: was another photo, this one of the impeccably groomed Barney Ayles,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the man with the opposite Motown h Q right up
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: stairs near Berry's, a man who had proven himself to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: be indispensable to Barry Gordy and mysterious to most every
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: one else. Motown's promo man, the Sicilian, the first white
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: man on the Motown pay roll, and under his photo
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: there was also a title, It rests under Boss. The
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: gun felt heavy in Verry Gordy's hand. Then again, it
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty eight. Everything felt heavy if he was
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: going to do it, well, you better go ahead and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: do it. Shoot him for they run now, bang bang,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You spawned it. It's yours to kill do it you won't.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Verry Gourdy was no shrink, but he was smart enough
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to know full well what the dream was about. The
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: faceless beast haunting him was his baby, his pride and joy,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: his business, Motown Records. And the gun wasn't a gun,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: but rather a pen. The penny would use to away
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: ownership of his baby and to effectively kill his baby.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And the offer was too good to be true. Sixty
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: one million dollars for ownership of Motown, sixty one million
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: in a good night's sleep. The headaches were too many,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the overhead was too high, the cash flow was always
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: too low, and the competition was now too tough, and
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the stress was almost all consuming. MCA Incorporated, the massive
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: music industry conglomerate, and owners of MCAA Records wanted to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: do bad. Barry could taste it, and Barry wanted out.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: But as rumors of the sales started circulating, so too
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: did the whispers that Barry Gordy was the sellout, selling
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: out a black business to corporate white business interests, and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Barry couldn't stop thinking about it. It was all he
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: thought about, actually, the deal and the ramifications positive and negative.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Sixty one million makes a lot of problems go away.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: But could he deal with the sellout rap? Political fundraisers
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: were never his bag. Socially, Barry, like most musicians, was
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: more comfortable with dim lighting and smoke filled nightclubs for
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: social events. Hotel ballrooms with their bright lights and carpeted
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: floors were a touched you straight even for a Jesse
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Jackson fundraiser. But shit, it was Jesse Jackson, the first
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: black man with an actual, puncherous chance of nabbing the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. When
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Barry got the invite, he knew he had to attend,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: even if the timing was brutal. The deal was on
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: his mind every damn minute, keeping going round for round
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: with MCA for the past several months, and they were
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: close but for a few details. And with every day
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: that passed, more rumors and more flat back from the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: black community, and all that added up to the dreaded
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: sellout wrap for Barry. Jesse Jackson was no exception. Barry
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: saw him coming from across the room. That big head,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: those giant eyes, and catcher's mid hands. Barry sized him up.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Ex Boxers never forget how to fight, and Barry knew
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that if it ever came down to it, despite their
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: difference in size, he could whoop Jesse, if for no
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: other reason than the fact that Jesse lacked that killer
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: instinct talent. Sure, maybe the verdict was still out, but
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: drive nothing compared to Barry Gordy's. Jesse grabbed Barry's hand
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and got right to the point. Selling Motown would be
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: a blow to black people all over the world, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Barry started to make his case, but Jesse wasn't having it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: He just started drifting again through the crowd. Jesse made
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: his point. Didn't matter what Barry said. Jesse had his
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: contribution already. Sometime afterward, Barry Gordy found himself sitting at
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: a Bear conference room table and holding that pen. It
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: rested heavy in his hand, just like the gun in
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: his dream. He signed, and with that signature, many think
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he killed Motown. The backlash was swift, as he expected,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: but unexpectedly, rumors began to swirl, Rumors that Barry sold
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: out under orders from the mob rumors that Motown was
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: at best mob affiliated and at worst the mob front.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: The effrontery was hard for Barry Gordy to swallow. His
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: success was unparalleled in the music industry. More than any
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: other record label, his record label shaped American culture. In
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties alone, the label had seventy nine top
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: ten records on the Billboard Hot one hundred Motown songs
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: were recorded by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: were ubiquitous on car stereos and jukeboxes, and even today,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: more than a half century removed from the label's heyday,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: no style of music is more representative of a decade
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: in a culture than the Motown sound is with the sixties.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And this was all achieved during a time of intense
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: racial division in this country, and on a hunch that America,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: despite its divisions at the time, was ready for a
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: different vision of itself, one that didn't sound black or white,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: one that sounded, in a word, American. The fact that
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: this was achieved by a black man fronting a black
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: owned business, a business he started with a loan from
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: his black family, isn't enough. It can't be the truth
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: for some, Just as Barry Gordy projected his post racial
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: vision of America through Motown's music. Much of America to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: this day still projects a regressive vision of this country
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: onto Motown's legacy, a vision that a black man couldn't
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: possibly make it in America without the help of a
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: white man. No, for some Berry Gordy must have been dirty.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: He must have been working with the mob. How else
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: can you explain his success. It had to be the mafia, please, Sure,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Barry Gordy, like a lot of men who fought their
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: way out of their station and into the upper echelon
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of the music business, had in any means necessary approach
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to entrepreneurship. In the early days, he pimped, And yeah,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: he'd liked to gamble and hung out at nightclubs in
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the sixties that were owned and operated by gangsters. And yeah,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: his records played on gue boxes that were also mob controlled,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: just like every other record played on every other jukebox
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: at the time. And yeah, those records ended up on
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: those jukeboxes through the efforts of motown Sicilian promo man.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: But to explain Away's success as being the product of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: anything but his drive and talent is a bigger crime
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: than any crime Berry Gordy may have committed in his career,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in This
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod
• 37:51
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• 37:55
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• 37:58
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• 38:00
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• 38:05
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• 38:09
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• 38:13
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• 38:17
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• 38:22
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• 38:25
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• 38:29
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• 38:36
  Speaker 1: then man