So, the Artist Development idea, tell me about how that was unusual.

Well, Artist Development was a unique situation because no other record company even went that far. That, see that's a personal management, manager's job to get the artists ready. So, since we were using all youngsters, most of them were under eighteen. We had to make sure that they looked good when we took them out. So when they looked so bad we had to create a, a, a uh, a department that would groom the kids and most, since most of them were ghetto kids that came from single homes, single parent homes, and didn't have all the uh, the cultural tactics that's needed, we decided to give it to 'em. Now that just came out, I don't think there was any deductions from their money to support that because we had a rough time getting some money just to do management. Berry said, I'm not interested in management, I'm a, I'm a recording ar- uh, a record manufacturer. So, but he said, told his sister, if you wanted to handle that, that's - well you go ahead. So Esther was the personal manager and the management company and they set up a thing called Berry Gordy Enterprises. Under Berry Gordy Enterprises came Artists Development.

Great. Could you, I don't want to forget this part about the tour story, could you tell me the story about how on the bus somebody would sell sandwiches and make money on the side and the idea that because of segregation in the South people couldn't buy food when they wanted.

Okay. On several tours, on the first tour it became evident that uh, we had to drive maybe five hundred miles between stops to get, before we could sit down and eat or sleep. So we would sleep on the bus but uh, it wasn't, it wasn't enough, we didn't have the food so, one of the guys that was uh, the valet for other groups or maybe, what was it? He was valet for Four Tops I guess, no Temptations. Valet for the Temptations, very enterprisingly created a business. He bought him a, a cooler and he would go shop just before we get ready to leave on the Tour and he had either, he fried chicken, he'd have cold cuts. He had pop, he had beer. He had san- he had uh, sweets and he made lots of money. When he got to the end of the Tour people were borrowing money from him in order to get home sometimes. And then they also did a little gambling out there, see, so he was the banker. When they, friendly games, you know but twenty-five cents a point might get your whole salary 'cause you wasn't making that much those days. Uh, the Supremes had to split maybe thirty dollars, 'cause the rest of the money we kept at home, so that they'd have money at home. If they got three hundred dollars a week, they had a chance, they had just got pocket change. Uh, Shorty Long went out and he, he got, he left all his money at home. He, he begged them to go and uh, so they just give him a little something. And uh, he got on the Tour and uh, he's quite a blackjack player. Quite a poker player. He, he had all the money when he came back home. But, the this is, this is the, the way that uh, and it was all in fun, you know, I mean the guys would, some of the guys never paid their bills and stuff like that but it was all in fun. There was no real problems.

Was there a problem going into the South of being able to eat in places?

Oh yes, we'd drive up with the bus and, uh, uh, we'd go drive to a restaurant and they'd see us at the bus and then when we'd come out of the bus, they'd go, they'd pull the shade down on the front window, say closed. Or if we got out of the bus they'd lock the door and wouldn't let us in. Or if we got to if they did let us, they, they signify that we had to go around to the back. I remember one place in Texas specifically that we went to the back and we had to wend our way through the garbage cans to a little window about the size of, oh I guess about that size. And man, that, they would put our plates through the, I mean paper plates through the, through the window and we ate on those garbage cans. We ate the, just put our food on the garbage can and when we got through, and we were grateful because we were hungry and we had been to several places where you couldn't even get that kind of situation. Guys pulled guns on us in, uh, they you know that was also in the days of the Freedom Riders and uh, when they see this bus. We came to get gas and as we stepped out of the, the bus to go to the johns, we looked down the street and all the little houses along the street had people standing in the doorway. And behind the door was a shotgun. One of the guys showed us shotguns. And then, after a period, after that Tour they got a chance to find out that we were a viable group and uh, uh, we had the, still had the prejudices but uh, we didn't have the, the, the gun play that we had got that first time during the Freedom Riders.

But there was, once Motown artists became known, I mean those barriers started to come down, right?

No, they still, you know, the barriers are still there. The biggest thing that helped us was the fact that uh, Holiday Inn came into being. See, when Holiday Inn came into being we were able to stay in a room, everywhere there was a Holiday Inn, we were able to live. So we would, we would uh, uh, uh, book a Holiday Inn in every area that we were performing in. And, we just couldn't swim in the pool. We swam in the pool one time and they drained it. We that, that's the way that thing goes, man, but I mean, so we're, I'm one of the persons that can see that we have come a long way. Uh, and there's a still a long way to go. I saw, we, we had Martin Luther King and, at Motown. He was he was on, Berry had exclusive rights to recording him and everybody talks about the March on Washington but that March on Detroit was a two weeks or a week prior to the March on Washington and coming down Woodward Avenue you'd be surprised, you couldn't see, as far as you could see were people marching and they were shoulder to shoulder. I was on the thirty-second floor of the Broderick Tower looking down Woodward Avenue and people were shoulder to shoulder, sidewalk to sidewalk. Coming down Woodward Avenue as far as the eye could see and man, that was a beautiful sight. A million people.

Tell me about why you wanted Berry Gordy ....

Oh yes.... You know, Motown was such a, a family company that uh, everybody just, everybody used their first names and uh, as we grew uh, Mr. Gordy was Berry Gordy so long that uh, if you saw him anywhere you'd say, hey Berry, what's happening so and so, so and so and we'd stop him and and one day I noticed that he was out there in the front and everybody converged on him and he was talking business, you know, and we, Esther and I mentioned that, that hey, we got to do something about that 'cause Berry, that, she was aware that Berry needed to have the, the prestige of being the owner, and CEO and, you know, and so we we sent out a memo. I came up and said, well let's start calling him Mr. Gordy and we have to make quit making him so accessible. You know, so uh, they, they sent around a memo and I think I got the first copy where you're supposed to say Mr. Gordy and not Berry anymore and when he's talking to someone, don't invade in the, in the conversation 'cause everybody would just come up and join in the conversation, regardless, you know, 'cause they were that free. So uh, and then they started buying and him, of course Berry was wearing stuff just like we were. And we were pretty poor so it's, we said, okay Berry you got to buy you some clothes. So they took him out and bought him a outfit. Boy he was the most uncomfortable guy in the world. And finally he, he, he, he got so he was used to it. Uh, uh and he became the CEO because he was speaking to one of the bank presidents one day, course the bank was right down the street and they had a, a little relationship uh, the manager, bank manager and that's when we started, noticed that we had to have some uh, décor, around the office. And that's what we did.

Let's talk a little bit about the music. You were one of the people who were both a musician and an executive there. You came from a jazz background as did a lot of those musicians, how did you and the other people and specifically the Funk Brothers core group relate to this more teen oriented music that Motown was putting out?

Well first of all uh, we laughed at it at first. Uh, because when they brought it to us it was in such bad shape man, that you couldn't play it, I mean they'd bring me a piano copy and it would be out of or they'd bring me a baritone copy and it'd be out of range. Motown would look at it and say, man, what is I mean the Funk Brothers would say, man what is this? But we wanted to get paid and uh, so we'd sit down and we'd say, well man, here do such and such a thing, do this, do this, do this. And as a result we'd pull it together and they'd say, yeah, that's what I want. Wasn't nothing like what they thought they had. We made, we made, we took the form and made the music. Rebuilt all the music and then as a result, over the years they'd start to learn form and structure and even the musicians started to perform after they learned. 'Cause all of them had to learn from the, from the musicians in the studio and uh, all us were jazz musicians and we did, we did it jazz. Like uh, Canadian Sunset? That's on the front of Mary Wells' um, uh, My Guy and of course, George Bohanan and them was sitting in the studio and they, he said, man, give me something to bring this thing in and uh, George was just playing and he said, hey man, let's play this. Earl picked it up and said, okay let's do that and we'd come up with this. So, a lot of tunes are derived from our, the jazz music that we played daily. And uh, they just, you know with the little money we were getting it, it supplemented it at first. When we got, when it got to Earl, the Funk Brothers, they got paid money. They got paid real money. But when we first started it wasn't, five, seven, ten dollars a side.

There were some very innovative musicians and maybe you could talk a little bit about that. About Jamerson and Benjamin and the way they really changed music.

Well, Benny Benjamin and Papa Zita, he was uh, probably the premier drummer in the country at that time. Nobody just didn't know it. And uh, he came to Motown, he came to Detroit from St. Louis I guess with uh, with Candy Johnson and he's playing at one of the joints around town. And uh, I don't know how they got in but Benny was the first drummer that Berry really used uh, not on the first session, not on. I don't know, I've forgotten who he used on the first sessions. But he was the premier drummer as we d-developed. Uh, Joe Hunter was the first pianist and arranger uh, Gittens and uh, Johnny Griffen and all those guys came in later and uh, uh, let me see uh, Robert White, Robert White and Jamerson came to Motown through, through ANA Records, Tri-Fi Record Company, which was Harvard Fuquay and Anna and, and Gwynn Fuquay and that was in the ho-Homestead, so Berry bought them out and as a result he got Jamerson and, and Robert White. Uh, kind of belligerent guys at first, but uh, they knew what they could do. Now Jamersons could play around town. He played with uh, Washboard Willie and Washboard Willie was, developed quite few uh, musicians around town but he pl- he played all the Cajun music, all kind of music but he played it in natural keys. And during that time most of the music that we played were in the flat keys. So Jamerson was developed farther than most of the musicians in the city because he played with us and he played with Washboard Willie and he learned how to play all the keys. Outside of having a, a great ear, he also got the innovative things from the Washboard and the slide whistles and all the bells and the ding-a-lings and stuff that he had to hear. They all came into his playing. And he became a very creative person. And also knowing how to read, you know? Knowing how to read and hearing so he, he, he didn't have wor- spend a lot of time. Uh, the other....

Let me ask you specifically about Holland-Dozier- Holland. They weren't musicians really to the way you guys were, tell me about that.

Okay, first of all, Eddie Holland was in the first session uh, first couple of sessions we did we did at United Sound. Eddie Holland did Jamie and a couple of other tunes. Jamie became, I think, the second or third release or something and it was a smash. Eddie Holland was a perfect Jackie Wilson. But he couldn't perform, he couldn't get out and perform on the stage and they choreographed him and made him a, an artist. And after he did the first tour, he looked great man, he had his, his, his Eisenhower jackets and stuff and he really looked good. But he was so nervous when he got through, he was shaking and everything, well he said, man I cannot do this. He said, I'll just, I'll just have to retire from this, I can't do this. But he found out that he could write lyrics and that's what he's, he went into writing lyrics and his brother was an engineer, he was studying the engineer, now they had a group that uh, Bateman and all, and, and, and the Dozier Brothers were in it. So when they were trying to get their stuff together, Holland, uh, Brian learned how to run the studio. So, when they collaborated with Brian and Eddie Holland, they collaborate and then they didn't have to have a producer, they could do their own producing, they did everything. Uh, then uh, Dozier came into the picture and when the three of them got together man, it was history. They, they, they did everything right and they are the one that created the, the rhythm section out front. Now they were under Berry Gordy's tutelage. They watched him so much that uh, of course they picked up his style and Berry was, was quite dynamic and he was rhythmic. And at that time the rhythm was usually buried on a record, you didn't hear it. Just a small pulse you'd feel it. But when Holland-Dozier-Holland came on the scene, it became rhythm out front. Right up under the voices. And then they put the, they buried the other instruments.

How did they get some of those sounds?

Oh man, anything they thought of. They had stomping boards. They'd take a board and put down some 2x4 and stand on it and stomp. They'd shake, chains and scratch on the wall. They did all kind of sounds and rhythm man. They, these, they was just creative. Anything that sounds pretty decent, they'd do. Uh, and if they had a special effect they need, like shotgun. Uh, when they got ready to do Shotgun, Eddie Willis kicked his, his uh, accidentally kicked his, his, his amplifier and it did that crash. And when they got through they wanted to take, take it out and they said, let's do it again, he said no man, let's leave that in, it sounded like a shotgun. And it worked.

Tell me about the competition in Motown. There was a lot of competition between writers, producers....

The greatest competition in the world. Even, even uh, playing sports, I mean, Ping-pong, cards, anything. Competition was Berry's middle name and everybody wanted to beat him. And uh, in the, in the, in the game room which was also the restaurant and everything else there's just, they had a Ping-pong table, they had card games and they had, they, they, they did everything for relaxing 'cause Motown was a 24-hour studio. It worked all night long. Anytime they got ready they thought of something, they'd go in the studio and uh, in between times they, they, they gambled or they played ping-pong. Anything they did was competitive and when they, it carried over into the music writing, into the performing, everything and uh, it was all friendly. You can't have that now, see, because the, the bottom line in Motown was love for the music and love for each other, family. Uh, today it's love for the bottom line, which is money. If you make some, first thing, you know, I notice people today, we never asked how much money we were making, never did say anything about it, but the guys now-a-days, the first they said is, how much am I going to get paid? And most of them don't deserve the money they're getting. In my opinion.