If Berry Gordy had never started Motown, what would music be like today and how would it have changed the course of musical history? Also, if Motown had been created down South, what impact would that have had?

I think it was gonna happen anyway. People were real ambitious back then. If Berry had created a label in the south, first off the name wouldn't have been Motown, lol. But it would've probably had a great impact.

I was waiting for you, Timmy!

scriptgirl said:

You knew I would answer.

There would still have been that "black" record label, that housed that type of music. The songs would have been different, perhaps. Some of the artists might have still been around, some might not have been. I mean, what if Joe Jackson never got his boys down to Atlanta where the new record label, Southern Pickens Records, was located? MJ and company would have grown up in obscurity and a mundane normal life. Or would they? Not sure.

But someone would have latched onto the growing popularity of black R&B music (which was nothing but white man's country music 20 years before that), and made money from it. If it wasn't Berry Gordy, it would have been Alex Johnson, or John Littleton, or whoever.

Berry Gordy offered a central location for a lot of music that was happening anyways.

It's hard to say one way or the other, but there would have been a similar impact, I believe. The question is would we have had the particular greats that came out of that label? I don't even want to think about music without Smokey, Stevie, The Jacksons, etc.
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ernestsewell said:

Jacksons would have been discovered eventually ... of course G Knight or Bobby V couldn't have discovered them cause they were Motown artist at that time ...


As for the question, music would have been completely different. If Berry would not have started Motown, someone else would have eventually up north. Maybe someone else already in the industry (like BG)comes to the forefront.

We'd still be grooving to, "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" by Patti Page

Quincy Jones

TD3 said:

Nope, Funk might have taken over earlier actually. You'd still have JB, Sam Cooke, STAX, ect. Jackie Wilson would be gettin' all those hot tunes as BG was his writer.

At first, I was going to say that the music biz would have been the same, but I thought about it. If we were living in Europe, it would be different, but this is America. It's one thing to have one, maybe two great Black artists like Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin that has that ability to crossover, but when you're talking about a Black label run by a Black man with Black artists with Black music that had crossover appeal and was dominating the charts, it's a revolution. And to keep it all the way funky, it was a threat in the 60s.

Because you had great artists like James Brown, Etta James, Sam Cooke, and others, but they were looked at as being good for a Black artist "but they couldn't compare to Elvis or the Beatles" or whatever pop artists. Motown was good, period. Motown wasn't no Black music division on a major label catered to a Black audience, Motown appeal was worldwide.
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LittleBLUECorvette said:

All of those artists would have went south to STAX baby.

Southern Pickens? Was that a real label?

scriptgirl said:

No. Neither were the names. It was meant to be random, based on the content of my post.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Patti Page song came out 1950/1953? Weren't white artist still singing covers of black artist music/songs. Yep, like Q said.


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didnt stevie wonder learned how to play music from the funk brothers ?

with the beatles album wouldnt be what it is today ( covers eg mr postman)

imagine no marvin , stevie michael etc . would be a sad world

motownlover said:

These are all-time great artist, they would have been discovered. Marvin might have stayed in Maryland, remember he was with the Moonglows before Motnow. Stevie was discovered by Miracles Ronnie White, but he and they were at Motown ... so how does this story go? The J5 would be at STAX records as Sam Moore liked them.

Without Marvin & Stevie, we honestly wouldn't have had the Jackson 5 so a Motown would've had to have happened.