To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown : An Autobiography
As founder and president of Motown Records, Gordy launched and developed the careers of many of the most talented pop musicians of our day, including Mary Wells, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. He here recounts how, in 1959 with a $800 loan from his family, he started the label he ultimately expanded into an entertainment empire, despite the racial prejudices he and his staff encountered. In 1988, he sold Motown to MCA for $61 million. His self-portrait, not surprisingly, is more flattering-many will consider the book an apologia-than the blistering memoirs written by several Motowners, among them Martha Reeves's Dancing in the Streets, coauthored with Mark Bego; and his former wife Raynoma Gordy Singleton's Berry, Me, and Motown. On his part, though, the 56-year-old Gordy is blithely generous to all: "I've seen how important family always was to me, whether it was the family I grew up with, the Motown family or my family today of eight children and ten grandchildren." Photos. Author tour.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.