In January 1959, Detroit songwriter Berry Gordy founded Tamla Records with an $800 loan.
Gordy put down a deposit on 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, a small, two-storey house which had previously been used as a photography studio. He converted the basement into a recording studio, moved his young family in upstairs and hung a sign over the front door reading 'Hitsville U.S.A'.
Gordy had worked on Ford Motor Company’s production line and, inspired by Detroit’s booming motor-industry, envisioned Motown as its musical counterpart. 'I wanted to have a kid off the street walk in one door unknown and come out another door a star,' he told The Telegraph in 2016, 'like an assembly line; that was my dream.'
Seven years later, Motown was selling more singles in the United States than any other label – an astonishing success story for any independent business, let alone a black-owned label based in the country’s segregated, industrial heartland. One week in November 1966 saw nine Motown singles in the US Billboard Hot 100, including The Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ at No 1.
Crucially, though, not only were sales soaring, but their artists were reaching new creative heights. The hothouse environment that Gordy had fostered – with writing, recording, production and promotion under one roof – enabled raw talent to flourish and in 1966, many of Gordy’s protégés, from the previously written-off doo wop act the Four Tops to the peerless songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, were reaching their peak.
The year before, Motown had changed their slogan from ‘The Detroit Sound’ to ‘The Sound Of Young America’ and it didn’t sound like hyperbole. The relentless brilliance of the label’s output in 1966 proved it beyond all doubt.
The 19 best songs from Motown 1966
19. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas: 'I’m Ready For Love'
Hitsville USA was such a magnet for talent that even the secretaries were budding stars. When Martha Reeves wasn’t answering phones, she was singing backing vocals with her group, The Vels, in ‘The Snakepit’ (as the studio was affectionately known). Opportunity knocked when illness prevented Mary Wells from attending a 1962 session and The Vels stepped in. Gordy was impressed enough to offer them a contract.
After a name-change to The Vandellas, dancefloor-filling hits came fast, the ageless trio of ‘Heatwave’, ‘Dancing In The Street’ and ‘Nowhere To Run’ among them. In October 1966, they bagged another US Top 10 with the soaring ‘I’m Ready For Love’, written and produced by Motown’s star team, Holland-Dozier-Holland. Reeves’ ecstatic vocals bring the story to life – after some serious soul-searching, she’s thrown off the shackles of fear and is willing to give romance a chance – while James Jamerson’s thumping bassline provided the song with its giddy heartbeat.
18. Stevie Wonder: 'Blowin’ In The Wind'
By 1966, the prodigiously talented Stevie Wonder was already a Motown veteran. Signed in 1961 after an audition turned into an impromptu jam session, with the 11-year-old moving between drums, keyboards, vocals and harmonica, Wonder had his breakthrough the following year with the Ray Charles-like R&B stomper ‘Fingertips’.
Before long, Stevie Wonder was a part of the Hitsville USA furniture, sitting in with house band the Funk Brothers, learning the production ropes and writing his own material. His cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ is the pick of his ’66 singles, with Wonder’s beyond-his-years performance imbuing the lyric’s philosophical questions with the lived experience of being a young black man in ’60s America and calling for change. It was one of Motown’s first major singles to address social issues. Wonder would make sure it wasn’t the last.
17. Junior Walker And The All Stars: '(I’m A) Road Runner'
With Motown acts becoming household names across America, the tough R&B and jump blues of Arkansas-born tenor saxophonist and frontman Junior Walker was a reminder of the label’s roots. Walker’s hollered vocals and lusty sax interventions were as potent as ever on the strutting Holland-Dozier-Holland ode to promiscuity, ‘(I’m A) Road Runner’. The track hit the US Top 20 and was adopted by mods in the UK, it’d go on to be covered by Humble Pie, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor and the Grateful Dead, among others.
16. Tammi Terrell: 'Come On And See Me'
Though Tammi Terrell’s time at Motown was cut heartbreakingly short, the swooning ‘Come On And See Me’ suggests the Philadelphia-born singer had so much more to give. Terrell’s performance of the Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol co-write is a tour de force, full of spark (check out the drawled “Aaaah” at around 1:16) and sophistication.
The following year, Terrell established the partnership for which she became best known, with Marvin Gaye. The duo’s obvious chemistry lit up the lovestruck ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing’ and ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’ and audiences couldn’t get enough of them. Tragically, Terrell died from compilations from a brain tumour on 16 March 1970, aged just 24.
15. The Marvelettes: 'The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game'
Released on 21 August 1961, The Marvelettes’ irresistible debut single ‘Please Mr Postman’ – doo wop repurposed for teenage pop kids – was Motown’s first No 1 single. But while they never quite reached those dizzy heights again, a clutch of their singles – ‘Beechwood 4-5789’, ‘Don’t Mess With Bill’, ‘I’ll Keep Holding On’ – are favourites with Motown aficionados.
As is ‘The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game’, the 1966 Smokey Robinson-written No 13 hit released on 27 December 1966, as if Gordy was determined to sneak in one more classic before the year was out. Lead singer Wanda Young-Rogers invests Robinson’s typically witty lyric with sass and cool, echoed by the arrangement’s jazzy flourishes.
14. The Four Tops: 'Standing In The Shadows Of Love'
Formed when two pairs of doo wop fans from different Detroit schools came together to sing at a birthday party, the Four Tops struggled with a series of false starts before Holland-Dozier-Holland offered them a crack at ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’.
The raw power and charisma of the vocalists propelled the track to No 11 in the US, the first of a stellar run of hits including ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ and ‘It’s The Same Old Song’. Though the Tops’ October 1966 single, H-D-H’s ‘Standing In The Shadows Of Love’, might’ve lost some originality points thanks to its resemblance to their July hit ‘Reach Out (I’ll Be There)’ – more of which later – it was still a thrilling ride, bongo breakdowns and all.
13. Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston: 'It Takes Two'
By 1966, Marvin Gaye had already had an astonishing career. After leaving the US Air Force he formed vocal quartet The Marquees, backing Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. In 1961, he signed for Motown, where his early recordings positioned him as a wee-small-hours crooner. When that failed to connect, he took a back seat, working as a session drummer (that’s him on ‘Please Mr Postman’ and ‘Dancing In The Street’) and writer.
Holland-Dozier-Holland stepped in, giving him up-tempo solo hits such as ‘Can I Get A Witness’ and ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved You)’. But Gordy’s plan was to make the most of Gaye’s matinee idol looks by pairing him up. In 1964, he recorded the album Together with Mary Wells but it didn’t quite catch fire and Wells left the label.
Two years later, Gaye found a new partner in Kim Weston for the infectious ‘It Takes Two’, co-written by Weston’s husband, Mickey Stevenson, and Syliva Moy. On paper, ‘It Takes Two’ doesn’t look like much, a neat idea over-laboured even, but Gaye and Weston’s chemistry lifts it skywards.
12. The Miracles: '(Come ’Round Here) I’m The One You Need'
Another example of the astonishing talent at Motown’s disposal, William ‘Smokey’ Robinson was an old friend of Gordy’s who – encouraged and nourished by the label – went on to become one of the greatest songwriters of his time, as well as the frontman of one of Motown’s most beloved acts, The Miracles.
By 1966, Smokey was on a roll – the previous year had brought hits for The Temptations (‘My Girl’), Marvin Gaye (‘Ain’t That Peculiar’) and a bunch he’d kept for The Miracles (‘Ooo Baby Baby’, ‘The Tracks Of My Tears’, ‘Going To A Go-Go’). With their frontman’s star on the rise, the swashbuckling ‘(Come ’Round Here) I’m The One You Need’ was the final single before the group was rebranded Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and peaked at No 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
11. The Elgins: 'Heaven Must Have Sent You'
Holland-Dozier-Holland were such hot property in 1966 that they struggled to go about their day without being hassled for hits. The Hollands’ driver, Johnny Dawson – of Motown hopefuls The Elgins – had been promised a song and wasn’t gonna forget it. 'Every so often, almost as a joke, Johnny would say, "When are you guys going to write a song for us?”' wrote Eddie Holland in 2019’s Come And Get These Memories.
Meanwhile, Dawson’s bandmates – Robert Fleming and Cleotha ‘Duke’ Miller – ran the barbershop where Brian Holland had his hair cut and were not shy in coming forward. The Hollands were good to their word and gave The Elgins ‘Darling Baby’, with Saundra Mallett Edwards on lead vocals. It was a modest hit but a foot in the door, and later that year The Elgins recorded H-D-H’s utterly glorious ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You’, originally intended for The Supremes.
Its head-over-heels devotion, buoyant melody and a beat that aimed to get hips moving made it a hit on the UK’s northern soul scene and, when reissued in 1971, reached No 3 in the charts. The lesson learnt? Don’t ask, you don’t get.
10. The Supremes: 'You Can’t Hurry Love'
Fortunately for The Supremes, they were not short of material in 1966. Holland-Dozier-Holland’s ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ was their second hit of the year and their seventh US No. 1 to date. Again, the Funk Brothers steal the show – who else but James Jamerson would’ve started with that nimble, one-note bass pattern, and how perfectly does Benny Benjamin’s bass drum lock in with it?
The first thing we hear from The Supremes is an off-mic laugh at the beginning, as if they know the pop genius that’s to come. Diana Ross coos the lyric to perfection, playing the role of a girl yearning for love and looking for comfort in the words of wisdom passed on by her mother. She’s told not to hurry and to give it time, but something in her delivery suggests her heart will win out over her head – a hymn for hormone-addled teens everywhere.
9. The Contours: 'Just A Little Misunderstanding'
Detroit R&B group The Contours were one of the first Motown acts to hit big with their storming 1962 single ‘Do You Love Me?’, which reached No 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold a million. But over the following years they failed to kick on, releasing a series of flat retreads of that first hit while the Four Tops and The Temptations surged ahead.
In 1965, Smokey’s punchy ‘First I Look At The Purse’ bucked the trend (despite its unashamedly avaricious lyrics) but any progress was stalled when gutsy lead singer Billy Gordon was forced to leave after getting on the wrong side of the law. Written by Stevie Wonder, Clarence Paul and Morris Broadnax (and featuring Wonder on drums), ‘Just A Little Misunderstanding’ seemed to suggest a new dawn for the group, a sparkling dancer featuring new vocalist Joe Stubbs (brother of the Four Tops’ Levi), previously of The Falcons. It was short-lived, though: Stubbs left the group soon after and the hits ran dry, but northern soul nights still come alive to ‘Just A Little Misunderstanding’.
8. Gladys Knight & The Pips: 'Just Walk In My Shoes'
Georgia-born vocalist Gladys Knight had to be talked into signing to Motown. Backed by family band The Pips, their early singles on Vee-Jay and Maxx caught the attention of Gordy, who invited Maxx label boss Larry Maxwell to join Motown as a producer and asked him to bring Gladys and the Pips along with him.
Knight feared that her group wouldn’t get the attention they needed at Hitsville USA and initially refused. Once part of Gordy’s stable, though, they quickly made a splash, supporting The Supremes on their 1966 tour and proving such a hit that – according to Motown legend – Diana Ross had them kicked off the tour. Perhaps mindful of upsetting the established talent, Gordy called in Los Angeles-based duo The Lewis Sisters to write Knight’s debut Motown single.
‘Just Walk In My Shoes’ was the result, a dramatic, slightly off-kilter plea for empathy set to a relentless, factory-line rhythm. Though it wasn’t a hit, ‘Just Walk In My Shoes’ has endured and pointed towards a glittering future for one of Motown’s greatest vocalists.
7. The Four Tops: 'Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever'
Written by Stevie Wonder and Ivy Jo Hunter (and, once more, featuring Wonder behind the drumkit), the Four Tops’ second single of 1966 showed a mellower side to the group, with Levi Stubbs’ loved-up vocals flowing effortlessly over the unusually stripped back backing track (the string arrangement was muted by Brian Holland at the mixing stage, but can be heard on the 2005 compilation Lost Without You – Original Recordings 1963-1970). The song later became a concert staple for The Band, featuring a lead vocal from bassist Rick Danko that showed how much Stubbs had inspired him.
6. The Temptations: 'Ain’t Too Proud To Beg'
Another way Gordy applied a factory-like discipline to making pop magic was through Motown’s quality-control meetings. Every Friday morning, 9am sharp, songwriters and producers played each other their demos, critiqued them in the round and scored them. Only the highest-rated made it, with the rest discarded like so much industrial waste.
With The Temptations experiencing a relatively dry spell, producer and writer Norman Whitfield saw his chance. He demoed ‘Ain’t Too Proud To Beg’ with the group and submitted it to quality control twice but was rejected each time. Whitfield tried again, this time arranging the song so that it was just above lead vocalist David Ruffin’s range.
According to Temptation Otis Williams, at the end of the session, Ruffin was 'drowning in sweat and his glasses were all over his face' – a small price to pay for one of the all-time great Motown vocal performances. This time, Whitfield’s demo made the grade and before long he was the Temps’ go-to writer and producer.
5. Jimmy Ruffin: 'What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted'
It was a good year for the Ruffins. While David was sweating buckets in the studio, his elder brother Jimmy was flying high in the charts with the deep soul of ‘What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted’, written by composers William Weatherspoon and Paul Riser and lyricist James Dean. The song was originally destined for vocal group the Spinners, but when Ruffin heard it, he convinced Dean to let him record it.
Once Ruffin got hold of the song, he made it his own, filling it with fathoms-deep anguish, backed by a stately string arrangement and the combined vocal talents of The Originals and The Andantes. The track’s long introduction became a selling point, adding suspense before Ruffin enters the scene, but it wasn’t originally intended that way – Ruffin recorded a spoken word intro, which was removed from the final mix but available to hear on his 2003 compilation The Ultimate Motown Collection.
4. The Supremes: 'You Keep Me Hangin’ On'
Tasked with following up the pure pop thrills of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, Holland-Dozier-Holland went for broke. ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ starts with a stuttering guitar line designed to evoke Morse code, played by Funk Brother Robert White, before it explodes to life through galloping percussion and James Jamerson’s supple bassline. Meanwhile, the euphoric backing track is in stark contrast to its lyrics – a plea for freedom from a no-good man, sung by Diana Ross with palpable disgust.
‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ gave The Supremes their second US No 1 of the year and their eighth since ’64. And the year after, heavy rockers Vanilla Fudge took the song back into the charts with a slowed-down, psychedelic cover, suggesting that H-D-H – as ever – knew exactly what they were doing.
3. The Isley Brothers: 'This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)'
One of America’s greatest groups, The Isley Brothers were on Motown’s books for a relatively short time, between 1965 and ’68, but that was long enough to leave their mark. Their debut single for the label, ‘This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)’ is a bittersweet classic originally written for The Supremes by Holland-Dozier-Holland and Sylvia Moy. Ron Isley owns the song, inhabiting the skin of a person so in love they’re willing to risk heartbreak with a vocal flecked with joy and desperation. Many have covered ‘This Old Heart Of Mine’, but nobody has come close to the Isleys.
2. The Temptations: 'Get Ready'
More generosity from Smokey Robinson, who gave this absolute belter of a tune to The Temptations, rather than record it himself. The Funk Brothers’ performance is pure dynamite, from the ominous opening bass notes and horn stabs to the enraptured release of the chorus.
It must’ve been a daunting job matching that, but lead vocalist Eddie Kendricks was up to it, singing the lyrics with a butter-wouldn’t-melt quality that stands in stark contrast to their stated intentions. Despite its obvious brilliance, the public were not quite ‘ready’ for the track and it stalled at No. 29, but has since been recognised as a bona fide Motown classic.
1. The Four Tops: 'Reach Out, I'll Be There'
It begins like something out of a spaghetti western – all lonesome piccolo and what sounds like the clip-clop of distant horses. At this point, first-time listeners could’ve been forgiven for checking that the correct record was on the turntable. But in a split second, with an impassioned “Now if you feel like you can’t go on” from Levi Stubbs and a short, sharp “yarrgh”, everything changes.
From that point, we’re in the presence of pop genius – a crashing drum beat created by hitting a tambourine, the deep groove of James Jamerson’s bass, Stubbs’ impassioned vocal. 'The lyrics were ostensibly about a guy telling his girl he'll be there for her in her darkest moments,' Four Tops singer Duke Fakir told The Guardian in 2017, 'To me, it felt like a chant, almost religious – a song of hope for the world.' Motown had come a long way in just seven years.
Pics Getty Images, except No. 13 (YouTube)
