Episode 80: “Money” by Barrett Strong

A History of Folk Music and 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey.

Episode 80

Money

by Barrett Strong.

Today we're going to look at a record which was the first success for one of the most important record labels of all time, which has one of the most instantly recognizable riffs of any record ever, and which was the product of a one-hit wonder who would, several years later, go on to be a hugely important figure as a writer, rather than a performer.

Along the way, we're going to look at the beginnings of many, many other careers we'll be seeing more of in the next couple of years.

Today, we're going to look at Money by Barrett Strong.

When we left Berry Gordy Jr., he had just stopped writing songs for Jackie Wilson.

While the songs he'd co-written with his sister Gwen and her boyfriend Rokel Davis had been massive hits for Wilson, Wilson's manager had believed that any songwriters could bring the same amount of success, and that Wilson's records were selling solely because of Wilson's performances.

Davis and Gwen had started up a new record label, with the help of another Gordy sister, Anna.

after whom they named the label.

But at the start, Berry Gordy had little involvement in that label.

While Gwen had wanted Berry to become a partner in the business, Berry had soured on the idea of business partners after some of his other ventures had failed due to conflicts between him and his partners.

Berry was going to work for himself.

He would write and produce for his family's record labels, but he wasn't going to be a partner in their businesses.

Instead, he focused on a group he'd got to know.

The Matadors were a vocal group he'd seen audition and been mildly impressed with, but he had decided to work with them mostly because he was very attracted to one of their singers, Claudette Rogers.

He'd worked with them for a few days before asking Claudette out, and she'd turned him down because she was seeing one of the other group members, William Robinson.

But by that point, Gordy had got to know Robinson and to appreciate his talent, and his response was just to tell her how lucky she was to have a man like that.

He took them on as a management project and also decided to teach Robinson songwriting.

Robinson had written a lot of songs which showed potential, but Gordy thought none of them were quite there yet.

What impressed Gordy most was Robinson's attitude.

Every time Gordy told him what was wrong with the song, Robinson would just go on to the next song, as enthusiastic as ever.

Eventually, Robinson came up with a song that they thought could be a hit.

At the time, the silhouettes had a big hit with a song called Get a Job.

You made me put it about the stance and get me out of my way to find out a job.

You have to break the safe,

the one I found my way.

Robinson had come up with an answer song, which he called Gotta Job.

Gordy decided that that was good enough for him to produce a recording.

He'd recently started up a production company, which he primarily used to produce demos of his own songs, with singers like Eddie Holland.

Gordy took the group into the studio, and got a deal with George Goldner's label, End Records, to distribute the single that resulted.

The only thing was, Gordy still wasn't happy with the group's name.

The Matadors sounded too masculine for a group which had a woman in it.

So they all chose other names, wrote them down, stuck them in a hat, and the one that came out was The Miracles.

And so Got a Job by The Miracles came out on End Records on William Smokey Robinson's 18th birthday.

I was low, I just couldn't get higher.

Saw sight in a grocery store

Help us light

and we need some more

Gordy at this point was a songwriter first and foremost, but he wanted to make sure he was making money from the songs.

He had already started his own publishing company, after having not been paid the royalties he was owed on several of his songs.

He'd decided that he could use his production company to ensure his songs got a release.

He'd leased the recordings out to other labels, like End, or his sister's label Anna.

The recordings themselves were just a way to get some money from the songs, which were his real business.

He and his second wife Raynoma also used their production company, named Reyber, as a portmanteau of their two names, in another way.

They would, for a fee, provide a full professional recording of anyone.

You could walk in and pay for an arrangement of your song by Barry Gordy, instrumental backing, vocals by the Rayba singers, a fluid group of people that included Raynoma and Eddie Holland, and a copy of the record.

If the amateur singer who came in was any good, the results would be quite listenable, as in I Can't Concentrate by Wade Jones, which they liked so much they later even released it properly.

But at this point, Gordy still wasn't making much money at all.

In 1959, according to court papers around a claim for child support for his kids, he made $27.70 a week on average.

And almost all of that came from a single $1,000 cheque for writing Lonely Teardrops for Jackie Wilson.

And producing the miracles didn't add much to that.

When Gordy received his first royalty cheque from End Records Records for Got a Job, he was astonished to see that it was only for $3.19.

To add insult to injury, End Records tried to claim that the miracles were now their artists, and they were going to record them directly, without the involvement of Gordy.

This was a thing that many businesses connected with Morris Levy did, and they were usually successful.

because if you get into an argument with the mafia, you'll probably not win.

But in the case of Gordy, his family was so well known and respected in Detroit's black community, and Gordy himself had enough cachet because of his work with Jackie Wilson, that a contingent of black DJs told End Records that they'd stop playing any of their records unless they backed off on the miracles.

But all this led Gordy to one conclusion, one he didn't come to until Smokey Robinson pointed it out to him.

He needed to start his own record label, just like his sisters had.

The problem was that he had no money, and while his family was, for a black family at the time, very rich, they held their money in a trust and required a proper contract and unanimous approval from all eight siblings before they would provide one of the family with a business loan, and Berry was regarded by his siblings as a useless drifter and underachiever.

But eventually he managed to win them round, and they lent him $800.

His original idea for the name of the label was Tammy, after Debbie Reynolds's hit, to show that they weren't just aiming at the RB market.

However, it turned out that there was another label called Tammy, and so Gordy decided on Tamla instead.

Tamla's first record was by a local singer called Marv Johnson, who had a very similar voice to that of Jackie Wilson, but who was known for having more of an ego than Wilson.

There's an anonymous quote by someone who knew both men.

The difference between Marv and Jackie Wilson was that Wilson would kiss all the women, especially the ugly ones, because he knew if he did, they'd be with him forever.

Marv only kissed the pretty ones, and that coldness came through in everything he did.

One can argue about whether it's colder to cynically manipulate people's feelings or to show contempt for them, but it's definitely the case that Marv Johnson does not seem to have been well loved by many of the people who knew him.

Johnson had recorded one previous single, My Baby O, on another record label.

My baby

O

wonder why do I love you so?

I'll never ever let you go.

Never love my baby-o

wonder why

Did I ever have to say goodbye?

Some sources claim that Berry Gordy produced that track, others that he was just present at the session watching.

Whatever Gordy's involvement with Johnson before signing him to Tamla, the first Tamla single, Come to Me, was the start of something big.

It was written by Johnson and Gordy and featured a group of session players who would form the core of what would become known as the Funk Brothers: James Jameson, Benny Benjamin, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina, and Thomas Beans Vowels.

On top of that, Brian Holland, who with his brother Eddie would later go on to become part of arguably the most important songwriting and production team of the 60s, was on backing vocals.

only.

Come to me.

I'm so lonely, come to me.

I love you only, baby.

Well, you won't say that you can come in.

And I'll be better.

I'm not a patience.

Johnson wrote that song himself, and Gordy polished it up, giving himself a co-writing credit.

At the start, Tamlett was a very, very small operation.

Other than the musicians they employed, the team mostly consisted consisted of Berry and Reynold McGordie, Smokey Robinson acting essentially as Berry's apprentice and assistant, and Janie Bradford, a teenage songwriter with whom Gordy had collaborated on a couple of songs for Jackie Wilson.

You laughed when I said I love you, you laugh when you set me free.

But now I'm a laughin' while I you are right, but now the jokes are not on me.

Bradford was given the official job title of receptionist, but she actually did almost all the admin at the label offices, doing everything from sorting out the contracts to mopping the floor, along with chipping in with songs when she had an idea.

Because they were a shoestring operation, Gordy, Marv Johnson, and Robinson would do most of the legwork of getting the track to radio stations, and it only got local distribution.

They followed up with the second Tamla record, Three Weeks Later, written by Berry and sung by Eddie Holland, who had sung on Berry's demos for Jackie Wilson, and also had a Wilson-esque voice.

round.

Do I love you?

What do you love him for?

He loves her.

She loves me.

Tell me why, why,

why,

why,

why

is love?

Marv Johnson's record, Come to Me, became a local hit.

But as we've talked about before, when you're running an indie label, the last thing you want is a hit.

You have to pay to get the records pressed, but then you have to wait months for the money to come in from the distributors.

Becoming too big too fast could be a problem.

Luckily, before the record got too big, United Artists stepped in.

They wanted to buy the master for Come to Me and to buy both Johnson and Holland's contracts from Gordy.

Gordy would continue writing and producing for them, but they would be United Artists performers, rather than on Tamla.

Gordy got enough money from that deal to continue running his label for a while longer, and United Artists got their first RMB star.

Come to Me ended up going top 30 on the pop charts, and top 10 on the RMB charts.

Not bad at all for something put out on a little micro label.

Eddie Holland, on the other hand, didn't do so well on United Artists.

He wasn't ever a confident performer, and after two years he was back with Gordy's operation, this time working behind the scenes rather than as the main performer.

So Tamla was ready to put out its third single, and Gordy may have had a plan for how his label was going to get much bigger.

It's been suggested by several people that a few of the early acts he signed were intended as ways to get more famous relatives of those acts interested in the label.

For example, the first female solo singer he signed to Tamla, Mabel John, was the sister of little Willie John, the RB star.

Mabel was certainly good enough to be hired on her own merits, but at the same time, the thought must have crossed Gordy's mind that it would be good to get her brother recording for him.

In the same way, Smokey Robinson's favourite local group was Nolan Strong and the Diablos, who recorded the doo-wop classic, The Wind.

for my lost sweet Chris,

I

know

she has gone,

but my love

lingers on

in a dream that the winds bring to me.

Nolan Strong's cousin Barrett was also an aspiring singer, and Gordy signed him to Tamla and wrote him a song with his sister Gwen and her then-boyfriend Raquel Davis, the same team with whom he collaborated on Jackie Wilson's hits.

Unfortunately, Let's Rock wasn't a hit, and Gordy seemed to decide to try to throw a lot of records at the wall to see what would stick.

Over the next few months, they put out a variety of odd singles, none of which charted, and none of which seemed much like the music Gordy was generally known for.

There was Snake Walk, a jazz instrumental played by the Funk Brothers under the name The Swinging Tigers, with the songwriting credited to Gordie and Robinson.

There was It, a novelty song about an alien, performed by Smokey Robinson and Ronnie White of the Miracles, under the name Ron and Bill.

I was home last night trying to read a book.

There was a knock on my door, so I took a look.

But when I reached the door, there was no one there,

Not on the porch or anywhere, but in the dark of night I heard a cry like somebody was about to die.

It went away

and a few more.

But it wasn't until Barrett Strong's second single, in August 1959, that Tambler hit the jackpot again.

There are three very different stories about how money was written.

According to Berry Gordy, he came up with the music and the whole first first verse and chorus himself, and played it to Janie Bradford, who suggested a couple of lines for the second verse, but he was impressed enough with her lines that he gave her fifty per cent of the song, even though she didn't think she'd contributed very much.

Barbarat Strong came and sat down with them uninvited and started singing along, but didn't contribute anything to the writing of the song.

According to Janie Bradford, Berry Gordy was playing the riff on the piano, but had no words or melody yet.

He said to her, I need a title, give me a title, something that everybody wants, and she replied, money, that's what I want, and the two of them wrote the lyrics together based on her lyrical idea.

And according to Barbarat Strong, who is backed up by the engineer and the guitarist on the session, Strong, who played the piano on the session as well as singing, was jamming the riff, having hit upon it while messing around with Ray Charles's What Did I Say.

Gordy only came into the session after Strong had already taught the instrumental parts to the musicians, and Gordy and Bradford only wrote the lyrics after the instrumental track was already completed.

The initial filing of the song's copyright credited Strong for words and music, Gordy for words and music, and Bradford only for words.

According to both Bradford and Gordy, that's because Bradford, who filled out the form, didn't understand the form and made a mistake.

Three years later, Strong's name was taken off the copyright, and he wasn't informed of the change.

His name didn't appear on the label of the record.

Personally, I tend to believe Strong.

The song simply doesn't sound that much like Gordy's other songs of the period, which were based far less on riffs and which didn't tend to be 12-bar blues.

Whoever wrote it, the result was a great record, and the first true classic to come out of the Gordy operation.

The best things in life are

But your love don't pay my bills.

I need more.

The B-side isn't quite as good, but it's still a strong ballad.

And if you're a fan of John Lennon's solo work, you might find the Middle Eight very familiar.

I don't expect you

to take

me back

after I've caused you so much pain.

But if you do,

I

promise you

I'll

Money came out on Tamla and was initially fairly unsuccessful because Tamla didn't have any national distribution.

But Anna Records did.

That label had partnered with Chess Records.

Chess had sent Harvey Fouqua, who was working for Chess as an executive as well as a performer, over to work with Anna Records.

Fouqua had brought with him another member of his latest line-up of the Moonglows, a young man named Marvin Gaye, to work for Anna as a session drummer and part-time janitor.

And Marvin soon got into a relationship with Anna Gordy.

But Marvin wasn't the only one to get into a relationship with the Gordy sister.

Harvey Fouqua had been dating Etta James, with whom he was having a few hits as a duet act on chess.

But he soon struck up a relationship with Gwen Gordy.

He split up with James, Gwen Gordy split up with Raquel Davis, and then Berry and Gwen Gordy and Raquel Davis wrote a song about the splits, which Etta James performed for chess, back as a solo artist again.

all I could do

was cry.

Cry, cry, cry.

I

was losing

the man

that I love.

And all

I could do

was cry.

That became a hit in June 1960, and that was also the month that Money finally became a hit, nearly a year after it was released.

The Tamla record had been a local hit, but Tamla still didn't have any national distribution, so Berry Gordy leased the recording to his sister's label.

It was re-released on Anna Records, distributed through chess, and became the first national hit for one of the Gordy family's labels, reaching number two on the RB charts and number 23 on the pop charts.

The Gordy family of labels was starting to have some real success.

Unfortunately, that would be Barrett Strong's only hit as a performer.

Over the next 18 months, he would release a whole variety of singles, none of which had any success, eventually trying the desperate tactic of recording a follow-up to Money, titled Money and Me, with the writing credited to Barry Gordy, Janie Bradford, Smokey Robinson, and Robert Bateman, a singer who was one of the Raybear singers.

That didn't work, and Strong ended up going back to work on the Chrysler production line, giving up his singing career.

But that won't be the last we'll see of him.

He'll be back with a new job in a few years' time.

But in late 1959, they didn't know yet that money would even be a hit, let alone a classic that would be remembered more than 60 years later.

Indeed, the biggest success that had come out of the Gordy operation was still Marv Johnson.

and while he was signed to United Artists, he was still making records with Berry Gordy.

Gordy was writing and producing his records, and now they were also being recorded at Gordy's home.

He and Raynoma had bought a house with a recording studio in the back in August 1959.

They named the house Hittsville, USA, and it became the headquarters for the Gordy family of labels.

Berry and Raynoma lived in a flat upstairs, while the recording studio downstairs was open 22 hours a day.

Eventually, they would buy all the other nearby houses and turn them into offices for their recording, publishing and management empire.

The whole family pitched in to make the company a success.

Berry's sister Esther took over the finances of Tamla with the assistance of her accountant husband.

Their other sister Lucy took charge of the record manufacturing side of the business, liaising with pressing plants, overseeing cover art and so on.

And Rainoma managed Joe Bett, the publishing company named after Berry's first three children, Joy, Berry, and Terry.

The Hittsville studio was primitive at first.

The echo chamber was also the toilet, and someone had to stand guard outside it while they were recording to make sure no one used it during a session.

But it was good enough for Gordy to use it to make hit records for Marv Johnson, like You Got What It Takes.

big fine car,

you don't look like a moving star,

and on your money we won't get far.

But baby,

you got what it takes

to satisfy

you.

That went top 10 on both the pop and RB charts, as did the follow-up, I Love the Way You Love.

I love the way you love,

it makes me feel so high.

I love the way you love, because I know you're not all mine.

But those hits were on someone else's label.

Berry Gordy was still looking to expand his own record business, and so he decided he was going to start a second label, to go along with Tambla.

Smokey Robinson had still not had a hit, though he was writing a lot of material.

But then Smokey brought Berry a song he thought was a guaranteed hit.

Bad Girl.

how love could be,

but she's a bad

girl because

she wants to be free.

Gordy decided that he was going to start up a new label just for groups, while Tamla would be for solo artists, and Bad Girl was going to be the first release on it.

But once again, he didn't have a proper national distributor for his record, so after it started selling around Detroit, he licensed the record to Chess Records, who reissued it.

Bad Girl went to number 93 on the Hot 100, proving that Smokey Robinson did indeed have the potential to make a real hit.

But As was so often the way, Chess didn't pay Gordy's company the proper royalties for the record, record.

And so Gordy decided that his new label was going to have to have national distribution.

He wasn't going to let any more of its records come out on Chess or United Artists.

From now on, either they were on Tamla, or they were coming out on the new label, Motown.

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