Berry Gordy’s ‘Motown: The Musical’ at Smith Center celebrates the ultimate hit factory
The music of Motown made the world dance. It was the ultimate hit factory turning out No. 1 chart-busting winners almost daily. The singers were instant legends, from Stevie Wonder to Smokey Robinson and a young man named Michael who was part of The Jackson Five.
The mastermind behind the scenes was founder Berry Gordy Jr., a former featherweight boxer who became the ultimate heavyweight music mogul and wound up in a tangled love match with his leading lady of The Supremes, Miss Diana Ross.
They reportedly had a music royalty love child together, “Another World” actress Rhonda Ross. Rhonda is remembered here on the Strip as a 7-year-old who was in the audience at Caesars Palace and sang “Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand” as Diana held the mic.
Berry has reportedly said that he never asked Diana to marry him because “she had to have that stardom,” and he didn’t want their relationship to interfere. He told Barbara Walters: “We were the same kind of people. She wanted what I wanted. I loved her but wasn’t selfish enough to want to marry her and take her out of what I knew she had to have.
“She had to have that stardom up there.” Diana in recent years has had several mini-residency engagements at The Venetian Theater where “Phantom — the Las Vegas Spectacular” was performed and returns in February. Las Vegas singer Mary Wilson, who might be at the show this week, was an original member of The Supremes.
Another row occurred between Berry and Marvin Gaye over his hit “What’s Going On.” In real life, the world of Motown had all the ingredients for a TV series like “Empire,” and the record royal wrote a book on it, then the songs for it to become a Broadway musical not once but twice (2013 and 2016).
The hits were nonstop: “My Girl,” “My Guy,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Baby Love,” “ABC,” “Where Did Our Love Go,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Sugar Pie,” “For Once In My Life” and “Dancing in the Streets,” which after tonight’s premiere of “Motown: The Musical” may well be changed to “Dancing in the Aisles” of The Smith Center.
“Motown: The Musical” is Berry’s account of what went on in and out of the recording studio, and tonight’s premiere at Reynolds Hall kicks off an eight-month national tour for the production, which shines the spotlight on The Supremes, The Temptations and more.
Back in the late 1960s as Motown was exploding, I published a radio station weekly tabloid called Go featuring the Top 10 chart records and stars. I remember clearly being amazed by Berry once brazenly telling me that I couldn’t cover the early Supremes appearing in one city because he had another identical group performing in another city.
Today with the Internet, that couldn’t be pulled off, but back in those days, nobody was any the wiser in Georgia or Illinois. I doubt if that secret will be exposed in “Motown: The Musical,” but maybe we’ll get a glimpse of the tangled Berry-Diana romance.
Berry wrote his autobiography, “To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown” in 1994 that inspired “Motown: The Musical.” He co-wrote the musical and added new songs to the familiar hits that come at us like a speeding locomotive, more than 60 of them.
One piece of trivia: What was the first No. 1 hit that introduced us to Motown? Go all the way back to 1960, and watch this YouTube video of Smokey Robinson with The Miracles performing “Shop Around.”
Smokey, portrayed in this Smith Center production by David Kaverman, also was the A&R genius running the studios for Berry as the Motown legend exploded. All these years on, Smokey still performs and discovered Human Nature from Australia for their Las Vegas residency, first at Imperial Palace and now at The Venetian.
The Motown legend will never fade away, as the music still has the whole world dancing.
