Entry · catalog no. 8307
Motown
/ /ˈmoʊtaʊn/ /MOH-town
noun · Detroit · 1950s
✓ Verified
1.
The Black-owned Detroit label Berry Gordy Jr. built, and the hit-making sound of its artists, writers and house band. Also a nickname for the city of Detroit, whose name it is short for.
“They called the little house on West Grand Boulevard Hitsville, and Motown rang out of it for a decade.”
Origin & Attribution
A portmanteau of motor and town, for Detroit's car industry. Berry Gordy Jr. launched Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. He bought a photography studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in mid-1959 and turned it into recording rooms known as Hitsville U.S.A. Gordy borrowed $800 from his family's cooperative savings account to start; his first regional release was Marv Johnson's Come to Me in January 1959. He ran Tamla and Motown as separate imprints partly because of payola concerns, with shared writers, producers and artists.
1959
Gordy launches Tamla Records
1960
Motown Record Corporation incorporated
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Detroit · 1950s
Spoken by
Detroit, Black music audiences and the world
$MOTOWNThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady1 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
70/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1959
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1960
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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By region — how it actually sounds
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Atlanta, GA
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Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Tamla Records, Marv Johnson, Come to Me (January 1959)
1959
■
+ Cite a sourceMotown Record Corporation incorporation (April 14, 1960); Hitsville U.S.A., 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit
1960
See also