The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal (21 page)

The Supremes could surely gauge where they stood at the Hitsville Christmas party shortly after the “Your Heart Belongs to Me” session.

Doling out goodies while dressed as Santa Claus, Gordy lavished on each Marvelette a diamond friendship ring. For the Supremes, he had transistor radios.

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The chance that they’d hear themselves on radios such as those would become no more bankable over the next year, when they would face a serious convulsion. Even Diane’s
chutzpah
could deliver only a short-lived and limited benefit, and in the end it took the Smokey card out of her hands. Still, hangers-on that they were, they would be able to glom a ride, albeit as outriders, on Berry Gordy’s next big idea: taking Motown on the road.

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Now able to upgrade their old stage act repertoire with their new, original Motown songs, including a chart scraper, the Supremes continued to perform live around Paradise Valley, hitting the stage at some high-toned nightclubs such as the Chit-Chat Lounge and the Roostertail—though Mary Wilson exaggerates in her memoirs by saying they were “
the
live act in town.” Gordy also began to occasionally send them on out-of-town weekend gigs, with one-nighters in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. For those, he had a burly Motown bodyguard and former boxing buddy named John O’Den drive them to each stop in one of Gordy’s Cadillacs.

Berry was making all the bread from these appearances. Expense money was given to O’Den to disburse, sparingly. With no prior arrangement about how much the girls were due, O’Den took what each club owner or auditorium promoter handed him after the shows, jammed the cash in a satchel, and brought it back to Gordy, who took his own

“manager’s” cut. By early 1962, these extortions were performed in the name of the company’s all-encompassing talent management agency ad-ministered by Esther Edwards, International Talent Management, Inc.

ITMI’s standard commission was 10 percent on all artist’s earnings—

a number that, unofficially, edged ever upward when the “expenses” kicked in; then, it could go as high as 50 percent, normally the case on those tours, with all of the travel expenses, promoter’s fees, and under-the-table “schmearing” of club owners to give top billing to a Motown act.

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The ITMI existed with the main intention of catering to the performers’ individual needs; hence some rather cosmopolitan-sounding clauses were entered into the ITMI agreement each Motown employee was required to sign, outlining such perquisites as career and personal financial advice, as well as the escrow accounts in the name of each performer. Meaning at least theoretically that they owned plow shares of Hitsville’s fortune, to be delivered to them when expenses were deducted. The real significance of ITMI, however, was that Gordy’s loosely defined managerial role was now sanctioned, and inviolate: No performer could hire an outside manager or promotion agent or, God knows, an independent financial adviser.

Capitulation to these terms was quick and uncritical, though today Katherine Anderson, for one, says most Motown artists smelled something rotten on West Grand Boulevard. “We knew what that whole ITMI thing was about,” she says, “that it was a terrible conflict of interest. I mean, Berry was supposed to be managing us, looking out for our interests—but at the same time he was finding ways not to pay us! Hell, he would dock us for records we made that were never released—by
his
decision. How is that
not
a conflict of interest? Today, a record company can’t manage its talent; [acts] know they’ll get a fair shake with a manager on the outside, unless of course the manager steals the money.

But we didn’t need any unscrupulous manager to steal our money. We had Berry Gordy to do that.

“But what did we know? We were all just kids. People talk about how inspired Berry was by young talent. Okay, sure. But there was another side, too: Could he have been able to take advantage of older, wiser people? You figure it out.”

Gordy never had a qualm defending his practices as both necessary to the sustained health of Motown and munificent toward his flock, citing the legendarily tight-fisted ways of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s flinty manager, who pocketed no less than 50 percent of Presley’s earnings. Such a heavy tribute, he contended, was “worth it to Elvis,” not to mention that such managerial imbalances were standard in the recording industry.

The Motown acts regarded their earnings as an afterthought, at least for now. With no accounting that anyone could find—such information being classified and access available only to Berry and Esther Gordy, to their accountants, and to Barney Ales—few of the performers ever made money on regular annual, biannual, or even quarterly intervals; usually, they’d be paid when Gordy felt generous. The rest of the 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 107

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time, they were told, those deductions for expenses made their earnings moot. On the road, performers were given all of $10 for their meals.

Everything
above and beyond that they should get receipts for, they were told—the inference being that they’d be reimbursed. Instead, Motown would use the receipts to justify deducting them as expenses.

With this iron vise on his acts, Gordy could, with a straight face, inform people making scads of money for him that they were due nothing; and that since expenses actually outweighed profits, he could actually
dock
them. Not doing so, went the implication, proved how magnanimous he was.

These charades endured for years, during which time only the Gordy clan and selected Motown executives actually profited from the company’s unfathomable success. It’s open to question whether even Vice-President Smokey Robinson was paid anywhere near what his enormous value was to the shop as an incredibly versatile creative font.

Because Smokey was a crooner by trade and an artist by sensibility, Gordy may have found him to be an easy mark, a guy who’d be grateful merely to live beyond what he had once believed was his lot in life. Like Smokey, Brian Holland and Mickey Stevenson were living comfortably now, mostly on Gordy’s handouts, pacified by slowly growing bank accounts and lulled by the Motown “family” of communal advancement.

Only Robert Bateman seemed to think something was amiss. Having pocketed only small change after producing and writing cash cows like “Please Mr. Postman” and the follow-up “Playboy,” he asked Gordy for some advance money, as Berry sometimes did with Smokey Robinson. Rebuffed, the lanky ex–Rayber Voices stalwart jumped ship.

Because other record companies were eager to recruit Motown people who might possess the magical nectar of hit-making, he wasn’t out of work long—though, ironically, it was his connection not to Gordy but to Bob West’s shop that was the stepping stone. Bateman, who had produced West’s moneymaker the Falcons, used their current lead singer, the raw-boned Wilson Pickett, as leverage, introducing him to the R&B star Lloyd Price, who in turn was just starting up his own label, Double-L Records. In mid-1962, Price signed both and brought them to New York with Bateman as a staff writer. The first Pickett-Bateman collaboration, Pickett’s first solo release, “If You Need Me,” made No. 30

on the R&B charts, 64 on the pop charts, and was subsequently covered by Solomon Burke at Atlantic as well as by the Rolling Stones and Tom Jones. They’d also collaborate on two more middling hits, “It’s Too Late” and “I’m Down to My Last Heartache,” before Pickett began 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 108

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his legendary run with Atlantic Records, while Bateman remained a top hand in the New York studio scene for most of the decade.

Bateman’s apostasy was something Gordy dreaded might become common. A bit madly, he began calling in his inner tier of writers and producers and asked whether they’d been contacted by outside labels.

He’d stare into their faces, judging to his satisfaction whether they were telling the truth. The studio musicians got the same treatment, even though they worked on an entirely different basis, not on contract to Motown but as members of and paid according to the regulations of the musicians’ union. Knowing he couldn’t possibly keep top cats like Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson through intimidation—as it was, he’d lost Popcorn Wylie, who that same year signed on as a producer with the Detroit label Northern Soul—he began paying select session men inordinate sums from out of pocket, with the proviso that they record for no one else, stay on call to Motown (even if it meant they’d have to miss a gig at a local club), and agree to go out on tours with the Motown acts. And, soon, he and A&R head Mickey Stevenson would become even more obsessive about keeping the musicians intact and in line.

Rarely were the Motown artists treated to such emoluments. They had to fend for themselves as best they could. By example, Martha Reeves, who was making $2.50 a day as Stevenson’s secretary—and had taken advantage of her power to book sessions and personnel in his name by booking her group, the Vandellas, to sing backup on Marvin Gaye’s early hits—agreed to babysit for a new Motown arrival, a blind, 11-year-old prodigy known as Little Stevie Wonder. As for the Supremes, Diane Ross in 1962 was still doing pseudo-secretarial chores for Gordy, for the same $2.50 a day. Mary Wilson and Flo Ballard were working behind the counter at a record store where their own records were laid to rest in the bargain bin. The newlywed Barbara Martin Richardson, who became pregnant in early 1962, was the rare Motown performer with the luxury of being supported by a breadwinner.

Of them all, it shocked not a soul that Ross was the most uneasy with the life of struggling artistry. Still being driven back to the projects with Mary and Flo by Berry or one of his drivers after late sessions, they once were joined by Carolyn Gill, a member of another recent girl-group arrival, the Velvelettes. Gill, who lived in upscale northwest Detroit, remembers Ross staying in the car when the other two Supremes got out at Brewster-Douglass, so she could luxuriate in what for her was a fantasy trip.

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“Diane would just sit and stare out the window at the nice homes when we’d get out of downtown Detroit,” Gill says. “I was living with my aunt and uncle and they had a boat in their driveway. When Diane saw it, she exclaimed, ‘Berry! Look at that boat! This girl is rich!’ The truth was, I wasn’t. We weren’t. We just had more than they did in the projects. To Diane, there was just one line of separation. You were either rich or poor. And she always made it very clear she wanted no part of being poor.”

In Ross’s reasoning, being epoxied to Gordy’s imprimatur was a reward in itself, an entitlement good for a few perks.

JANIE BRADFORD: I remember one Saturday, Diane and I were hanging around the studio, which was like the magnet, where everybody’d sort of congregate. And we were all alone, no one else was in the whole place. And Diane, out of the blue, said, “Janie, let’s rent a car.” I don’t even think she knew how to drive. And there was no way we could pay for a car, anyway. I said, “With what?” and she didn’t even think; she had a plan all thought out. “Here’s what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll rent a car under Berry’s name, on the Motown account, and by the time Berry gets the bill and yells at us, we’ll have our paychecks and we’ll give him the money back.”

That’s how her mind worked, making things happen, whatever the circumstances.

And, you know, something like that could easily get you fired at Motown. Berry had to approve
everything
, every expense, in advance. But Diane was fearless. It was obvious why.

Of everyone, she was the only one there who knew she could handle Berry.

So we went and rented, oh God, I remember it so clearly, a yellow convertible.

And I drove us around the whole day, in and around Detroit. We probably put 200 miles on that car. We felt like such big shots. And sure enough, the bill came in and Berry started to huff and puff. But after he called Diane into his office, it took, like, two minutes for her to straighten it out.

I think we did pay the bill; but you know what, Berry may have said, oh, forget it and paid it himself. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could have gotten away with that—or
tried
it, or even
thought
about it—but Diane.

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In similar fashion, one of Gordy’s Cadillacs was requisitioned by the Supremes one day on the road. It happened when John O’Den acceded to the girls’ begging to let them take turns at the wheel, though none of them had anything more than a learner’s permit. The episode nearly turned disastrous when Barbara pulled away from the curb and in an instant collided with another car. Fortunately, it was just a fender bender, but the impact left the Caddy dented—and Richardson with a summons from a cop for a misdemeanor violation.

Fearing the wrath of Gordy, O’Den and the girls tried to keep it from him. John took the car to a body shop and had the dent sanded out, and he and Richardson went to traffic court the next day, having hatched a plan by which Barbara would pretend to be O’Den’s wife so her permit wouldn’t be revoked. Somehow, the judge bought it and they were excused, with John paying a nominal fine. But Gordy, who seemed to have spies all over, found out about the incident and was livid that O’Den, and the girls, could be so irresponsible. Confronting them all when they got back to Motown, Gordy asked who had been at the wheel, and when Mary spoke up and said it was Mr. O’Den, he growled, “You’re lying! I know who was driving!” Frightened by his ire, she fled into the street in tears rather than face being fired.