The 45 That Taught Motown How to Print Money

A single piano chord, struck with the force of a demand rather than a request, opens a track that would become a foundational text of pop music. That opening salvo belonged to Barrett Strong, a young singer and pianist from Detroit who, in 1959, laid down the vocals and those insistent keys on a song called "Money (That's What I Want)." Cut in Berry Gordy's makeshift home studio, the track is less a performance and more a manifesto — its raw, unpolished energy bottling the exact moment a local Detroit label began its metamorphosis into the global hit factory known as Motown. Before the polished choreography and the tailored suits, Motown was a fledgling enterprise operating out of a house on West Grand Boulevard. Barrett Strong was there at the genesis, one of the first artists to sign with Berry Gordy. His debut for the budding impresario was the 1959 single "Let's Rock," a record that has since faded into obscurity. The follow-up, however, was a different beast entirely. Originally titled "I Need Money," the song was written by Gordy and Janie Bradford, a secretary at the label, and it demanded a vocal delivery steeped in pure, unfiltered desire. The recording session was a masterclass in early Motown resourcefulness. There was no high-tech studio — just the reverberant acoustics of a Detroit home. On that day, Strong wasn't just the voice; he was also the pianist, pounding out the iconic riff that would be imitated for decades. The track was released on Anna Records, a label run by Gordy's sister Gwen Gordy and Billy Davis. The 7-inch single, spinning at 45 rpm, was a tactile product of a specific place and time — a slab of vinyl that contained a seismic shift in popular music. The song's chart performance signaled the arrival of a new commercial force. "Money" rocketed to number 2 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1960, a staggering achievement for an upstart label. Its crossover appeal was confirmed with a peak at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. This wasn't just a regional hit; it was the first major success for Gordy's constellation of labels, the record that generated the literal capital to build an empire. For collectors, an original 1959 Anna Records 45 isn't just a single — it's the seed of Motown's entire discography. The raw, blues-infused stomp of the original was so potent that it transcended genre and geography. In 1963, a band from Liverpool cut a ferocious version for their second album, "With the Beatles." John Lennon's vocal shreds through the track, transforming it into a rock and roll juggernaut. The cover was a commercial boon for Strong, providing him with his first substantial royalty check and introducing his song to a global audience that had never touched an Anna Records 45. The Rolling Stones followed suit in 1964, placing their own snarling take on a self-titled EP. Despite the monster success of his debut hit, the follow-up singles on Anna Records and later on the Motown imprint failed to replicate the magic. The industry's machinery was not yet designed to sustain an artist like Strong, and his recording career stalled. Faced with the fickle nature of the charts, he made a pragmatic pivot in the mid-1960s, moving from the microphone to the writer's room. This shift would prove to be one of the most consequential creative decisions in the label's history. Teaming up with producer Norman Whitfield, Strong co-wrote a string of songs that defined the psychedelic soul era. Their partnership was a pressure cooker of innovation, pushing the sonic boundaries of what a Motown record could be. For The Temptations, they crafted a series of gritty, socially conscious masterpieces, including the Grammy-winning "Cloud Nine," the funky strut of "I Can't Get Next to You," and the chaotic brilliance of "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)." These were dense, polyrhythmic tracks that sounded like the world falling apart on a dance floor. Their crowning achievement was a stark, cinematic epic built on a hypnotic bassline. "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was a departure even by their experimental standards, a searing narrative of familial abandonment that won them a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group in 1973. The same duo also penned a visceral anti-Vietnam War anthem for Edwin Starr, simply titled "War," which hit number 1 in 1970. The question 'What is it good for?' became an inescapable cultural scream, proving that a 45 rpm single could still ignite a political firestorm. Barrett Strong's journey with Motown ended in acrimony in the early 1970s after a dispute over royalties — a bitter irony for the man who sang about the primacy of cash. He later released a solo album, "Stronghold," on Capitol Records in 1975, but his legacy was already secure in the grooves of those early singles. The Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted him in 2004, a recognition of a catalog that stretches from the primal demand of "Money" to the sophisticated despair of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone." When Strong died in 2023 at the age of 81, the world lost the architect of a sound that taught a generation how to groove, protest, and demand more.

The 45 That Taught Motown How to Print Money

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