After writing several hit songs for Etta James and Jackie Wilson, songwriter/producer Berry Gordy used an $800 loan to launch Tamla Record Company in 1959. Within a year, Gordy changed the label's name to Motown Records. From a basement studio in a Detroit home he called "Hitsville USA," Gordy produced some of the most successful songs in pop music history. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in February 1988.
Lionel Richie was the most successful Motown artist of the 1980s. Richie had three top 10 hits in August 1981 and won a Grammy in 1982. In 1985, he won six American Music Awards and two more Grammys. By 1986, Richie had a No. 1 song nine years in a row, setting a record. That year, he won an Oscar and another Grammy. In 1987, he became the first Motown artist to have a top 10 country single and to have 13 consecutive top 10 pop releases.
William "Smokey" Robinson was one of the first artists that Berry Gordy managed and he was still with Motown when he won some long-overdue accolades in the '80s. Robinson was named "Best Soul Artist of 1980" in a Rolling Stone magazine critics poll. The single "Being With You" became one of his most popular hits soon afterward. He won his first Grammy in 1988, for "Just To See Her," and a year later received a "Grammy Legends Award."
Stevie Wonder released his first two Motown albums in 1962, but his most prolific period was the 1970s and he continued to release hits for Motown throughout the '80s. His biggest-selling single, "I Just Called To Say I Love You," won an Academy Award in March 1985 for Best Song. In November, Wonder's "Part-Time Lover" reached the top of the pop, adult contemporary, dance and R&B charts. It was the first single to do so.
Diana Ross had been one of Motown's most popular artists, but in 1980 her most successful solo album, "Diana" was released. Rick James and Teena Marie joined the label with successful releases in 1981. In 1985, the group DeBarge became Motown's most successful act since the Jackson 5. Tragedy struck in 1984, when Gordy's longtime collaborator and former brother-in-law, Marvin Gaye, was fatally shot after an argument with Gaye's father.