Today is Veterans Day, and one of the men who made Michael Jackson a household name once wore an Army uniform.
His name is Berry Gordy Jr. He founded Motown, the Detroit record company that turned Michael and his brothers into the Jackson 5 stars the whole country knew. But long before the hit records, Gordy was a young man from a big Detroit family.
He was born on Nov 28, 1929, the seventh of eight children of Bertha and Berry “Pops” Gordy Sr. An uncle taught him the basics of the piano, and he could pick out the hits of the day by ear. Still, music wasn’t his first plan. He dropped out of high school to box.
Then, in 1951, the Army drafted him and sent him to Korea.
To hear that Detroit kid, all grown up, tell his life story in his own words, this evening on stage in Chicago is a warm place to start.
Berry Gordy tells his life story on stage in Chicago, 2012
Most of us hear “drafted” and picture a young man with a rifle. Gordy was first assigned to an artillery unit, but the job he ended up with in Korea was a very different one.
He became a chaplain’s assistant.
A chaplain is the Army’s minister, the person soldiers turn to for church services and comfort far from home. Gordy drove his chaplain, who was his superior officer, by jeep to and from the front lines. And when it was time for services, the young man who had learned piano by ear sat down and played the organ for the troops.
Motown historian Adam White summed it up in 2022. Gordy was “serving in the U.S. Army in Korea as a chaplain’s assistant, driving his superior officer to and from the front lines of the war, and playing the organ during services for the troops fighting there.”
He picked up something else while he was in uniform. The high school dropout earned his GED in the Army. That’s the General Educational Development certificate, which counts the same as a high school diploma.
Gordy was home by 1953. He loved jazz, so he opened a jazz record shop in Detroit, but his customers kept asking for the blues, and the store didn’t last. He took a job on a Ford/Lincoln-Mercury assembly line and wrote songs in his spare time. His first hit came in 1957, “Reet Petite” for Jackie Wilson. From there, he started Motown.
In 1969, he put together a four-man songwriting team just for the Jackson 5 and called it “The Corporation.” Gordy himself was one of the four. They wrote and produced the brothers’ first three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “I Want You Back,” “ABC” and “The Love You Save.” Gordy is also one of the credited writers of “I’ll Be There,” their fourth No. 1.
Years later, the music world honored the man behind all those records, and you can see him take the stage for it here.
Berry Gordy accepts his place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988
Gordy turns 97 later this month, on Nov 28. This year, actor Larenz Tate played him in the “Michael” movie.
Most moviegoers probably have no idea that the man who helped launch Michael’s career once drove a chaplain’s jeep in Korea and played the organ for soldiers, years before he ever heard the Jackson 5 sing. So if you’ve got a veteran in your own family, today’s a good day to ask them what their job was.