30/11/2025
It's a Happy Birthday to one of the biggest names in soul music, Berry Gordy is celebrating his 96th birthday today. I doubt he realised what he was about to start when in 1958 he borrowed $800 from his family to create an R&B record company. Gordy's Motown company played a significant part in breaking down racial barriers in The US southern states by not allowing his acts to perform to segregated audiences, this was in part due to the fact that his Grandfather was the son of James Gordy, a white plantation owner in Georgia & a woman he enslaved. In 2016 Gordy received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama for "helping to create a trailblazing new sound in American music".
With the whole of the Motown catalogue to choose from it's always going to be a hard choice but I've settled on this track which was the inspiration for this page's name. Has it been overplayed? Of course it has but for me its quality still hits me as it did the first time I heard it, written by Holland-Dozier-Holland and originally recorded by The Isley Brothers, from 1966 "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-UytiXdGMs