Motown’s Black women songwriters and producers were the invisible architects behind the pop music juggernaut

During the 1960s, in a country divided by racial strife, the music of Berry Gordy Jr.’s Motown Records helped bring people together. Motown was noted for star performers like Mary Wells, The Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. But, behind the scenes, a talented group of lesser known women were driving the hits in Hitsville U.S.A. I’m a scholar of popular culture and author of the biography “It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy.” Researching my book inspired me to find other women who contributed to the Detroit label’s era of chart dominance and helped change the music industry, despite going largely unrecognized for their efforts. I listened to Motown growing up, but it wasn’t until 2021, while sitting at home during the pandemic, that I discovered Moy’s history as the lyricist for Stevie Wonder and how she helped revive his early career. Because Moy died in 2017, I wasn’t able to speak with her for the book. Instead I researched her life by reading countless interviews she gave, along with talking to her former colleagues at Motown, family and ethnomusicologists, who are scholars that…

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