Diana Ross: A Biography

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Still, despite the way she comported herself, there was always a distinct sense that something wasn’t quite right in Ernestine Ross’s life. She was too proud a woman to ever discuss such matters of the heart with her children, but something strange was definitely going on in the Ross household, and the children sensed it. They supposed that it had to do with Fred, ever the enigma. Though the children had never seen it, they suspected he had a violent side that only their mother knew about. There was a hole in the bathroom door, for instance. The Ross siblings always wondered how it got there, but never knew for sure. However, it appeared as though someone had kicked open the door … and they believed it to be Fred.

  One night, when Diana was about six, she was awakened by the sound of muffled crying. In the darkness, the little girl crept down the long hallway to her parents’ bedroom. “Mama? Is that you? Are you crying?” she asked. She had never before heard Ernestine cry—she had always been so strong and self-reliant—and couldn’t even fathom that such sounds were coming from her. Still, she knew that someone was crying in that room, and it wasn’t Fred. She peered into the darkness to see what was going on in the bedroom, but she couldn’t. “Mama, please,” she said, now frightened. “What’s wrong? Can I come in?”

  “Quiet!” came from the darkness. It was Ernestine, now sounding afraid. “Don’t let him know I’m here. If he finds me, I don’t know what he’ll do. Go back to sleep, baby. Go back to sleep.” This was a very upsetting moment; Diana would never forget it. She turned around and ran back to her room, jumped into her bed and pulled the covers over her head. Then, she cried herself back to sleep.

  The next morning, Ernestine greeted her in the family’s sunny yellow kitchen. “So, what can we have for breakfast?” she asked, trying to be cheery. However, she couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with her daughter. Diana didn’t bring up the events of the previous night, for her mother had made it clear—it was not to be discussed.

  The Primettes start rehearsals

  “Oh please, Fred, stop being so difficult,” Ernestine scolded him, according to his later recollection. The two were seated at the kitchen table discussing Milton Jenkins’s visit. Diana stood before them, shifting from one foot to the other nervously. Her parents had been arguing about this subject for three days, and Fred was not budging. He didn’t want Diana to sing, and once he had a strong position against something, it was almost impossible to change his mind. “Just let the girl sing, Fred,” Ernestine said. “She wants to sing. She wants to see things, do things. Let her sing.”

  “Please, Daddy—” Diana began.

  “All right, fine,” Fred finally decided, cutting her off. He had been worn down. “But I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

  Ernestine stared him down, almost as if to say, “You don’t have to like it. Just agree to it so we can get on with things.” Diana squealed with delight and ran from the room.

  The first rehearsal of the Primettes at Milton Jenkins’s “pad” on Hastings was more fun that the girls ever could have imagined. Diana recalls, “I think the first song we learned was ‘The Night Time Is the Right Time.’ I’m pretty sure it was a twelve-bar blues number because I think that’s all Paul [Williams] could play on the guitar.” When the girls lifted their voices on that Ray Charles hit for the first time, everyone in the room nodded in agreement. The sound was pretty much perfect.

  The four of them—Diana, Mary, Florence and Betty—immediately bonded with one another and formed alliances which, of course, brought forth petty personality clashes. They were just kids, after all; there were bound to be petty arguments. Since Florence had the biggest, most impressive voice and an innate sense of how to use it to its best advantage, she did most of the lead singing on songs like the aforementioned “Night Time Is the Right Time” and also Chubby Checker’s “The Twist.” Mary once observed, “Whenever Diane would insist on a lead and then sing, we would sort of look at each other and try not to laugh. She had this weird, little whiny sound.”

  The more serious problem wasn’t Diana’s voice, anyway, but rather her need to be the center of attention. This proved particularly galling to Florence. As founder of the Primettes, Florence considered herself the leader of the group. Whenever possible, she resisted the notion of Diana taking the spotlight from her. The other girls could sing lead from time to time, but she wanted everyone to know that the position in front was reserved for her. Mary remembered the afternoon when Diana pulled Florence aside after a rehearsal and told her that she wanted to sing more leads. “But you’re not the lead singer, Diane,” Florence said.

  “Well, what makes you think you are?” Diana challenged. “Just because everybody says so?”

  Florence reminded Diana that she could out-sing her, and she also warned her to “stop messing with me.” The two girls stared each other down. Then Diana turned and walked away. She and Florence were not off to a good start. On the whole, though, they agreed that they were doing something worthwhile with their lives and were excited about the possibilities. Milton Jenkins was very encouraging, as were the members of their brother group, the Primes. Soon the girls—sporting letter sweaters, pleated skirts, bobby socks and sneakers—were on stage with the Primes, just as had always been planned, and each making a whopping fifteen dollars a show.

  Despite the fact that Fred had given his approval of Diana’s activities with the Primettes, there was still to be trouble at home over a nightly ritual: Diana would come home late after a performance and insert her key in the front door as quietly as possible in hopes of not waking him. Just as she would begin to turn the lock, the door would swing open and she would be face-to-face with an angry Fred Ross. Father and daughter would then engage in a loud war of words over the lateness of the hour. “She was sixteen by this time, and it would be after midnight before she would get home,” said Fred, years later. “Forgive me, but I knew what was going on out there in the streets and it was my job to protect her from it. It was always a war, though …”

  When Milton Jenkins booked the Primettes to appear at the Detroit/Windsor Freedom Festival, which was to be held on Fred’s fortieth birthday, 4 July 1960, the engagement became a point of contention between father and daughter. It was an amateur talent show sponsored annually in Windsor, Ontario, on Independence Day by radio stations on both sides of the Canadian border. Fred didn’t care what it was; he still saw his daughter’s involvement in it as a worthless venture, and the whole subject was beginning to gall him. “I definitely didn’t want her to go to Windsor,” he later recalled. “I felt that things were getting out of control. Her grades were slipping.”

  In trying to make a decision about the Freedom Festival one morning in the Ross family’s small kitchen, Fred told Diana that her “hobby” had got out of hand. Diana couldn’t believe it. Things were going so well with the Primettes, and she couldn’t fathom why he couldn’t see as much—especially since they now had an important booking on the horizon. “What do I have to do to please you?” she asked him, raising her voice. “I’m becoming a success, can’t you see that?” Sobbing, she stormed from the room. “That’s it,” Fred said, according to his later recollection. “You are not going to Windsor.” Even Ernestine wasn’t able to change his mind about it. In the end, it took visits from Florence, Mary and Betty—during which, as Fred recalled it, “There was a lot of moaning and groaning, which I hated and never allowed in my house”—to convince him to change his mind and let Diana appear at the event.

  As it happened, the Primettes won first place at the contest in Windsor; they really were good and their performance in front of thousands of people was exhilarating. Winning the trophy was certainly a thrill, but not much of a surprise to Diana. “Failure was impossible,” she said later, “because I made no space to consider anything negative. I could only visualize success.”

  After the show, a man named Robert Bateman took Florence aside, identified himself as a talent scout for someone named Berry Gordy who was starting a record co
mpany in Detroit, and suggested that the girls audition. Robert gave Florence his card and told her to give him a call. She didn’t, however. Inexplicably, she also didn’t think the encounter with the talent scout was worth mentioning to her singing partners.

  Berry Gordy Jr.: pioneering a movement

  Berry Gordy Jr. was born in Detroit on 28 November 1929 to Berry and Bertha Gordy, an upwardly mobile couple who hailed from Georgia. He joined three older siblings: Esther, Fuller and George. His enterprising father, Pops as he was known, owned a plastering and carpentry business and was about to open a printing shop. Meanwhile, Bertha continued her education, graduating from the Detroit Institute of Commerce and then becoming one of the founders of a leading insurance company in Detroit. Ambition and a sense of duty and purpose had become the hallmark of the Gordy family and Pops and Bertha continued to instill those values in their own family, which would grow with the birth of four more children: Gwen, Anna, Louyce and Robert.

  Berry Jr. was always his own man, independent in his thinking. For instance, he wasn’t that interested in formal education, despite his parents’ influence in that regard. He quit high school in the eleventh grade at the age of sixteen to become a professional featherweight boxer; by that time he had already fought fifteen amateur fights. He wasn’t to box for long, though.

  Berry had always been interested in music and entertainment and began to wonder if there might be a future for him in that field. But, first, he had to serve in the army after he was drafted. At that time he also obtained his high school equivalency certificate. A few months after his discharge, at the age of twenty-four, he married nineteen-year-old Thelma Louise Coleman. Then, to make ends meet, he began working in his father’s successful plastering business. For him, this was unfulfilling, backbreaking labor. At night, though, his life would become more exciting. He began frequenting Detroit jazz clubs, befriending and socializing with jazz musicians and vocalists. In 1953, he first tried to turn his love for music into a business venture when he borrowed $700 from Pops, and started his own retail record store, the 3-D Record Mart in Detroit, specializing in jazz music. The venture didn’t work out for him, however; it went out of business within two years.

  Meanwhile, Berry and Thelma had their first child, Hazel Joy, and another was on the way. In 1955, to support his growing family, Gordy took a job on the Ford Motors assembly line, earning $86.40 a week. In Berry’s view, it wasn’t challenging work. He was beginning to feel that the Gordy family’s tradition of upward mobility had hit a snag, and that he was responsible for it.

  In 1956, after his son Terry was born, the Gordy marriage began to crumble; Thelma filed for divorce. It would be three years before it would become final.

  It was while his divorce was pending that Berry first became interested in songwriting. Meanwhile, his sisters Anna and Gwen became the photography and cigarette concession owners at a nightclub in the city called the Flame Show Bar. They began introducing their younger brother to the jazz artists who frequented the establishment, and he would try to sell them on his latest compositions. Peter Benjaminson, author of The Story of Motown, an excellent history of the Gordy empire, wrote, “Gordy’s first venture into record producing was undistinguished. He bought a secondhand record-making machine and began producing records with anyone who walked in off the street and paid him $100. The fee also bought Gordy’s promise to work to get the record played on the radio.”

  In 1957, Berry was introduced to an entertainment manager named Al Greene, an associate of the popular rhythm and blues singer Jackie Wilson. With the assistance of his friend and collaborator Billy Davis, Berry wrote a rollicking little song called “Reet Petite” specifically for Wilson. The singer recorded it and, when it was finally issued in 1957, it sailed to number eleven on the rhythm and blues charts. Berry then wrote more hits for Wilson, such as “Lonely Teardrops” and “To Be Loved,” which garnered heavy radio play and placement on the record charts. It was becoming apparent that Berry Gordy Jr. was not only an impressive but also an instinctual songwriter; it seemed to come easy to him.

  In 1958, Berry met Raynoma Liles, an attractive and talented musician. Raynoma was supportive of Berry’s ambition, sharing his imagination and determination and helping him to marshal his creativity and give it focus. After the two married, they went into business together, first forming a backup vocal group called the Rayber Voices and then writing and producing songs for a soul singer named Marv Johnson.

  It was at around this time—1958—that Berry met eighteen-year-old William “Smokey” Robinson, an aspiring singer and songwriter who had a group he called the Matadors. After Berry took Smokey under his wing, the two become fast friends. Then, in 1958, the Matadors changed their name to the Miracles and recorded the song “Got a Job,” which was written and produced by Berry. It would be the group’s first single on a small New York label, End Records. However, writing and producing records for new artists failed to make an immediate fortune for Berry Gordy; in early 1959, he claimed an income of $27.20 a week! Berry was to have a small taste of success later in the year, though, when he and teenager friend Janie Bradford wrote the prophetic song “Money (That’s What I Want).” It was recorded by Barrett Strong and leased to Anna Records, which was owned by his sister. This rocking rhythm and blues number continues to be one of Gordy’s most popular songs. “I was broke until the time I wrote ‘Money,’” Berry has recalled. “Even though I had many hits and there were other writers [I worked with] who had many hits, we just didn’t have the profits from them. And coming from a business family, my father and mother always talked about the bottom line, it being turning a profit: ‘Are you making money, or not?’”

  By the end of 1958, Berry was tired of writing songs and leasing them to a white, unappreciative—and, he suspected, cheating—New York record label. It was Smokey who encouraged him onward. “Why work for the man?” Smokey asked him. “Why don’t you be the man? You’re a cat who knows music, Berry. You know people. You be the man!” It was advice for which Berry would always be grateful. Smokey knew that Gordy was savvy enough to figure out how the complicated record business worked and sophisticated enough to understand how to finance such an enterprise. None of that would have mattered, however, if he hadn’t also developed a keen sensitivity to what people wanted to hear on the radio. Indeed, Berry’s greatest asset would always be his musical intuition.

  In January 1959, Berry—with the support and encouragement of his wife, Raynoma—started his own record label, Tamla Records—originally named Tammy after the Debbie Reynolds film, of which Berry was a big fan. He borrowed a mere $800 from his family to get this new operation off the ground; all of them took different administrative jobs at the company—as would have been expected of them—and the rest would be history.

  Auditioning for Berry Gordy

  It was just a modest place on a quiet street, a small wood and stucco structure at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, sandwiched between a funeral home and a beauty shop. Once someone’s home, it was now painted a glossy white with blue trim but was still inauspicious enough in appearance to surprise anyone who learned what was actually going on behind its walls. It had been Berry Gordy’s idea to dub the building Hitsville, and the record label it housed, Tamla. Smokey Robinson described it this way: “Downstairs became headquarters. The kitchen became the control room. The garage became the studio. The living room was bookkeeping. The dining room? Sales. Berry stuck a funky sign in the front window—‘Hitsville USA’—and we were in business.”

  Once the word was out that Berry Gordy would sign any youngster who could prove himself in an audition, Hitsville became a mecca for young black performers. Indeed, in the late 1950s, black music was really happening in Detroit. Scores of young people, hoping to make it big, were forming singing groups and rehearsing in basements, apartments and on street corners—anywhere they could, wherever they were able to raise their voices in close harmony. But this was not unusual. Every city had talent
. There were youngsters all over the country doing the same thing. “The one difference, the big difference,” says Smokey Robinson, “is that Detroit had something no one else had. We had Berry Gordy. We had Berry Gordy.”

  The youngsters came in droves to Hitsville with high hopes, singly and in groups. All dreamed of getting a recognizing nod and, more importantly, a recording contract from the man himself. They all had the same goal, after all, which was to make records that would become hits. Not necessarily to make money—no one thought that far in advance. They just wanted to make music, and wanted others to hear it … and love it. It was all for one, one for all and everyone wanted to chip in to do his or her part. For example, Janie Bradford—the teenager who co-wrote the prophetic hit “Money (That’s What I Want)” with Berry—spent her days behind a desk as a receptionist. She didn’t mind it at all. She certainly didn’t think that just because she had written a hit record, she was somehow better than anyone else. She just wanted to do her part. They all started from nothing, still had nothing and wanted more.

  Thus, it was in the summer of 1960 that the Primettes—Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Betty McGlown and Diana Ross—found themselves at Hitsville, waiting for their chance to audition for Berry Gordy. It had been Diana who had managed to wangle the audition by asking her former next-door neighbor, writer-producer Smokey Robinson. The morning of the audition was exciting in the Ross household. Ernestine had sewn a crisp, white collar onto a silk blouse for Diana to wear that day. Then, she ironed Diana’s white cotton dress and spent the time encouraging her daughter, all but practically guaranteeing to her that she and the group would get the record deal they wanted so badly. Even Fred seemed somewhat enthused—or, at the very least, he didn’t say anything overtly discouraging. Diana’s siblings couldn’t stop chattering with excitement. Diana kept reminding everyone that her friend, Smokey Robinson, had a record, “Got a Job,” that had been played on the radio. To her, that was a sure sign that anything could happen, and that it could just as easily happen for her and her group.