(Credits: Far Out / Bradford Timeline)
Mon 1 December 2025 16:45, UK
From the first affordable motor car to the unavoidable landscape of Tim Robinson quotes, the world has a lot to thank the city of Detroit for, and Motown is perhaps its biggest cultural empire.
Within a few years of its 1959 formation, Berry Gordy’s label was a musical force to be reckoned with in the world, impacting everybody from Martin Luther King Jr to The Beatles.
Right from the start of The Beatles plans for world domination, they were always indebted to the sounds emanating from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, so given Motown’s dominance over the pop charts during the early part of the 1960s, it is no real surprise that the Fab Four found themselves immediately infatuated with the soulful world being created by Gordy and his roster of unparalleled R&B talent.
In fact, The Beatles played a major role in the Motown story in the UK. After penning a few heavily Motown-reliant tracks during their early days, the band decided to record three Motown covers for their 1963 record With The Beatles. At that time, Gordy’s label was still struggling to fully take root in the popular culture of old Blighty, resigned mainly to underground nightclubs and mod dancehalls, so those three covers offered the Detroit empire a chance to expand into new territories, which is why Gordy himself offered the band reduced royalty rates for the covers.
Even as the years went on and The Beatles became entrenched in their era of psychedelic exploration, they never lost sight of their early adoration for Motown, with Revolver’s ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ heavily indebted to the work of Hitsville USA.
After all, one of the greatest aspects of that Motown golden age back in the 1960s was the timelessness of its output – today, over half a century on, tracks like ‘Baby Love’ or ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ have never really lost their lustre.
Expectedly, then, the Beatles themselves never really lost their appreciation for Motown either, and George Harrison was always particularly infatuated. If you look back at Harrison’s first songwriting effort with the group, ‘Don’t Bother Me’, you don’t need to stretch too far to see the influence of Motown on his personal output, even if he eventually swapped the sounds of Detroit for the world of Indian worship music.
As with any self-respecting Motown devotee, Harrison always had his favourites. Asked by Sounds in 1974 for a run-down of his most beloved contemporary artists, Harrison didn’t need to ponder for very long before declaring, “Smokey Robinson, I’m madly in love with Smokey Robinson”.
For all the countless acts that came and went from Motown’s ranks over the years, a select few always stood out from the rest, and Smokey Robinson was one of the label’s earliest standouts. With a unique ability to rattle off life-affirming anthems with apparent ease, along with a voice that could rival anybody else in the soul scene of the 1960s, Robinson was essential in putting Motown on the map.
What’s more, Harrison’s love of the man was seemingly reciprocated. After The Beatles covered Robinson’s ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ back in 1963, the Motown songwriter lent his undying support to their existence, praising them for being among the first white outfits to publicly cite Motown as being a major influence on their output.
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