The Most Important Musical Moments in Motown’s History.

One of the country’s most iconic record labels was modeled off of the main moneymakers in its hometown of Detroit, Michigan: the auto industry. “I wanted to have a kid off the street walk in one door unknown… and come out another door a star, like an assembly line,” label founder Berry Gordy told the Telegraph in 2016. “That was my dream.”

That germ of an idea would go on to sprout into one of the most important music labels of all time, the future Hitsville, U.S.A. Gordy called it Motown — a combined and shortened version of Detroit’s nickname: Motor Town. This year, that label celebrates its 60th anniversary of launching the careers of future Rock & Roll Hall of Famers like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, the Temptations, the Four Tops and Gladys Knight and the Pips.

A former boxer, songwriter and businessman who’d failed to find success in his previous endeavors, Gordy took out an $800 loan from his family in 1960 to put a down payment on a two-level home in Detroit. He envisioned creating a hit-making factory out of Motown’s HQ and was determined to make Motown “the sound of young America.”

A black businessman in a racially segregated America, Gordy didn’t need to look far to find his artists. He tapped into Detroit’s local black music scene to discover young skilled yet raw talent…