DETROIT — Reflecting on a legendary career with Motown Records that included finding some of its most iconic talent and shaping its sound, William "Mickey" Stevenson, its former A&R head, believes it was nothing short of a "spiritual movement."
Stevenson, now 85, said even amid the divisive, tumultuous climate of the 1960s that included the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the deaths of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, Motown continued to grow. But the company was "designed" to do what it did, he said.
"It was crazy, right?" said Stevenson. "And yet this company was growing. People of every race, creed and color — people have told me they'd be in their bedrooms, with the covers pulled over their heads, listening to Motown songs. We had wars going on. Soldiers would play the records in the trenches. What is that but a spiritual movement? What else can you say?"
