Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. had a simple goal when he started the legendary record company 60 years ago in Detroit.
"My whole dream was to make the world hear our music," Gordy says in the new documentary "Hitsville: The Making of Motown," which premieres Saturday on Showtime. "And they could either like it or not like it."
But Motown's success was far broader than getting people to like a few songs. "Born at a time of so much struggle, so much strife, it taught us that what unites us will always be stronger than what divides us," President Barack Obama said when he honored Motown founders and artists at the White House in 2011. In "Hitsville," Oprah Winfrey talks about the thrill of seeing The Supremes on TV for the first time, saying, "It was magical to me, because I'd never seen black women on television ... who conveyed such glamour and such grace."
