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Esther Gordy Edwards dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 26 August 2011
Esther Gordy Edwards, a former executive of her younger brother Berry Gordy Jr’s Motown Records, died on Wednesday, aged 91.
The second oldest of eight children, Gordy Edwards was born in Georgia in 1920 to Berry Gordy Sr and Bertha Fuller Gordy. While she was a toddler, the family moved to Detroit, where she lived for the rest of her life. She married Detroit policeman George Edwards in 1951, and had one son, Robert Bullock, from a previous relationship. She formed the Gordy Printing Company with two of her brothers in the mid-40s, and in the 50s founded the Ber-Berry Co-Op with her husband, a family bank into with each member of the Gordy clan paid $10 a month in order to provide loans to their fellow family members.
In 1959, the company provided an $800 loan to Berry Gordy Jr to help him set up Motown. Esther also joined the company, managing artists in its early days. Later she became Director Of International Operations and was instrumental in taking Motown out of the US and making it the globally recognised brand it became.
Later she served as Senior Vice President and CEO, though stepped down when the company moved to LA in 1972, and was succeeded by then Vice President Smokey Robinson. Staying in Detroit, she served on the board for Detroit Bank Of Commonwealth and the Greater Detroit Chamber Of Commerce, as well as working with various other groups and charities, including the Gordy Foundation, which she set up in 1965 following her sister Loucye’s death. The charity, which was launched to help students from poor urban backgrounds, still funds scholarships to this day.
In 1985, she became involved with Motown again when she turned the company’s original headquarters into the Motown Historical Museum. As well as preserving the studio where many of the label’s hits were recorded, the museum is filled with numerous photos and memorabilia that she herself had collected throughout the company’s history. Berry Gordy Jr said in a statement following her death: “She preserved Motown memorabilia before it was memorabilia, collecting our history long before we knew we were making it. She nurtured and held it together through the years, protecting the Motown legacy for generations to come – which is only one of the reasons people all over the world will remember and celebrate Esther Gordy Edwards”.
He added: “Whatever she did, it was with the highest standards, professionalism and an attention to detail that was legendary. She always came out a hero. Esther wasn’t concerned with being popular. She was dedicated to making us all better – the Gordy family and the Motown family”.
One of the numerous artists she worked with through the label’s history, Stevie Wonder, said in his own statement: “She believed in me. When I was fourteen years old and many other people didn’t or could only see what they could at the time, she championed me being in Motown. I shared with her many of my songs first before anyone else. She was like another mother to me; she was an extension of that same kind of motherly love”.
She is survived by her son, stepson, a sister and two brothers, three granddaughters and six great grandchildren.
