[msb-alumni] Barney Ales, 85, Key Executive for Motown
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 3 May 2020 16:06:37 -0400
BlankBarney Ales, 85, Key Executive for Motown. By Ben Sisario.
In the 1960s, he promoted the black-owned company's music to the
white-dominated
music industry, helping to make it a ubiquitous force in American pop culture.
In the summer of 1964, Motown was in a bind. Its biggest female star, Mary
Wells, had
just reached No. 1 with "My Guy," and then quit the label -- the first major
defection from the young company, which had set itself up in Detroit as a
flawless
factory of black pop. So Berry Gordy Jr., Motown's founder, and his team tried
to
craft a hit for a trio of young women from the label's bench, the Supremes, who
had
struggled to crack the Top 40. Their chosen song, "Where Did Our Love Go," was
carefully arranged for hit potential -- all that was left was to sell it to
radio
programmers.
That job fell to Barney Ales, Mr. Gordy's indefatigable lieutenant, who
proclaimed in
a company news release that "Where Did Our Love Go" would be Motown's next No.
1.
He was soon proved correct and the Supremes, led by Diana Ross, were anointed
Motown's newest superstars.
Mr. Ales died on April 17 in Malibu, Calif., at age 85. The Universal Music
Group,
which owns the Motown label, announced the death but did not specify the cause.
Mr. Ales was one of Mr. Gordy's most indispensable executives throughout the
1960s,
when Motown became a ubiquitous force in American pop culture and a prime
symbol of
black enterprise at the height of the civil rights movement.
Officially, he was in charge of sales and promotion. But as a high-ranking
white
executive at a black-owned label, Mr. Ales was also instrumental in promoting
Motown's music to the white-dominated industry -- most importantly the
programmers
who decided what songs were played on Top 40 radio stations.
Crossing over to the pop mainstream was crucial to Mr. Gordy's vision for
Motown. The
label's sound was rooted in R&B, yet its artists were carefully styled to
appeal to
white audiences, down to the sequined gowns, etiquette lessons and Las Vegas
nightclub engagements for acts like the Supremes.
"There's no question that Ales's race gave him access to, and influence with,
pop
radio D.J.s and programmers," Adam White, who collaborated with Mr. Ales on the
2016
book "Motown: The Sound of Young America," said by email. "That was the reality
of
the times," Mr. White added, "even as pop radio was recognizing that its
audience was
drawn to the kind of R&B-pop that Motown was perfecting.
Baldassare Ales was born in Detroit on May 13, 1934, to Silvestro Ales, a
Sicilian-born barber, and Evelyn (Winfield) Ales, who grew up in Cheboygan,
Mich. He
attended Thomas M. Cooley High School in Detroit and as a young man worked on a
Dodge
assembly line. He began his education in the music industry at 21 in the
stockroom of
Capitol Records' local office, rising to positions in sales and promotion. In
1959,
he became the Detroit branch manager of Warner Bros. Records.
Those jobs gave Mr. Ales entree to the record stores, distributors and
programmers
vital to making any song a hit.
He met Mr. Gordy in 1960 and was soon hired as the national sales and promotion
manager at Motown, which Mr. Gordy had founded in 1959 with an $800 loan from
his
family.
Mr. Ales built the label's sales and promotion team, which in the early days
was
predominantly white. Part of his job involved collecting money the label's
distributors owed -- a hazard for most independent labels, which Mr. Ales dealt
with
by threatening to withhold Motown's supply of hits from nonpaying accounts.
"It didn't just happen overnight. It was a well-thought-out philosophy that we
had,"
Mr. Ales said of the label's business plan in a 2016 interview with The Detroit
Free
Press. "Motown was a music company. It wasn't an R&B company. It wasn't a soul
company. It was the same as Capitol Records or CBS: a company devoted to making
music."
Mr. Ales offered a glimpse of his method on a one-sided 45 r.p.m. record titled
"An
Important Message From Barney Ales (Play Immediately)" that was sent to
distributors
in 1970. Over three minutes, he implored them to help make a No. 1 hit out of
Ms.
Ross's debut solo single, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)."
"I'm concerned and I want action," he told them. But the single stalled at No.
20.
When Motown moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972, Mr. Ales remained in
Detroit. A few years later he started his own label, Prodigal, but in 1975 he
rejoined Motown and sold Prodigal to it.
In the late 1970's he served as Motown's president. He left Motown again in
1979 and
worked with various companies, including the jazz label Pablo and Elton John's
Rocket
Record Company. In the 1990's he also worked with the AEM Record Group, which
released music by the funk hero George Clinton -- whom Mr. Ales had known since
the
1960's, when Mr. Clinton was signed to Motown's music publishing subsidiary,
Jobete,
as a songwriter.
Mr. Ales is survived by his wife, Eileen; his sons, Steven, Barney and Brett;
his
daughters, Shelley DeRose and Cristina Ales-Neggazi; nine grandchildren; and
six
great-grandchildren.
In a statement, Mr. Gordy praised Mr. Ales's ability to sell the label's music
to
anyone who would buy it. "I just thought Barney was the greatest salesperson in
the
world, and he had like the United Nations in his sales department," Mr. Gordy
said.
"I wanted to sell music to all people: whites, blacks, Jews, gentiles, the cops
and
the robbers."
Steve
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