Motown Tries to Get Back in the Groove : Founder Launches $38-Million Campaign to Develop New Artists

Motown Records, once one of the most influential record labels in the music industry with such performers as the Supremes, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, is trying to restore some of its luster.

Perhaps the greatest success story in the history of the music business, the label--first based in Detroit and now in Los Angeles--has not fared well in recent years as it lost some of its big names and failed to develop a new generation of artists with the same wide appeal.

This week, however, the company announced that it is launching an ambitious $38-million program to develop and promote new artists.

The company also announced the promotion of two key executives to be in charge of the new program. Lee Young Jr., formerly executive vice president of the record label, was named president of the Motown Music Group, which includes the company’s Jobete music publishing operation. Alvin (Skip) Miller was named president of the record label. Formerly vice president of the record company, Miller will report to Young, who will report directly to Motown founder and Chairman Berry Gordy Jr.

The pair will take over the responsibilities of former Music Group President Jay Lasker, who resigned last month after a reported falling out with Gordy. In a statement, Gordy said he was “thrilled because I have been able to promote from within the company two of the most qualified men in the entire industry.”

Miller has been with the company for 15 years. Young, an entertainment attorney, joined the company in 1976. His father, Lee Young Sr., formerly was music director for the late Nat King Cole.

Industry sources say that Young and Miller have their jobs cut out for them. “Motown is in very bad shape,” said one prominent record executive, echoing a consensus among industry professionals interviewed for this article.

A privately held company whose recordings are distributed by MCA Records in the United States and by Bertelsman A.G. overseas, Motown does not disclose financial figures or total sales. But it is obviously suffering from a shortage of hit records. For example, the company currently has only one album in the top 40 on Billboard magazine’s weekly chart of best-selling records and tapes. It is “One Heartbeat,” by Smokey Robinson--one of the first artists signed by Motown in the early 1960s.

Motown’s two biggest selling artists, Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie, are said to be nearing the end of their recording contracts, and the industry is watching to see if they re-sign with the company.

The loss of Richie would be a particularly painful blow since his records regularly sell in the multiple millions. His 1983 album, “Can’t Slow Down,” was the biggest seller in the company’s history--15 million copies worldwide.

Motown’s parent company, Motown Industries, is ranked as the largest black-owned business in California and second-largest nationally, behind Johnson Publishing Co. of Chicago.

As recently as last January, Gordy was on the verge of selling the company to MCA for about the same amount of money he now says he’s putting into its revitalization program--$38 million to $40 million. However, he pulled out of the negotiations at the last minute, with industry sources speculating that he’d suffered a case of “seller’s remorse” and just couldn’t bring himself to part with the company that he founded 28 years ago.