I knew I wanted to do music at eight years of age. I listened to a lot of Motown growing up, and it got to the point where I started mimicking people - Michael Jackson or whoever. People started to notice I could hold a tone. The bug was always there.

Conrad Sewell

Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n' roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

Alex Winston

Music Wing Win

I think there's a void for some authentic soul music with an edge. I think there's some people who grew up with Motown and Stevie Wonder that still can appreciate Future, Drake, and all these different things, too, but there shouldn't be a void for those people, as well.

Anderson Paak

Music Future Wonder

My father loved music. He loved Motown and R&B, and my mother loved Journey and Fleetwood Mac, so they were always listening to it and playing it.

Andra Day

Music Love Yin

Many of my friends were there at Motown. The studio was only a few blocks from where my dad's home was, where we lived.

Aretha Franklin

Home Where Were

Motown was about music for all people - white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.

Berry Gordy

Music White Us

I've discovered that Motown and Broadway have a lot in common - a family of wonderfully talented, passionate, hardworking young people, fiercely competitive but also full of love and appreciation for the work, for each other and for the people in the audience.

Berry Gordy

Work Pet Love

I was in about in the 8th grade when I started recording R&B, so much of what was on was the Motown sound, and The Beatles had pretty much come over and taken America by storm.

Betty Wright

Art UN Town

Definitely just growing up in general influenced me; Detroit happened to be where I was. I feel like the city definitely has made an impact on my life and made me who I am. Detroit has an unmistakable soul - nobody can duplicate the soul we bring to the game. From Motown to J Dilla to Eminem to anything.

Big Sean

Life Wing Win

Sometimes you're inspired by an old-school song that you want to chop up and make a sample out of it. I find that with a lot of older Motown music.

Bishop Briggs

Time Music You

Growing up, I was listening to a ton of Motown music, Otis Redding, Aretha, and then there was the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin. These were all people that I felt as though they truly felt every single lyric they said, and they weren't afraid of imperfection.

Bishop Briggs

Music Wing Win

I think it's all about the music you listen to along the way. For me, my parents always played Motown music and The Beatles, so I was drawn to the soul.

Bishop Briggs

Music You Ways

I just love how everyone with that Motown sound seemed to come from a two-block radius from the actual original location. The original location was a house, and then when they outgrew it, they bought the house next door and the house next door and the house next door until they had seven houses on the same lot.

BJ the Chicago Kid

Love Wit Very

My music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.

Borns

Music Diet Zombies

The biggest thing Motown did was change our social fabric: the way we interacted with each other as human beings.

Brandon Victor Dixon

Change Wit Way

I think that there is such power with the live performance of it - so much of what 'Motown' is about is the live performance aspect, really. The power of our production is really the music and the performances.

Brandon Victor Dixon

Power Music Wit

My introduction to Motown was through The Jackson Five and Michael Jackson. Michael's been my greatest creative inspiration, so that's how I really became familiar with Motown as a whole, and as I got older, I learned far more about the other groups.

Brandon Victor Dixon

Great Wit Whole

Style and image - it's what Motown is about. They had a charm school led by Maxine Powell. There was literally an artists' development department.

Brandon Victor Dixon

Men Art Age

Everyone you talk to in the world, whether they know it or not, because the catalog is so vast, a lot of times people have favorite songs that are Motown songs that they didn't even know were Motown songs.

Brandon Victor Dixon

Time You World

Motown's policy was to build one act at a time or their favorites.

Brenda Holloway

Time Town Tim

I feel Motown really exploited me.

Brenda Holloway

Town Ted T

I listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye and Motown records.

Charlie Puth

Marvin Gaye is an inspiration to me. He was one of the first Motown musicians that my mom and dad introduced me to, and I always thought it would be a good idea if I was ever an artist, and now I am, to make a record called 'Marvin Gaye.'

Charlie Puth

I think my parents are the first influence on me music-wise. My dad was into Motown and soul, and my mom was into British '80s pop, like The Trashcan Sinatras. I grew up on that. It was great. They were the first people to really bring music into my life.

Clairo

I knew I wanted to do music at eight years of age. I listened to a lot of Motown growing up, and it got to the point where I started mimicking people - Michael Jackson or whoever. People started to notice I could hold a tone. The bug was always there.

Conrad Sewell

We are all big Motown fans.

Coy Bowles

Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. - so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well.

Dave Haywood

I have very eclectic tastes. I love soul and Motown; I listen to some rap - Stormzy, Tinie Tempah, Drake. I also love classical music, American country and the folk tradition. I often start the day with gospel on my way to work. The only thing I have never got into is punk.

David Lammy

Every Motown act dressed classy, and we were clean-cut. Whenever you saw a Motown act, they were polished, and they knew how to treat people.

Dennis Edwards

There were a lot of great acts at Motown, and some of them were hard to get along with.

Dennis Edwards

When I first got to Motown, Smokey was already a fixture there. To me, he is one of the greatest songwriters and poets, so anything they ask me to do for Smokey is going to get a yes.

Dennis Edwards

Growing up, I liked all the stuff that everyone else was listening to, like Motown, but the biggest group of all was The Beatles.

Eddie Murphy

Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.

Ella Henderson

One of a handful of films made in Detroit, '8 Mile' doesn't feature the Motown renaissance that Mayor Coleman A. Young dreamed of in the 1970s. Instead, it's the beaten-down city: 8 Mile refers to the line of demarcation between Detroit and suburban, mostly white Oakland County.

Elvis Mitchell

With my music, I don't have to stay in one lane. One day I'm in Motown, and the next day I'm in reggae.

Estelle

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

Gary Oldman

Even though I loved the Fifties doo-wop, you couldn't hold on to it. You had to change, or you was gon' be antique real quick, like the Ink Spots. And then we were at Motown and you had the Rolling Stones, simple rock & roll became the new thing.

George Clinton

Testify' went from a clean Motown song to straight psychedelic. Loud and feedback and people was loving it, because Motown was ending now.

George Clinton

And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up.

Glen Hansard

I think there is something to be said for churning things out. Motown churned out hits and there is nothing wrong with that.

Graham Linehan

When I was a kid in the mid-'60s, I was what's known as a moddie boy, a prototype skinhead. You all had your hair like a crew cut, cropped, with suits or Levis with red suspenders, sometimes Doc Martens. It was a thriving soul music, Motown and ska scene; we used to dance to Prince Buster and the Skatalites.

Graham Parker

I'm obsessed with the sound of today, but I was raised on the Motown sound.

GRiZ

Before hip-hop existed, we were listening to soul songs from the '70s. I grew up with Motown, Elton John, and the Beatles. To me, that's good music.

Gza

My mom taught me every dance move I've ever known to the Motown hits.

Hannah Bronfman

My mom was a huge Adam and the Ants fan. My granddad listened to a lot of Motown and Elvis and Johnny Cash. So I was kind of well-rounded.

Hayley Williams

I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.

Idina Menzel

There are certain things that we take for granted that simply would not have existed without the great migration. Motown, for example, would not have existed - it simply would not, because Berry Gordy, the founder of it, his parents had migrated from Georgia to Detroit where he founded Motown, and where did he get his talent?

Isabel Wilkerson

I've purposely made my music to be challenging and different. There's some electronics, R&B, blues, Motown, country, jazz and lots of soul.

Jack Garratt

I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much.

Jack White

I listen to a lot of oldies stuff. Some Motown, Michael Jackson, jazz, etc.

Jaime Harrison

I grew up in one of those households where, growing up in Detroit, you gravitate towards music and cars because we were the capital for a long time. Especially during my childhood. We were the Motown sound. We were the Motor City.

Jalen Rose