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The Gallery
The gallery includes the museum’s core interpretative exhibition. Visitors get an overview of the key events in the development of Motown as a business and cultural force. The exhibits show how the music and the artists grew in accomplishment and influence, and how the company evolved from a small record company to a force that shaped and reflected one of the most dynamic cultural and political periods in our history. Visitors see original stage uniforms worn by famous Motown artists, sheet music, early promotional materials, rare photos and other significant items relative to this remarkable story.

The Echo Chamber
Before the age of synthesizers and computer-aided recording, Motown engineers created special sound effects by ingenious means. A rich piece of Motown’s history is relived, when visitors clap and sing into Motown’s innovative echo chamber (a hole cut in the ceiling), and experience early reverb. When “Studio A” was in use, the effects created by the echo chamber were relayed to the recording studio; they can be heard on recordings such as “Where Did Our Love Go, ” “Dancing In The Streets” and “Make Me The Woman You Go Home To.”

Motown Style
In addition to their sound, one of the key elements that distinguished Motown artists was their uniquely polished style and wardrobe. On display are uniforms designed for a number of famous Motown artists such as the Supremes, Brenda Holloway, The Temptations and others. The museum is also home to the trademark, jeweled white glove and black fedora hat worn by Michael Jackson.

Berry Gordy’s Apartment
In 1959, Berry Gordy, Jr. purchased the two family flat at 2648 West Grand Boulevard and christened it “Hitsville USA.” The apartment has been restored to its 1959-1960 appearance when it was home to Gordy and his young family. It contains the original master bedroom set and living room sofa. The dining room table served as the “shipping department” in the company’s earliest days. When Gordy and his family moved to a separate residence, the apartment was converted into office space for songwriters and producers.

Control Room
Visitors get an up close view of the original control room equipment used to record the “Motown Sound”. The equipment on view is a three-track recording console from the early 60’s that was upgraded to eight-track capacity by Motown’s in-house engineering department. It replaced a two-track recording console that was used to record Motown’s earliest hits. Voices and instrumentals were recorded on separate “tracks” which enabled producers and engineers to adjust the individual elements of a song after the recording session was over. Among the first songs recorded on this equipment were “Shop Around,” “Please Mr. Postman,” and “Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance).”

Recording “Studio A”
In 1959 Motown Records created its first recording studio, the famous “Studio A.” “Studio A” was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week from 1959 until 1972. Although in 1968 the company moved it’s headquarters to a ten-story building in downtown Detroit, artists continued to record in “Studio A”.

Today, visitors see “Studio A” just as it was with original instruments and equipment used during Motown’s Detroit era. Visitors stand where Motown greats such as, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and the Jackson Five, among others, stood and recorded their hits.

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