Artists & Bands

The Contours tunes

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Berry Gordy wrote most of the Contours tunes!

In the early days of Motown, Berry Gordy was very hands-on, writing and producing much of the material.

One of the first vocal groups he signed was The Contours for whom he wrote Do You Love Me.

There is some unresolved debate if he had offered it to The Temptations and they turned it down, or if he wrote it for the Contours but it took them a while before they reached Berry’s high standards, and he used the Temptations as a threat to get the group going.

Nevertheless, Do You Love Me was a massive hit, prior to it, Mr. Gordy’s relatively new label had only had hits with Smokey Robinson’s The Miracles, The Marvelettes, and Barrett Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want), a song Berry also wrote.

Following the immense success, The Contours continued to record tunes Berry wrote for them, although none lived up to the success they’d had with Do You Love Me.