Al Abrams
  

 

Al Abrams was the press agent and public relations consultant for Motown during its early years. He was born in a Jewish section of a Polish community in Detroit. After graduating high school early at age fifteen, he considered attending college on scholarship before deciding to go to work. He lied about his age and worked various jobs, including as for the Handleman company--a music distributor--and as mailroom trainee for the McCann-Erickson advertising firm.

 

 

Abrams (right) and Berry Gordy, Jr. in 1994. (Image courtesy of Al Abrams).


He first got a job working for Berry Gordy, Jr. on a bet. Abrams was a fan of "race records" and had already written gossip column on music and culture at his high school for the Detroit Tribune, a local black newspaper. Now Abrams wanted to work in the business himself. He pestered Gordy about getting a job until Gordy gave him an awful-sounding record recorded on his vanity label "Zelman" (which would record any "artist" that paid $100) and told Abrams that the job was his if he could somehow get the record played on the radio. Abrams took the record to a remote where disk jockey Larry Dixon was broadcasting. Abrams, already displaying the tenacity of a good press agent, refused to leave the remote unless Dixon would play the record. Finally Dixon relented. Just then, Gordy happened to be listening to that very radio station, WCHB. Hearing the record, Gordy realized he would have to honor his word and give Abrams a job.

Abrams worked in many capacities for Gordy. He wrote press releases and album notes, and ghostwrote news stories purportedly by Motown artists like Diana Ross. Along the way, he made up legends--Bob Dylan had called Smokey Robinson "America's greatest living poet"--that are now cited as facts in generally reliable writings about Motown. He worked in the capacity that had gotten him a job, taking records to disk jockeys seeking airplay. He also worked with the local media, sending out press releases and generally trying to get the name of Motown and those of its stars in print.

 


Abrams left Motown in 1966 to pursue his career elsewhere. He founded a private P.R. firm, Al Abrams Associates, and began working for Stax/Volt records, a major Motown competitor. He would later do P.R. work for Florence Ballard after she left the Supremes, as well as Holland-Dozier-Holland on their independent, post-Motown Invictus label.

Today, Abrams, is a journalist. He writes regularly for three weekly newspapers, including La Prensa, a Latino weekly based in Ohio, and the Sojourner's Truth, an African-American weekly.