How Ed Sullivan Got Barack Obama Elected

As the son of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, Kerry Gordy was surrounded by music and the icons who pioneered it his whole life. When he grew up and began working at Motown Records himself, artists like Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, and Michael Jackson became a part of his professional life too. In addition to the music industry, Gordy had his foot in the door of the film and television world as well. This is how he became one of the Executive Producers of “Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan.” In an in-depth interview with iWomanTV founder Cathleen Trigg-Jones, Gordy talks about the struggles musicians of color went through in the 1950s and 60s, the legacy of Ed Sullivan, and what it was like to work on a documentary about a man who helped uplift so many Black artists. 

Cathleen Trigg-Jones: Kerry, thank you so much for joining us today!

Kerry Gordy: I am so excited to be here. I mean, this is phenomenal for me, especially to be with you, not only an amazing personality, but one of my partners.

CTJ: Exactly. Yeah, we'll get into all that later, but yes we became business partners this year and it's exciting when you work with people that you love. But right now I want to talk about this incredible documentary that you are behind, you're the executive producer of the new Netflix sensation. It is called “Sunday Best,” if you have not seen it, don't watch it right this second, but as soon as we're done with this interview, I want you to make sure you go to Netflix and support this film for so many reasons. One, because it's just dynamic and two, because we've got to support us. We’re all we got. So we have to make sure that we're supporting our Black creators, and this story is a surprise actually, Kerry, this is the story of Ed Sullivan. 

I grew up with just a little bit of Ed Sullivan because I was a baby. He was born in 1901 and died in early 1974, I believe. But I remember my parents and I remember, you know, we had one TV in the house. It was a black and white television, and that we watched The Ed Sullivan Show when I was very little. Those early memories that actually shaped my desire to be on TV one day. But this is actually a civil rights story. And that's what's so remarkable about Ed Sullivan. 

KG: Well, here's how it started. Margo Speciale, who is Ed Sullivan's granddaughter, wanted to do something on her grandfather. Now, she was speaking to these two Black women, and one of them happened to be Ambassador Shabazz, Malcolm X's daughter. Malcolm X's daughter, when she was talking to Margo, was treating her like some kind of celebrity because she was telling how amazing Ed Sullivan was in the Black community because it was the first time that black people got to see people that looked like themselves on television.

What we didn't know is all of the things that Ed Sullivan had to go through in order to make this happen. I'm talking about everything from death threats to sponsorships leaving, to broadcasters going crazy over it, it was amazing. And so to that end, this man is a hero. And without him, we don't know if television would have ever been given a color because the fact of the matter is, it was all white and it was planned and programmed to stay white.

So we would not know of a Sammy Davis Jr or a Nat King Cole or an Ella Fitzgerald or Diana Ross and the Supremes, or a Jackson Five, had it not been for this man putting us in front of his audience and humanizing us in a way that the white audience had never known before. Because before that, any time you would see a Black person, it would be “Yes sir, boss!” or a maid or a butler. That was it. So it gave people like you and Oprah the ability to see people who look like them and to aspire to do this. Prior to that, there was no reference. 

CTJ: Wow. You know, and it's just for reference to really go back to this time period. This was in the 1960s, early civil rights era, where we didn't have a voice at all. We were talented, we were okay on the chicken circuit, but not necessarily respected in a way that we could earn money, that we could be seen, that we could have number one hits. But your father, Mr. Berry Gordy, also who broke the odds and just kind of came out and gave voice and gave a stage to all this amazing talent, the two of them together, how did that happen? How did that come to be? 

KG: Well, first of all, it started in the late 40s with Ed Sullivan putting people on. Bojangles. You know, it started there. What happens is, what kids don't know and what people don't know is all of the struggles that we had to go through just to be on TV, or just to have normal, civil rights. And so this documentary gives people the chance to really understand. Let me give you an example.This is in the 60s, the late 60s. My father had to put white people on the cover of his albums. Now, think about this: Everybody knows how Black the Isley Brothers are. But my father would put white people playing beach volleyball or with a beach ball on the beach, on the cover of an Isley Brothers record because he wanted to be able to get his records racked in the stores. They wouldn't put anything in the stores that had a Black face on it. And this is as late as the 60s. 

CTJ: So this documentary really chronicles all of that. You have everyone in it. You mentioned Oprah earlier and she certainly wasn't one of the Motown stars, but she's one of my heroes or sheroes, so it was good to even see her voice because she says if it wasn't for Ed Sullivan, there would have been no Oprah. But you have Smokey Robinson, you have everybody represented white, Black, all races because who did not love Ed Sullivan? 

KG: I don't know if it was that they loved Ed Sullivan, I think they loved what he stood for. And I think that they unconsciously loved Ed Sullivan. See, we rushed home on Sunday nights to see somebody that potentially looked like us, and it was great if we knew that, The Temptations we're going to be on Ed Sullivan. All the Black people would run home Sunday night, and if they didn't have a TV, they would go to their friends house who had a TV, because we were so proud to be able to see the Temptations or the Supremes or the Jackson Five, little Stevie Wonder, Nat King Cole, Satchmo, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne! 

CTJ: I mean, it was incredible to see that. So that's where the name Sunday Best comes from, this is where we gathered on Sunday night. 

KG:That's right.

CTJ: How did you go in this direction though? Because when you think of a documentary on Ed Sullivan, and I'm sure you got these questions, it's not exactly the story you would have imagined being told about Ed Sullivan. 

KG: Well, what happens is that once Margo Speciale, Ed Sullivan's granddaughter, had a chance to talk to Ambassador Shabazz, she was like, “oh, my gosh, this is amazing!” And then she started doing research about her grandfather and the civil rights, and she was, just like Ed Sullivan's father, an immigrant. He was an Irish immigrant, and they lived in Harlem, and when they came over the Irish were looked upon as less.

They were looked upon as stupid, dumb drunkards, and they were treated less. And Ed Sullivan's father told Ed, “listen, that is ridiculous. We're hard workers and this is ridiculous how people can be prejudiced against other people.” So, growing up in Harlem, he got to see all of this talent. And this talent was not represented at all on television.

So he said, you know what? I'm not gonna just give talent for the white people, I'm going to find the best talent. And it wasn't that it was Black talent, it was just the best. So whether it was Mexican, or Jewish or whatever it was, he put it on if it was the best. It just so happens that we have a little more rhythm and we have a little more style, and we shaped the culture, and so that's why there were a plethora of Black acts. He literally picked every one of the 10,000 acts on his show. If he didn't pick it, it didn't get on the show. 

CTJ: I read that his show had thousands of episodes, and you know, what did strike me when I was watching the documentary was that Harlem story. He was really the talk show host before there was a thing called a talk show host, Ed Sullivan was the guy! And when I was watching, I thought, well, I never knew he was from Harlem and I never knew, and it was that racism, that discrimination against the Irish that made him say, I don't want to be the person to discriminate against Black people because I know what it feels like and he was able to lift up and go and break those barriers, but it didn't come without a cost. 

KG: No, the cost was bodily harm. The cost was losing sponsorships. The cost was potentially losing his show. The cost was broadcasters turning on him, him being blackballed. He had a serious cost to pay, but he stood up for his principles. Now you were asking about, you know, why did we take it from this perspective?

When Margo got this epiphany from Shabazz she then started looking for people to help her get this kind of concept out. So she ended up going to a guy by the name of Ralph “Ralphie” Momar, who owns a company called Delirium. 

And then they started looking for directors that would take that vision and really make it something great, and they found Sacha Jenkins. Now, Sacha is amazing because he is kind of the epitome of Black culture. So when they got with him and they explained to him and then he said, oh yeah, this is perfect for me.So what happens is, I had done two movies with Sacha prior to this, which was “Biz Markie” and Rick James’ “Bitchin.’” And so we did those two things together, so I was probably the natural person for them to call and say, listen, we would love you to executive produce this thing and let's take it to another level. And I was like, well, you know, if we do this, we need to do this from a specific perspective, because I remember and they were like, boy, we were already ahead of you there. 

CTJ: And you’re the perfect person because of that.

KG: Well, perfect person because right place, right time, right contact base, and relationships with all of those people, which, by the way, there aren't many of those people left. And so it was a great marriage. But I have to tell you, Margo, who's Ed Sullivan's granddaughter, she stuck with it. She really wanted to make sure that people got to understand the civil rights side of her grandfather. If you think about it, anybody could have made an Ed Sullivan documentary. And most people would have thought, okay, if they're going to do an Ed Sullivan documentary it’s going to be about the Beatles and Elvis and the Rolling Stones and whatever that is. But taking it from this perspective and interweaving it with all of the stuff that was going on in the civil rights era and all of the injustices that were placed upon us and everything that we had to go through just to be normal was a thing. That's why it was important that when we went on television, we weren't threatening. We were clean cut. At Motown we had a division called Artists Development, and that was a division that showed them how to speak correctly, showed them how to walk correctly, showed them how to act in public so that we wouldn't be threatening to that greater general audience. And we did it very well. 

CTJ: How much of this do you remember growing up yourself? Because you featured so many people in this film.

KG: Well, here's the thing. I remember it from James Brown. I saw him first on Ed Sullivan and then I got to literally see first hand from James Brown, The Temptations, The Supremes, but my favorite, because they were a little older than me, but the Jackson Five.

CTJ: You know, we wake up just thinking of how blessed we are. Like, do you ever just pinch yourself and say, wow, my life. What an incredible journey this has been? 

KG: Okay, so my life is kind of unfair because I have lived the greatest life imaginable. Can you imagine growing up in the house that Motown was built? And all of these people are not. They're your family. They're your uncles and aunts and just part of your family. You don't even realize what's going on.

But me living on the top floor, the offices being in the middle, in the studio, being in the basement, running around with Stevie Wonder or Diana Ross. 

CTJ: What I love is that you're so amazing and you do so much to give back. I want to switch gears just for a minute, and I want to get back to the movie because we want to make sure that we push this documentary. But the work that you're doing now to make sure that artists and that our people are taken care of is just so incredible. And thank you for that. Talk about that a little bit. 

KG: Well, a lot of people call me the Robin Hood of the music side of the entertainment business, because what I do is I terminate contracts for people who sign their rights away early in their careers, before they have the leverage to make the best deals for themselves. 

So to that end, there's a certain statute in the law and it's rough because obviously the major companies want to hang on to everything. So what I do is I use that little snag in the law to say, listen, I'm going to terminate this artist at this year and get my rights back, or you can make me a deal that's reasonable so my artists can stay. So, for instance, we ended up getting Smokey over $20 million, and we ended up getting Valerie $10 million and a lot of people, 15, 18 million because the companies just said, okay, you know what? Yes, we want to keep them and you kind of have our hands tied a little bit. But the problem is, there's a finite amount of time in which you have to do it and if you don't do it, you lose it for good in perpetuity. 

CTJ: Well, let's make sure everybody calls you because it's terrible when these contracts would just go on and on and on and our artists are suffering, many of them. And I know some personal stories of some that are extremely well known, that are in documentaries of their own that couldn't pay their bills. 

KG: Well, that's the problem. It was the way that the music business was set up from the beginning. And copyright is such a complicated issue, and it's a moving target.

It seems like to me, every time Mickey Mouse comes up to go in the public domain, for some reason, the copyright law gets extended. And the current copyright owners get to own it for longer. When it first started, it was like 26 years, then it went 28 years and it went to 56 years, and now it's 75 years past the death of the last author.

So, it keeps going on. It's 95 years in the case of work for hire. So to that end, it just keeps moving and the major conglomerates have the power and the money and the lobbyists in Congress. So they have a serious advantage. So I came along and I said, you know what? If I can take advantage of this law which nobody thought could be done at the time, we can help some people. And we did. And we have.

CTJ: What advice do you have for today's artists that are probably facing some of these similar issues and just don't know any better? 

KG: Well, here's the thing. I think differently than a lot of people. A lot of people would say never give up your publishing and all of this kind of stuff. That's not where I come from. I come from the point of, yes, you want the people who are funding you to have a chance to recoup. You just don't want the contract to be never ending in one go. Because what happens is that once you get to the point of visibility, then you can call your own shots because the audience doesn't stick with the company.

The audience sticks with the IP or the talent. So you know Beyonce can go anywhere. It doesn't matter what company she's on. Nobody cares about that now. So as long as you make sure that whatever contract you get into one, that it has a definitive ending point. And two, that if there's some performance clauses in it. So that if you do get into something and the people are performing at a certain level, that you have the right to get out of it because if you're not performing, they're dropping you.

CTJ: Let's get back to this movie, Sunday Best. How did you transition from music into this film world?

KG:Well, everything that I do is based on passion and purpose. So the point is that anything that has a musical element, whether it's film or commercials or TV or games, it kind of falls into where I live. So, to that end, there was really not that big of a transition.

It was just kind of an intellectual property play where you say, wait a minute, you know what? We're helping so-and-so. We're helping Rick James get his rights back or get paid for his rights. Why not put together a film on him? We're helping Biz Markie do this or that. Why not do a film on him? So that's kind of how it transitioned and it wasn't even a thought process. It was like, yeah, I can do this. That's kind of what it was. 

CTJ: Do you have a favorite part of the documentary? Is there something that you learned? 

KG: Well, it's really funny. My favorite part isn't as much of what I learned, because I learned a tremendous amount while doing this movie, but my favorite part has to be the Jackson Five. Michael was my best friend in elementary school. We went to elementary school together. So what happens is to me, he was just Mikey, and he wasn't a star. He was just Mikey. Now, of course, I saw them rehearsing every day and doing whatever they did. But one day they put out this song, “I Want You Back.” It starts to catch fire, and the first thing that they do is they get on The Ed Sullivan Show. So they get on The Ed Sullivan Show, and now people that had no visibility have 35 to 50 million people seeing them.So they go on The Ed Sullivan Show a few times in that year and they end up doing their first tour, starting at Madison Square Garden. That is unheard of. So the point is, if you can get that kind of visibility in one or two or three performances, that's crazy. There was no internet then. There was nothing. So that was your shot to be seen. And so they went on, the phones lit up, and Motown took it from there. 

CTJ: Wow. What's so incredible to be able to live and tell this story. My favorite story was how he even got on television, how he wasn't trying to be a talk show host. He didn't know anything about CBS. He wasn't auditioning. They just decided one day to make a show live that he thought was going to be his normal variety show, and they decided to make it live. They offered him a shot to be the host of his own show on CBS. 

KG: The thing is, he was about to get fired as a journalist, a sports journalist and they said, you know what? You can either go on to this entertainment side or you can be fired. So he kind of had no choice but what he learned is that he had a gift for spotting talent, and he had a standard. And that was the thing. It was the standard that he had. And his standard was amazing because Black people had a standard as it related to entertainment as well. And, you know, we were great. Sammy Davis Jr was great. He wasn't good. He was great. And he played everything. He sang. He played the drums, he played the piano, he played the vibes, he played horn instruments. I mean, this guy could tap dance. And this guy was truly incredible. And how about Jackie Wilson?

CTJ: Yes. I didn't know that. I saw that, and I had no idea. 

KG: He was so cool. And the voice was amazing. Not good. And how about the fact that Nat King Cole wasn't just a singer, but an incredible piano player? Not a good piano player. Incredible. 

CTJ: We traditionally, from the beginning of time, have always had to be. And we joke about that among us, like, we've got to be a thousand times better, but you've literally had to be a thousand times better. It wasn't enough to just be good. 

KG: And we had to endure the racism, being spat upon, being beat up, being shot at. We had to endure and still have a positive attitude because all it would have taken was one outbreak. And then this doesn't work. Those Negroes are not to be trusted. They're dangerous. They're this and that. We can't have this.

CTJ: And you might have ended up in jail or dead. One last technical question. Because Ed actually kind of narrates his story, how did you do that?

KG: Well, Ed had a lot of letters that Margo went through. And she found those letters and we used an AI voice to recreate. We used his own voice to train this AI so that we could get his words in his voice narrating the story with all his original work. So nothing that’s said in there is from us. It's all from him. 

CTJ: How difficult was it to get this mainstream, get this made, or was it?

KG: Here's the thing: everything is a nightmare. If you take something from nothing to fruition, it's crazy. Now I've only been involved for three years, but Margo has been involved for ten years. She really did everything she could to push it. And I guess their last big push was to get me. That was the last big push. And so once they got me, then we were able to take it and arrange it in a way that glued it all together.

CTJ: Well thank God you came on board. Thank God you made this movie. Give me a lasting, you know, plug for anybody that's watching right now to go and and download or not download but click on Netflix and watch “Sunday Best.”

KG: Well it's very important. It's very important for our generation and this next generation coming up to understand our history and if we don’t do it now it's going to be lost. I met a person a couple of weeks ago, 24 years old, that I told him I was working with Stevie Wonder, and he was like, “Who's Stevie Wonder?” And I was like, okay, this is crazy. Our history can be lost. This is a 24 year old Black person, they should know who Stevie Wonder is. So here's how I look at it, how important this is to us. There's a guy by the name of Ed Sullivan that's putting these acts on. There's a guy by the name of Berry Gordy who starts this fledgling record company. He signs this guy by the name of Michael Jackson. They do a hundred million records with the Jackson Five. Then, my father decides that he is now going to make a movie called “The Wiz.” And in this movie where he has Richard Pryor and Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and Nipsey Russell and all these people, he decides that he's going to have this guy by the name of Quincy Jones do the score. So now Quincy Jones does the score, but when he does the score, he meets a guy by the name of Michael Jackson. So now Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones make an album which becomes “Thriller,” which is the biggest album in the history of the world. Through that, Quincy Jones is seen by the biggest director in the world, Steven Spielberg and Steven Spielberg says, you know what? We need to do a movie together. Let's do Color Purple. They do Color Purple now as production partners. Now, when Quincy is in Chicago, he sees this local talk show host that he says, this girl would be great in my movie. So he takes her, he puts her in the movie, and through that movie, her regional television show now gets national acclaim, and her name is Oprah Winfrey. And she decides to back a candidate by the name of Barack Obama. And that guy becomes the most important person in the world as the President of the United States. And he's a black man. And it started with Ed Sullivan through Berry Gordy, all the way up to Oprah. That wouldn't have happened without Ed Sullivan, without Berry Gordy, without Michael Jackson. Get what I'm saying. 

CTJ: Preach, man. That's a drop the mic moment. On that note, my friend, we're going to to let you get on with your day. Where are you right now? Is this your studio? 

KG: Yeah. This is my home studio. Well, it's my home studio, it’s my office, and I call it my man cave.

CTJ: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Everybody watching, please watch “Sunday Best” and it's getting some Oscar nods, potentially a lot of awards I think may come out of this. So congratulations. 

KG: You know we got the New York Times gave us five stars and Rolling Stone magazine gave us an incredible review and all of the black press is giving us just it's really overwhelming.