The sight of Berry Gordy at Golden World on consecutive weekends, set tongues wagging that he was showing an interest in the studio.

It was rumoured that he was feeling uneasy about the quality that was flowing from West Davison and had approached Ed Wingate with an offer.

This may not be exactly true, however, as Gordy had to outbid a Bob d'Orleans consortium to wrestle the studio from Wingate and Bratton. This suggests that the studio had been on the open-market.

In September 1966 Gordy landed the prize by way of a reputed $1 million bid. Whether that was the figure or not will probably remain conjecture.

As well as owning the studio, Motown now owned Myto Publishing and the contracts of Edwin Starr and JJ Barnes.

It is astonishing to think that Wingate and Bratton were only based there for eighteen months.

Bob d'Orleans, who helped establish and run the studio, was out of a job and began to work with Sidra. 

Mike McLean, Motown's Chief Engineer, gave an opinion of Bob's work in an open letter to the Soulful Detroit forum........