Category Archives: Michael McRobbie

07/29/2014
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Book Corner, Fred Glass, Indiana University, John W. Tilford, Kevin Wilson, Michael McRobbie, Tom Crean

Hot Air

Sports U.

The highest paid Indiana University employee, acc’d’g to the an op-ed in today’s Herald Times (paywall), is basketball coach Tom Crean, who rakes in a cool $604,858 per year. Sitting just below him and IU Pres. Michael McRobbie ($566,860) in the pay firmament is football head coach Kevin Wilson, who pockets $531,644 per annum.

And just to make sure the jock pop. of our local institution of higher education gets its just deserts, athletic director Fred Glass boasts a &458,007 salary. Poor guy doesn’t even make a half mill a year; how does he make ends meet?

Crean

Tom Crean Accepting His Weekly Bushel Of Money

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Let’s not kid ourselves anymore: Indiana University, like many, many other U.’s around the nation, is really a sports entertainment concern that just happens to dabble in things like education and scientific inquiry on the side.

Funny thing is, just yesterday I had a sit-down with a pal o’mine who happens to be a research scientist at IU. Let’s call him Dr. Brain. Every year Dr. Brain must search for funding for his lab (as well as his relatively paltry salary) from granting agencies around the country. He must fill out reams of applications, justifying not only his scientific work but also his very existence as a learned member of society. Then he must lay awake nights wondering if this foundation or that federal government department will fork over a few thousand bucks. To keep his lab running and to ensure he makes enough to support his modest home and his 16-year-old car, Dr. Brain must cobble together any number of gifts from donors every single year.

Dr. Brain was overjoyed yesterday because his funding for the coming year seems in the bag. Note I typed seems. He hasn’t gotten final confirmation for his package of grants just yet. Everything, though, seems in order, he says.

Hmm. If there’s a problem, I wonder if Dr. Brain might be able to request grants from the likes of Tom Crean and Kevin Wilson.

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Books On The Brae

Col. John Tilford, former Dem primary candidate for US Congress and tireless advocate for veterans’ concerns, dashed off to Scotland with his lovely missus, Polly, not long ago. Natch, he found one of the few bookstores in a sparsely populated stretch of the northern highlands. He was eager to tell me about it when he visited the Book Corner last week.

The Scot store, he sez, was a two-story affair, the main floor ringed by a balcony-like structure. Nearly every square inch of the place is crammed with tomes and smack dab in the middle of the main floor is an old fashioned wood-burning stove. That, acc’d’g to the Col., is the facility’s heating plant.

I don’t suppose that store will be making the switch to selling e-books and Kindles very soon.

In any case, Tilford sent me a pic of the store:

Bookstore/Tilford

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I imagine Tilford’s been wringing his hands of late over the VA hospital scandals and the unwillingness of certain obsessive ledger book-watching legislators to pay for veterans’ care. Far too many of us are perfectly happy to let somebody else’s kid get his brains blown out for the cause of “freedom” (something I’d argue this holy land hasn’t actually fought for since July 27, 1953). Nor are terribly many of us willing to pay for the psychological and physical care of people we’ve shipped off to all corners of the world to wage war for our interests.

Keep up the good fight for the veterans, Colonel!

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07/06/2014
3 Comments
American Revolution, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, Gerald Horne, Mark Kruzan, Mary Ellen Diekhoff, Michael McRobbie, Mike Diekhoff, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Magazine

Hot Air

Big Shots; Small Town

Despite all the efforts of Indiana University boss Michael McRobbie and his viceroy, Mark Kruzan, to turn Bloomington into a gargantuan megalopolis along the lines of, say, Karachi or Lagos, this burgh still remains, to some little extent, a small town.

From "The Andy Griffith Show"

Long Gone, Mostly

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To wit: Yesterday while The Loved One and I enjoyed a spectacular dinner of grilled swordfish (still on sale at Kroger for $7.99 a pound!) at a neighbor’s home, Bloomington chief of police Mike Diekhoff rang the bell and delivered a still-warm plate of berry cobblers made from scratch by his lively bride, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Mary Ellen Diekhoff. And even though our hosts had promised their own homemade key lime pie, we felt compelled to dig into the cobblers as well after finishing up all our vegetables.

It was a decision none of us regretted.

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Don’t Tread On My Slave Trade

So, after gushing about how fab this holy land is yesterday, I’m back to pointing out the chinks in our Armor All™.

One historian specializing in African American studies presents a fascinating argument that the American Revolution was more a war to preserve slavery than a landmark for liberal governance in human history. Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman last week interviewed Gerald Horne of the University of Houston. Horne posits that the British were close to pushing for abolition in the colonies in the lead up to the Revolution. Reps of the slave colonies became panicky, acc’d’g to Horne’s argument, and thus the decision was made to take up arms against the King.

George III

George III: Abolitionist

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I imagine the landed slaveholders of Virginia, Georgia, et al might have been driven to join the cause of independence because of the Crown and Parliament’s burgeoning anti-slave sentiments, but I doubt one can credit/blame the entire Revolution on the effort to preserve the slave trade.

Nevertheless, Horne’s is a needed exploration of how important slavery was to some of the Colonies back around 1776. Check out Goodman’s tête-à-tête with Horne here. Then you might follow up by reading Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ call for reparations in a recent issue of The Atlantic magazine.

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06/09/2014
2 Comments
Indiana University, Michael McRobbie, Noam Chomsky, Salon.com, Student Debt, Thomas Frank

Hot Air

Robed Racketeers

Thomas Frank throws the book at colleges and universities in this holy land in this Sunday’s Salon.

Frank

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Acc’d’ng to the fearless journalist and essayist, college tuition has gone up 1200 percent in 30 years. Twelve hundred percent!

Let’s say you, like me, weighed a svelte 175 libra pondos aways back in 1984. Shoot, man, back in those glory days you, like me, could have eaten an entire pizza and then gone out for an all-night bike ride, something I did more than once when I was a callow 28 y.o. But, of course, time catches up with all of us and before we know it we’re all a tad thicker in face and waist, among other locales.

But if you had a weight gain of 1200 percent, today you’d be tipping the scale, if not the entire house, at a mind-boggling 2100 lbs. Sheesh! Yeah I’ve packed on the suet, but jimineez, I don’t weigh a ton with a hondo click to spare!

Nothing goes up 1200 percent in 30 years. Not gasoline. In 1984, a gallon of motion lotion set you back $1.30. Today, we’re crying like kindergartners because that gallon costs about $3.75. Me Party-ists, militia maniacs, and tinfoil hat wearers are oiling up their shootin’ irons in prep. for the coming revolt, caused in large part by today’s gas pump “insanity.”

And that gallon of 87 octane has only gone up 289 percent since the Orwell year.

I could go on and on with examples of how nothing — nothing! — has gone up 1200 percent in 30 years, not even pot. Yet, if you want your snowflake to get a good educ., you’d better hope you’d started stashing away your quarters three decades ago. Every single freaking one of them.

Thomas Frank indicts college administrators, politicians, and a compliant, obeisant, credulous media for this hyper-inflation going on for the better part of a lifetime. We’ve believed every bullshit excuse university presidents have tossed out. By Frank’s count, the bosses of higher education have blamed the following for their larceny:

  • Utility bills
  • Libraries
  • Their own professors
  • Gov’t regulation (natch, all crooks fall back on that cop-out)
  • Students who demand luxury accommodations
  • High technology
  • Cultural diversity
  • Students abusing substances
  • Americans with Disabilities Act access ramps
  • Declining student population
  • Competition with other universities

What the presidents haven’t mentioned, Frank says, is the growth of the administrator class, in both number and in average salary. And those administrators kept on telling us that a college degree was worth more than a million dollars over a graduate’s lifetime. That is, an alum of the institution that was fleecing you could expect to earn a cool million more than some high school grad slob, so if you don’t mind, we’re gonna continue to fleece you.

Of course, the average student graduating from college in 2013 was stuck with a $35,000 debt in student loans and credit card bills. Try paying that off on $8.25 an hour, which is prob. what you’ll be making for the foreseeable future. You’re stuck, grads, although you’ll always have the warm memory of those carpeted, air-conditioned luxury dorm rooms — which you allegedly asked for.

Lucky we’ve got Noam Chomsky around to try to make some sense of the situ.:

My feeling is that student fees are instituted, basically as a technique of indoctrination and control. I don’t think there’s an economic basis for them. And it’s interesting that, you look at the timing — like when I went to college, I went to an Ivy League university, The University of Pennsylvania. Tuition was only $100 and you could easily get a scholarship.

Students today are over $1 trillion in debt. That’s more than credit card debt. A trillion dollars of debt? That’s a burden on people coming out of college. It’s got them trapped. It (tuition) is a technique of control, and it surely isn’t an economic necessity in the richest country in the world. All sorts of things started happening — the university architecture changed. Universities that were built, worldwide, in the post-’70s and on, are usually designed so that they don’t have meeting places, designed just to keep students separated and under control. Look at the ratio of administrators to faculty: it’s gone way up the last couple of decades … not for educational purposes, but for more techniques of control.

… [I]t’s a general form of indoctrination and control, which goes down to kindergarten. I mean, that’s what No Child Left Behind is about. It’s training for the Marine Corps. It’s a way to make sure that children aren’t free, independent or inquisitive, exploring.

Our own Indiana University is building huge monuments to itself seemingly on every corner of the campus. Local developers are building ugly fortresses where students can live, drink, toke, and fumble their way through sexual encounters without worry about anybody even shaking a finger at them. They are the scions of wealth. They even study now and again. They’d better, because they’re gonna owe a lot after graduation.

Most important, they are under control. Let’s go back to Noam Chomsky:

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition Fee increases are a disciplinary technique, and by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the disciplinarian culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.

Yeah, the kids are under control but so are we. Who’s going to be the first of us to tell Michael McRobbie and his cohorts that they’re lying and we know it?

[Side note: If you want to read even more about this, try Suzanne Mettler’s new book, Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. It’s reviewed in yesterday’s New York Times.]

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05/20/2014
1 Comment
Charles Barkley, Credit Suisse, Eric Holder, Income Tax Evasion, Indiana University, Michael McRobbie, Racism, Robert Copeland, Rush Limbaugh, South Korea Ferry Sinking, Turkey Mining Disaster, Wolfeboro New Hampshire

Hot Air

Big Man On Campus

So, Indiana University big boss Michael McRobbie copped himself a cool million bucks-plus in pay last year. Not only that, he got a luxury car and nearly $50k to cover his housing expenses. Oh, and the U. cut him a check to cover the taxes on some of his pay.

Nice deal.

The Herald Times revealed McRobbie’s sweet 2012-2013 deal (paywall) this AM.

McRobbie

Millionaire McRobbie

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McRobbie, acc’d’g to the H-T, ranked sixth among public university presidents in the nation in terms of pay. It’s a one-off deal, though. When McRobbie inked his deal with IU in 2007, he was promised a sugary bonus if he stayed here for five years. He pocketed more the $300,000 last year in exchange for his undying loyalty.

Still, $6-700,000 in slave wages for a year ought to soothe some of the sting of a second potentially harsh winter in a row here in So Cen In.

Is IU getting its money’s worth?

The graduation rate for baccalaureate students entering the U. in 2007 (the last cohort group measured, using a six-year window) was 58.2 percent. That includes students at all seven IU campuses. The grad. rate for Bloomington campus scholars was a more gaudy 77 percent.

Problem is, the U. says students hoping to grow their brains here in the 2014-15 school year should expect to shell out $24,418 if they’re Indiana residents and $47,270 if they’re not. If the U. has any business sense (and, believe me, it does, it does) it’ll hope that scads more kids from New Jersey, Long Island, and Pennsylvania sign up for classes this coming fall semester.

Rich Kid

Image From The Rich Kids Of Instagram

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The re-positioning of IU as a destination school for the spawn of East Coast swells has profoundly changed our town. Walnut Street and College Avenue are becoming soulless mini-canyons of condominium developments. And the City Council has angered the populace by installing parking meters downtown in large part to try to control where the students living in those new buildings park their SUVs.

And B-towners who dreamed that the Square would be quaint collection of locally-owned shops and boutiques have been awakened from their reveries by the sprouting of wine and sports bars and the closing of a number of long-time merchants downtown.

The Indiana University board of trustees may be thrilled to pieces with the performance of Michael McR. since he come aboard seven years ago but townies may not be so full of glee.

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Copeland Cops Out

That small town police chief who was overheard calling Prez Barack H. O. a nigger has been forced out of office.

Miserable old cur Robert Copeland, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire’s police commissioner, was under pressure from all sides to take a powder after he described the Leader of the Free World using the slur at a local diner a couple of weeks ago.

For his part, Copeland feels he’s well within the bounds of decency and logic to use such terminology. He has written, “I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse [sic].”  “For this, I do not apologize — he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.”

Copeland & Woman

Copeland Takes The Heat (Image/Concord Monitor)

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Far Right Wingers as well as crypto- and unapologetic racists are howling about the First Amendment, natch. Emetic-in-human-form Rush Limbaugh, for instance, likens Copeland to basketball analyst Charles Barkley who, in February and again earlier this month, made some insulting remarks about the collective girth of San Antonio women. Barkley, Limbaugh points out, similarly refuses to apologize.

As if that makes Copeland’s verbal retch acceptable.

The difference? Barkley is a former pro athlete and an idiot. Copeland is civic leader, a law officer with the power to detain, arrest, and interrogate.

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Wrist-Slapping

The banksters who run Crédit Suisse have been caught red-handed setting up schemes for American plutocrats to hide their money in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced a $2.5 billion fine against the bank yesterday. For it’s part, Crédit Suisse’s capo di tutti capi, Brady Dougan, mewled, “We deeply regret the past misconduct that led to this settlement.”

Presumably, Dougan gathered ’round with the rest of his fellow scam artists to celebrate the fact that none of them — repeat, none — will be indicted on criminal charges. And, again, no one will go to jail for bilking the American public and enriching the oligarchy of this holy land.

Credit Suisse

We’ll Stash Your Dough

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Crédit Suisse, like the Wall Street firms that caused the global financial meltdown of 2007-08, swims in money. The paying of a fine, no matter how eye-popping it appears to the rest of us, is scant penalty for its acts of immorality and outright felony.

Contrast this to the fallout from that ferry sinking in South Korea or the mine disaster in Turkey.

Not only are the rich getting richer in this holy land, they’re becoming more and more immune from the law.

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01/25/2012
5 Comments
Antarctica, Barack Obama, David Baker, Diane Singleton, Eugene McCarthy, Felicity Aston, George Gershwin, Herald Times, Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music, Jazz, Kepler 22b, Kevin Wilson, Mark Kruzan, Michael McRobbie, Miles Davis, Mitch Daniels, Morning Edition, NPR, Porgy and Bess, Steve Inskeep, The Purple Pig, Tom Crean

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important.” — Eugene McCarthy

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SMALL TOWN HEARTS

One more observation from the sad tale of Diane Singleton, who was found dead near a creek Monday evening after wandering away from home earlier in the day.

More than 100 people volunteered to search for her Monday. The volunteers included friends, family, her fellow church-goers, her husband’s co-workers and students, and many others. Once again, Bloomington-folk have proven themselves to be caring and willing to go out of their way for their brothers and sisters.

Searching (photo by Jeremy Hogan/Herald Times)

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Which is in stark contrast to the likely reaction of people in my old hometown Chicago. Sure, the word would have gotten around and people would have shaken their heads and clucked their tongues upon learning of the woman’s disappearance. “That’s a horrible shame,” a typical Chicagoan would have said. “I wish I could do something to help. Say, let’s get over to the Purple Pig for dinner — I’m dying to taste those prosciutto escarole bread balls.”

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WON’T THEY EVER LISTEN?

A lesser human than I am would become frustrated.

Once again, the world is refusing to listen to me. I mean, I’ve got all the answers, which I gladly share with the Earth’s seven billion residents on a daily basis here.

See, I’ve harped on this too many times to count already. Still, people continue to waste their time and effort doing things that…, that…, well, that are stupid.

To wit: someone named Felicity Aston has become the first woman to ski solo across the Antarctic. I remind you that the Antarctic is more than a thousand miles wide. It is the world’s largest desert. Mean temperatures during the summer (it’s the equivalent of late July there right now) range from -5 to -31F.

Summer

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Locations in Antarctica experience a phenomenon known as whiteout. Here’s a description from an Antarctica travel site (go figure): “”Whiteouts are another peculiar Antarctica condition, in which there are no shadows or contrasts between objects. A uniformly gray or white sky over a snow-covered surface can yield these whiteouts, which cause a loss of depth perception — for both humans and wildlife.”

Early explorers learned to keep an eye on their fellow travelers, looking for signs of disorientation due to hypothermia. People can literally go mad in the frigid air and the howling winds.

Bet you’re itching to click on that site so you can plan next January’s vacation, no?

It’s in this frozen hell that Felicity Aston decided to ski, alone, for 59 days, in order to get from one end of the continent to the other.

A continent, by the way, that’s fairly well mapped, considering there’s nothing there.

So Felicity Aston isn’t doing the world a favor by pushing into an unknown land, striving to discover new flora and fauna, hoping to learn something about the biome that might benefit civilization.

No. She skied 1,084 miles, dragging her supplies on a couple of sleds behind her because…, well, because.

Aston

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NPR Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep interviewed her this morning as she waited for the last flight out of Antarctica before the weather turns bad (turns bad?) for the year. She spoke of days when she was unable even to see her feet because of the driving snow. She could only keep her head down and watch her compass as she schussed across the ice shelf on those days.

Inskeep asked her if she was happy to get back to base camp and interact with people again after nearly three months of solitude. She replied, unsurprisingly, no. She did say, though, that she had to remind herself not to pee wherever she felt like it, as she did during her journey.

Nice of her.

At the conclusion of the interview, Inskeep told her, “Congratulations.”

Lucky I wasn’t the interviewer. I would have told her, “So what?”

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FAVORITE SON

Mitch Daniels gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress last night.

When it comes time for the GOP to select a vice presidential candidate in August, the party could do a hell of a lot worse than Daniels. They probably will.

Daniels

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WE TREASURE DAVID BAKER — BUT NOT AS MUCH AS…

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks, you know that David Baker celebrated his 80th birthday on December 21st.

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The Indiana University and Bloomington communities have been toasting him since November. The Jacobs School of Music threw a gala birthday bash for him Saturday night at the Musical Arts Center. Speeches were made, Michael McRobbie presented Baker with the President’s Medal of Excellence, students and fellow faculty members serenaded him, a proclamation by Mayor Kruzan was read declaring January 21st David Baker Day in Bloomington, and the Jacobs School announced the establishment of the David Baker Jazz Scholarship.

Baker, natch, is a legend and one of the top people in his field in the world.

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So, troublemaker that I am, I decided to check the Herald Times database of public employee salaries, just — you know — for kicks.

Baker, as near as I can determine, made nearly $147,000 as a professor in the jazz department at the Jacobs school last year.

Good. I’m glad he gets paid handsomely for his contributions to that peculiarly American art form. I hope that the residents of the planet Kepler 22b, when they finally translate our radio transmissions, hear some of Baker’s music. They’ll get a good first impression of our crazy, mixed up world.

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And how crazy and mixed up is it?

IU football coach Kevin Wilson made half a mill last year for the singular accomplishment of leading the Hoosiers to a 1-11 record. Tom Crean, the basketball boss, made 600 Gs. Of course, Crean’s guys are a tad more adept than the gridders.

I’m just sayin’.

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SUMMERTIME

Miles Davis plays George Gershwin‘s tune from the opera, “Porgy and Bess.”

That’s all I need to say.

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01/12/2012
3 Comments
Amy Gerstman, Barrett Strong, Berry Gordy Jr., Bill Cook, Book Corner, College Sports, Dan Smith, Indiana University, Jim Manion, John Mellencamp, Juvenal, Kelley School of Business, Lilly Endowment, Michael McRobbie, Monroe County, Motown, Phi Beta Kappa Society, Rhonda Foster, Riley Manion, Sheriff Jim Kennedy, Tamla, WFHB

The Pencil Today:

TODAY’S QUOTE

“Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (But who will guard the guards themselves?)” — Juvenal

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GERSTMAN’S GOTTA GO

So now Monroe County Auditor Amy Gerstman is facing another charge: She hasn’t been taking minutes at county meetings, as she’s required to do by state law.

This, of course, is on top of the charges that she used credit cards issued to her office for personal expenses like groceries, gifts, and even her kids’ private school tuitions. The county board voted to censure Gerstman yesterday.

The Soon-To-Be Ex-County Auditor?

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Board members say Gerstman has been notably absent from board and committee meetings even though it’s her duty to record their proceedings. For her part Gerstman says she’s entitled to send a proxy to do that grunt work.

That would be fine if, say, Gerstman came down with the flu on the date of a meeting. But, if county board members are to be believed, this “flu” has lasted a long, long time.

I suppose we can’t blame Gerstman for not wanting to show her face at public meetings, considering the silly and embarrassing things she’s been doing with county dough. Admittedly, she has paid it all back but, as I cracked earlier, the bank robber who tries to return the sack of cash he took at gunpoint still is a bank robber.

Gerstman didn’t show up to work yesterday, indicating she may be contemplating doing the right thing. That’s resigning.

I mean, honestly, the woman is the auditor, for pity’s sake. Her job is to make sure the county’s money is being spent correctly. The Gerstman saga is the equivalent of learning that Sheriff Jim Kennedy runs a local crime syndicate.

And, BTW, Gerstman hasn’t been the only official who feels the county’s credit cards are really hers. Human Resources Director Rhonda Foster quit her post abruptly last week after it was learned she, too, had played fast and loose with county plastic. If not the flu, then something‘s going around the Showers Building.

The Ex-HR Chief

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A regular county commissioners meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall at 9:00am. The smart move is for Gerstman to submit her resignation at the meeting and, perhaps, issue a heartfelt public apology at the same time.

We’re forgiving folks around here. We’re happy she’s paid back the money that she used for personal expenses. We hope she’s learned her lesson and will go on to thrive in the private business world.

But we know this: We don’t want Amy Gertsman watching our public funds anymore.

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MONEY FOR SOMETHIN’

Yes, I realize I may be run out of town for this statement, but I’m glad somebody’s giving Indiana University a pile of cash for something other than a sports cathedral.

Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith and IU President Michael McRobbie are patting each other on the back for scoring a $33M grant from the Lilly Endowment for an expansion and renovation project. Kelley’s undergrad factory will gain an additional 71,000 square feet and will be decked out with all the latest hi-tech gadgets by 2015.

Excessively Straight-Backed Biz Students Watch Vid Screens In Their New Digs

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That thirty-three large will be thrown in with some $27M already collected from alumni and other donors to round out the planned $60M job. The Lilly grant is the largest the Kelley has ever received as well as one of the biggest in the university’s history.

Smith says: “The new facilities will allow the school to more fully execute an experiential learning approach to business education.” I think he means the new plant will make Kelley students smarter.

Which I’ve always thought was the aim of a major university. Or even a minor one, for that matter.

See, I only arrived on the scene a couple of years ago. Native Bloomingtonians may be used to it, but I was shocked at the size and scope of IU’s sports facilities. And the area’s deep-pocketed usual suspects, like the late Bill Cook and the still-kicking John Mellencamp, seem always to be donating bread for another towering, sprawling gym or shower room.

How clean do our “student-athletes” need to be after a workout?

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SMART COOKIE, PROUD PAPA

WFHB Music Director Jim Manion dropped by the Book Corner yesterday. He’s still crowing about his daughter Riley’s nomination to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in December.

They say pride is one of the deadly sins but when a guy is walking on air because his daughter has been named to one of the most prestigious academic societies on the planet, well, that ain’t no sin, baby.

Riley (l) And Jim Manion

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The Pencil extends its warmest congrats to Riley and Jim.

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MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)

Barrett Strong‘s “Money…” can be considered the granddaddy of all Motown hits. Start-up record impresario Berry Gordy, Jr. released the 45 in 1959 under his Tamla label and it became a hit in early 1960. Its success spurred Gordy to incorporate under the Motown banner that spring.

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