Motown Records veteran William “Mickey” Stevenson, one of label founder Berry Gordy Jr.’s top lieutenants at Hitsville USA, has launched his own diversified entertainment firm.
Los Angeles-based Stevenson Intl. Entertainment Group will have interests in artist management, music publishing, recording, sampling and live-show production, a statement issued on Friday said.
Among the developing acts represented by the firm’s B&W Management division are R&B singer Novel, whose debut album will be released by MCA Records later this year, and his unsigned 14-year-old sister Amber. They are two of soul icon Solomon Burke’s grandchildren.
Stevenson’s Mikim Music division boasts a database that contains more than 30 years’ worth of musical track recordings that can be cleared for sampling within 36 hours.
Stevenson served as Motown’s first A&R director-vice president in the mid-1960s, overseeing creative output for the famed Detroit label. He co-wrote such classics as Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” and Marvin Gaye’s “Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” “Hitch Hike” and “Pride and Joy.” His production credits include Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted.”
He is currently featured in the Artisan Pictures documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” which details the hitherto unrecognized work of the label’s house band, the Funk Brothers.
