There’ll be Dancing in the Street today among the many fans stars and made famous with their association with the Motown Sound as the soul empire reaches the grand old age of 50 today.

Fifty years before Simon Cowell came Berry Gordy, a true talent scout who worked without TV, the Internet and reality shows and went on to create the legacy that would become The Tamla Mowtown Sound.

From Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye to The Isley Brothers, which of us hasn’t at sometime moved and grooved to their sounds on the dance floor? And you don’t have to have been born pre-1940 to have fallen in love with the Motown sound.

With 1980’s musicians such as Phil Collins creating his own version of The Supremes’ You Cant Hurry Love and David Bowie’s version of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ Dancing in the Street, the sound has been passed down from generation to generation and there doesn’t appear to be any break in its never ending success.

After Detroit songwriter and entrepreneur, Berry Gordy used an $800 loan to establish the now world renown company, it’s success looks set to straddle yet more and more generations as Motown plans a year-long celebration with record releases, documentaries and exhibitions. There’s even talk of a Broadway musical in 2010.

Not only is Motown associated with music but also with breaking down the racial barriers that existed in America in the 1950’s. But Gordy’s own strength was in producing and talent spotting and in the years leading up to Tamla’s foundation he built up an impressive portfolio of artists, including The Miracles whose lead singer Smokey Robinson actually encouraged Gordy to begin his own record label.

As Gordy, now 79, worked for a short time as a panel beater in the Lincoln Mercury plant he reminisces, “Every day I watched how a bare metal frame, rolling down the line, would come off the other end, a spanking brand new car. I thought what a great idea!

Maybe I could do the same thing with music. Create a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door, an unknown, go through a process, and come out another door, a star.”

And that’s exactly how Motown worked.