Janie Bradford Hobbs, one of the earliest songwriters at Motown and a co-writer of “Money (That’s What I Want),” one of the most covered songs in popular music history, died Saturday following an extended illness at a Los Angeles hospital. She was 87.
Her family announced her death. Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a statement that Bradford Hobbs was with him from the very beginning, before there was even a Motown, and that she will always hold a very special place in his heart and in the Motown family.
Her path to Motown
Bradford Hobbs was born in Charleston, Missouri, and later moved to Detroit. In the late 1950s, her neighbor and singer Jackie Wilson introduced her to Berry Gordy, who was in the early stages of building what would become the most commercially successful Black-owned music company in American history, later known as Motown.
She joined the company as a receptionist in 1958. The label’s early culture encouraged everyone in the building to contribute to what was being built, and Bradford Hobbs took full advantage of that environment.
The songs she wrote
Her most enduring credit came when she and Gordy co-wrote “Money (That’s What I Want).” Barrett Strong recorded the song in 1959 and it became an early hit for the label, establishing the company as a commercial force. The Beatles covered it and it became one of their hits as well, ensuring that the song crossed from rhythm and blues into rock history and reached audiences around the world who would never have encountered it otherwise.
“Too Busy Thinking About My Baby” followed a similar path. The Temptations recorded it first, and it later became a major hit for Marvin Gaye, expanding its reach across audiences and generations. Bradford Hobbs also wrote songs for Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas, placing her work at the center of the label’s most iconic catalog.
Her legacy
Bradford Hobbs worked during the founding period of an institution that transformed American popular music and provided a commercial platform and a national stage for Black artists at a time when the mainstream music industry erected significant barriers to that access. The songs she helped create have been recorded and performed for more than six decades.
The cover of “Money (That’s What I Want)” by the Beatles is among the most prominent examples of how Motown’s output traveled beyond its original audience and entered the canon of Western popular music. Her co-writing credit means her work is embedded in the history of two of the most significant forces in 20th-century popular music simultaneously.
She was 87 years old and had been part of Motown before the label had its name.
The Motown story she helped start
The story of the label begins in a house on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, and Janie Bradford Hobbs was there before the address became famous. The company that Gordy built would go on to produce some of the most commercially successful and culturally enduring music of the 20th century, from the early soul and rhythm and blues of its founding years through the pop crossover success that made its artists household names across racial lines during the Civil Rights era.
Bradford Hobbs was a receptionist who became a songwriter, a path made possible by the particular culture Gordy built, one that treated everyone in the building as a potential contributor to the music. That openness produced one of the most remarkable catalogs in the history of American popular music, and Bradford Hobbs was part of that from the first year.
She is survived by her family, who announced her death Saturday.
