RAYNOMA GORDY SINGLETON,
1937-2016

Raynoma Gordy Singleton, the business partner and second wife of Berry Gordy Jr. who played at key role in the early days of Motown Records, died on Nov. 11 in Woodland Hills. She was 79.

The New York Times reported the cause was brain cancer; services were held in Canoga Park in mid-November, according to the Detroit News.

Singleton met Gordy in 1958 when she auditioned for him as a singer—she also happened to play 11 instruments. She worked with into 1964, singing backup, producing records under the name Miss Ray, writing song arrangements, teaching theory to Smokey Robinson and helping run their publishing company Jobete. She found the former photography studio that would become Hitsville U.S.A., their headquarters and studio; she signed the label’s first contract with Stevie Wonder.

Singleton and Gordy were married in 1960, a year after she gave birth to their son Kerry Gordy. They divorced in 1964, and in 1965, she married songwriter Eddie Singleton and they started a label, Shrine, in Washington.

After the label failed—and the Singletons divorced—she worked as an assistant to Diana Ross before returning to Motown as manager of the band Apollo, which featured her son Kerry, who would later use the stage name Rockwell and have a hit with “Somebody’s Watching Me,” which Singleton executive produced.