Janie Bradford, the onetime receptionist for Berry Gordy who co-wrote the R&B classic “Money (That’s What I Want),” the first big hit for the founder of Motown Records, has died. She was 87.
Bradford died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after an extended illness, her family announced.
Bradford also co-wrote “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” which Marvin Gaye took to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969, and songs for other artists including Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, the Four Tops and Martha & the Vandellas.
She later served as head of writer relations for the Motown publishing company Jobete.
Born on June 2, 1939, in Charleston, Missouri, Bradford was inspired to be a writer after her idol, poet Robert Frost, visited her high school.
While living in Detroit with her sister, Clea, she became neighborhood friends with singer Jackie Wilson, who had just charted with his first solo single, the 1957 party anthem “Reet Petite.” Wilson invited her to meet Gordy, one of the song’s writers, and she gave him a collection of her poetry.
After Gordy had launched the Tamla and Motown labels in 1959, he hired Bradford as a receptionist. One day, as Gordy was working on a song, Bradford joined him at the piano to add her own verse — “Your love gives me such a thrill, but your love don’t pay my bills. Gimme some money, baby!”
The song, of course, would become “Money (That’s What I Want).” First recorded by Barrett Strong, it peaked at No. 23 on the Hot 100 and helped cement Tamla/Motown as hit-makers. It would be covered by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Flying Lizards, The Supremes, Boyz II Men and Charli XCX, among many others.
“Janie was there with me from the very beginning, before there was even a Motown, and she will always hold a very special place in my heart and in the Motown family,” Gordy said in a statement.
“Janie was smart, clever, witty and fun. She was also talented and determined. In those early days, everybody did what was needed to be done, and Janie was no exception. She became Motown’s first receptionist, but her talents quickly took her far beyond that desk.”
Bradford’s credits also included “Contract on Love,” recorded by Little Stevie Wonder, Wells’ “Your Old Standby,” Diana Ross’s “I Am Me” and The Supremes’ “Time Changes Things” and “We Should Be Closer Together.”
After some 25 years at Motown, Bradford in the 1990s founded the Heroes and Legends Awards, an event that over 30 years honored music icons and presented scholarships to those pursuing higher education.
“Her annual gatherings always felt like old home week because Janie kept that wonderful sense of family alive,” Gordy said.
In June, she was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Survivors include her husband of 55 years, Wardean; her children, Lance and Nicole; her daughter-in-law, Carolyn; and her grandsons, Bradford and Austin.