Ed Wingate

Ed Wingate was the owner of Golden World Records, the famed Detroit soul label that was Motown's chief local rival during the mid-'60s. A Motor City native born in 1919, by the age of 40 Wingate was among the most city's most successful African-American businessmen, owning and operating his own motel, the Twenty Grand, as well as several cafés and a taxi service. Intrigued by the independent record labels sprouting across the city, in 1961 he paid a visit to Berry Gordy, the young owner of Motown Records. Following the massive success of the label's first million-seller, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "Shop Around," Motown was suffering severe cash-flow problems as its manufacturing costs outpaced its revenue stream, prompting Gordy to invite Wingate to sign on as a partner. But Wingate had bigger ideas, teaming with business partner and future wife JoAnne Jackson to form Golden World. After hiring pianist, conductor, and arranger George "teacho" Wiltshire, the fledgling imprint signed its first recording artist, singer/songwriter Sue Perrin, and in early 1962 issued its debut release, "I Wonder." The follow-up release, Joyce Webb's "You've Got a Whole Lot of Living to Do," appeared on Golden World's new Ric-Tic subsidiary, so named in honor of Jackson's 12-year-old son Derek, who died in an accident just weeks earlier.

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