When Sonya Harris was a young girl living in London, she saw Smokey Robinson perform. She never could have imagined that a few decades later, she’d be working for Motown and the singer-songwriter would be putting her on an album cover.
“I never thought in a million years that I would know him or Motown,” Harris, now in her 80s and living in Southfield, said.
That’s one of the many memories Harris carries with her from her five years working at the famed record label. The year was 1970 and Robinson’s secretary told her the singer/songwriter was going for a Western theme for the photo shoot for his latest album cover for the Motown girl group The Marvelettes.
“She gave me a check and said I should buy a poncho,” Harris recalled. “I went to a shop and they had this poncho. I got it, and the clerk saw Smokey’s name (on the check) and she said, ‘Is it the Smokey Robinson?’”
The photo shoot was for “The Return of the Marvelettes,” which turned out to be their last album. Set in a field, the cover features Harris on horseback, donning an orange poncho and tipping down her black, wide-brimmed hat.
Harris worked as a receptionist and switchboard operator from 1968 to 1972 until the label moved to Los Angeles, meeting Motown stars like Robinson, The Temptations and Diana Ross in the process.
“I remember when I saw Diana for the first time and she came in and she was very happy,” Harris said. “When she came in, she said, ‘Hello, Motown.’”
Since her days at the record label, Harris has raised a family of five with her husband and taken on jobs at places from Neiman Marcus to the religious congregation Sisters of Mercy. Now in her 80s and retired, Harris said the gig at Motown Records is still the most interesting job she’s ever had.
Ain’t no mountain high enough
Harris’ journey to Detroit began during the early 1960s in London, England, a city she moved to with her mother and siblings when she was 14 years old.
Harris, who was a nurse at the time, met her husband Alvin Harris at an airplane event for the United States Air Force.
“There were a lot of guys from the Air Force and a lot of nurses,” Harris said. “We were having a good time and struck up a conversation.”
Harris didn’t think she was going to see Alvin Harris again, but ran into him a few weeks later on the bus.
The two have been together ever since.
“He was at the end of his time in the Air Force, and then when he met me, he said, ‘Well, I’ve got to reenlist because I’m going to marry you,’” Harris recalled. “He reenlisted for another year.”
The couple married in 1963. After Alvin Harris’ time in the Air Force ended, they first moved to his hometown of Cincinnati and eventually, Detroit. When Harris was looking for work, a friend told her about an opening for a receptionist at Motown.
“The (former) receptionist wants to go to California to be an actress,” Harris remembered her friend saying. “‘I know that they’d love to have you.’”
Dancing in the streets
While Motown is known for its blue and white Hitsville, U.S.A. house on West Grand Boulevard, Harris worked inside the now-demolished Donovan Building, which was located at Woodward and I-75. By the late 1960s, the record label needed more space, prompting them to move into the 10-story building in 1968, reported Historic Detroit.
With Motown being one of the most popular record companies at the time, people would often try to get into the building, hoping for their shot at superstardom, Harris said. One day, a man wanted to secure a meeting with founder Berry Gordy not for themselves, but for their singing dog.
“This one guy came in and said, ‘I have a dog, and she sounds just like Diana Ross,’” Harris recalled. “I said, ‘Come on, what are you talking about? We don’t interview animals.’”
Other humorous Motown moments Harris remembers mostly come from Stevie Wonder, who often liked to joke around. The two became friends and Harris even attended his 1970 wedding to the singer’s first wife, Syreeta Wright.
Harris remembers one day she was on the phone with a female friend and Wonder asked Harris if she was talking to a man.
“He said, ‘Let me talk to her,’ and so, I gave him the phone,” Harris recalled. “She (Harris’ friend) said, ‘Who is this?’ And he (Wonder) said, ‘This is the guy who can’t see. Who is this?’”
But “The Return of the Marvelettes” album photo shoot remains a highlight from Harris’ Motown Days.
Robinson produced the album, which was meant to be the solo debut for co-lead singer Wanda Young. Motown management, however, felt it would market better as a Marvelettes release, despite no participation from the other group members.
After buying her poncho, Harris remembers Robinson taking her and another woman who was part of the shoot to his house to retrieve some hats. The shoot took place on a farm called Ponderosa, however Harris doesn’t remember what city it was in. On the album cover, Harris and the other woman’s face are obscured, while Young’s face is the only one visible.
“That was the point because they (Motown) didn’t know who was going to take their (the other members’) places,” Harris said.
Since it was a hot day, Robinson took Harris and the other woman to Dairy Queen for a treat after the photo shoot.
“The Return of the Marvelettes,” sold poorly, and in 1972, Young left Motown.
Harris had fun working with Robinson, despite never getting paid for appearing on the album cover.
“Smokey, you still owe me some money royalties because we never got paid,” she said.
Sunshine of my life
By the early 1970s, Motown’s time in Detroit was beginning to wind down. On June 14, 1972, the record label announced that it was relocating to Los Angeles. Harris said she didn’t even think about moving to California.
“I had my family here,” she said. “I had no reason to go there because my job was not that important to leave.”
Harris focused on raising her five children in the Boston-Edison neighborhood, four daughters and a son. In the meantime, she worked jobs at department store Neiman Marcus and employment agencies Entech Personnel Services and Kelly Services. These jobs were mostly part-time so that Harris could spend time with her children. Meanwhile, Alvin Harris worked full-time jobs in electronics.
Harris, who’s originally from Jamaica, has also become a figure in the metro Detroit Caribbean community. She’s a member of the West Indian American Association of Michigan and the Jamaica Association of Michigan, helping organize events like scholarship banquets for high school students and annual Christmas parties.
“We do a lot of things for the youth,” Harris said about JAM. “One of our biggest claims to fame is our Christmas party. Sometimes we have 200, 300 kids, and we give toys and have a big dinner and feed everybody.”
Another perk of being a part of JAM and WIAA are the decades-long friendships with people in the Caribbean community.
Sophia Chue met Harris in 1996 when she joined JAM. Harris plays a big part of JAM’s annual Caribbean Family Reunion Picnic at Rouge Park and the organization’s Mother’s Day event, often emceeing its fashion show, Chue said.
“For the older people in our community, she’ll go and pick them up and give them a ride to some of our events,” she said about Harris. “Miss Sonya will be the first one to say, ‘Do you want me to come pick you up?’ She’ll pick them up, bring them to the event, and take them back home.”
Chue looks to Harris as a friend, mentor and one of the many surrogate mothers in her life. Like Harris, Chue is actively involved in the Detroit community. The entrepreneur and author is a manager for Process Controls & Instrumentation, an engineering company in Midtown. She also serves as the executive director of the Caribbean Community Service Center, is the commissioner for the City of Detroit Entertainment Commission and is chair of the Michigan Black Leadership Advisory Council’s African Diaspora Committee.
“God blessed me with several mothers, and she happens to be one of them that keeps me grounded in the community,” Chue said. “She makes me understand that my community is more than just my family. I don’t want to say I want to be like her because I’m never gonna be like her, but just to see how she gives from the heart, how she loves people, how she makes time to make sure other people are better – I have learned how to do that because of her.”
While her schedule hasn’t slowed down much, Harris is spending the golden years of her life with her husband, children, grandchildren and a host of friends.
“I haven’t climbed mountains, I haven’t swam oceans, but I’ve met a lot of interesting people,” Harris said. “Life is still good.”