One of the major factors in the widespread appeal of Motown's music was Gordy's practice of using a highly select and tight-knit group of studio musicians, collectively known as "The Funk Brothers", to record the instrumental or "band" tracks of the Motown songs. Among the studio musicians responsible for the "Motown Sound" were Johnny Griffiths and Joe Hunter on piano, Joe Messina, Robert White, and Eddie Willis on guitar, Eddie "Bongo" Brown and Jack Ashford on percussion, Uriel Jones and Pete Allen on drums, and, the keys to the Motown sound, drummer Benny Benjamin, keyboardist Earl Van Dyke, and bassist James Jamerson. The band's career and work is chronicled in the 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown.
Production process
Artist development was a major part of Motown's operations. The acts on the Motown label were fastidiously groomed, dressed and choreographed for live performances. Motown artists were told that their breakthrough into the white popular music market made them ambassadors for other African-American artists seeking broad market acceptance, and that they should think, act, walk and talk like royalty, so as to alter the less-than-dignified image (commonly held by white Americans in that era) of black musicians.

Production process
Motown's music was crafted with the same eye towards pop appeal. Berry Gordy used weekly quality control meetings and veto power to ensure that only records with appeal to both white and black audiences would be released. Many of Motown's most well known songs, such as all of the early hits for The Supremes, were written by the songwriting trio Holland-Dozier-Holland. Other important producers and songwriters at Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. recording studio and headquarters included Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Frank Wilson, Motown artists Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and Gordy himself.
The many artists and producers of Motown Records collaborated to produce numerous hit songs, although the process has been described as factory-like (such as the Brill Building). The Hitsville studios remained open and active 22 hours a day, and artists would often be on tour for weeks, come back to Detroit to record as many songs as possible, and then promptly set back out on tour again.

1950s and 1960s Motown artists
· Mabel John
· Barrett Strong
· The Miracles (later Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
· Mary Wells
· Marvin Gaye
· Edward Holland, Jr.
· The Andantes
· The Contours
· Shorty Long
· The Marvelettes
· The Supremes (later Diana Ross & the Supremes)
· The Temptations
· Stevie Wonder (originally Little Stevie Wonder)
· Jimmy Ruffin
· David Ruffin
· Kim Weston
· Martha & the Vandellas (later Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
· The Four Tops
· Carolyn Crawford
· Brenda Holloway
· The Velvelettes
· Jr. Walker & the All Stars
· Chris Clark
· Tammi Terrell
· The Monitors
· The Spinners
· The Isley Brothers
· The Elgins
· The Originals
· Gladys Knight & the Pips
· Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers
· Edwin Starr
· Rare Earth
· The Jackson 5
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