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Detroit » In a world full of knockoffs, the real deal is a real find.

Such is the case with Detroit's Motown Museum, an ancient tract house on this decaying city's Grand Boulevard, where such artists as Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas recorded their first albums.

It was no accident that, when Michael Jackson died, the Motown Museum became a place where hundreds gathered to remember him. Though the Jackson Five recorded most of their songs in Los Angeles, one of the group's first big hits -- "I Want You Back" -- was penned by Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. and recorded in the famous Studio A lovingly preserved at the Museum.

Jackson helped Gordy's sister, Esther Gordy Edwards, preserve the place known as "Hitsville U.S.A." with a $125,000 donation in the early 1980s after a benefit concert at the Palace in Auburn Hills.

He also donated memorabilia that included a fedora and white glove worn by Jackson during Motown's 25th anniversary concert on NBC in 1988. These items were part of the museum's fascinating display until they were removed because of security concerns after Jackson's death.

"As soon as we update the case, it will go back up," said Motown Museum spokesperson Lina Stephens. "On June 25th, the day they announced he had passed, people started showing up with memorial contributions. The community built a memorial on the steps [of the museum]. We are going to be taking it down and it will go in a crypt out at Woodlawn Cemetery."

This small home served as the headquarters for Motown Records and numerous other labels it spun off from 1959 until 1968, when Gordy, who actually lived in part of the building for a time, moved it to a Detroit highrise before settling in Los Angeles in 1972.

Motown Records, launched with an $800 loan from the Gordy family savings account, grew from its from humble roots to a multi-million dollar operation and the largest independent record company in the world. That's difficult to believe during a tour of the museum with guide B'Daren Payne.

The tour includes historical photographs, artwork, sheet music, original costumes, the "echo chamber" that produced famous reverb recordings, Gordy's living quarters (the dining room table served as the label's "shipping department" for awhile), the ancient control room and the Studio A recording studio, with many original instruments such as the piano.

At one time, the studio included eight houses, and employed 450 people who pressed and packaged records 24 hours a day seven days a week. Some 4,000 songs were recorded here.

It's impossible not to notice the era's racial inequities when touring a studio where brilliant black musicians made music that became universally popular. Payne showed historic album art with no black artists on the cover.

Annette Sterling Beard Helton, an original member of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, just happened to be visiting the museum during our tour and recalled the racial turmoil of the Sixties.

The 66-year-old, who still tours with the Vandellas, joined Martha Reeves as a member of the Del-Phis when she was 14.

"Berry Gordy had a rule that we could not go on the road until we graduated from high school," said Helton.

She remembered boarding a bus when she was 18 for a nationwide tour that included Mobile, Ala., during the time the Freedom Riders, a mixed-race group, was trying to integrate the Deep South. The bus was shot up, though nobody was hurt, and famous black performers had to stay at "colored only" hotels and eat at segregated restaurants.

Helton and Rosalind Ashford Holmes appear a couple of times a month as the Original Vandellas with singer Tonya Hood.

Touring Studio A with Helton proved to be a highlight as she and Payne took turns talking about the recording process and the famous Funk Brothers Band, which provided backup on dozens of No. 1 Motown hits.

For information on touring the Motown Museum, visit http://www.motownmuseum.org" Target="_BLANK">http://www.motownmuseum.org or call 313-875-2264.

wharton@sltrib.com" Target="_BLANK">wharton@sltrib.com