Gordy family was also a professional in bowling. His daughter Iris was married to singer Johnny Bristol. The eldest Gordy daughter, Esther (April 25, 1920 – August 24, 2011), born in Georgia, established herself early in business as a political campaigner for her husband, Detroit politician George Edwards. In the late 1950s, she formed a loan company named after her parents; in 1959, she helped her brother Berry with a $800 loan to start Tamla Records. She borrowed the proceeds from the college tuition fund their father had established for Berry. Edwards served as mentor, adviser, and vice president of Motown's main
I Heard It Through the Grapevine jockeys, and Motown founder Berry Gordy finally agreed to its release as a single in October 1968, when it went to the top of the "Billboard" Pop Singles chart for seven weeks from December 1968 to January 1969 and became for a time the biggest hit single on the Motown label (Tamla). The Gaye recording has since become an acclaimed soul classic, and in 2004, it was placed 81 on the "Rolling Stone" list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. On the commemorative fortieth anniversary of the "Billboard" Hot 100 issue of "Billboard" magazine in June 2008, Marvin