Anna Gordy Gaye the late 1950s, members of the Gordy clan were getting involved with the music business. In 1956, Anna began her career distributing records for Checker Records. In about 1957, she distributed a few recordings for Gone Records. In 1958, Anna and Gordy's younger sister Gwen founded the label Anna Records with musician Billy Davis, a year before Berry launched Tamla Records. Anna distributed Tamla's first national hit, Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)". Artists such as David Ruffin and Joe Tex also recorded for the label, and Marvin Gaye became a session musician with the company. After the label
Anna Records at the time). They hired future Motown star Marvin Gaye as drummer for the label. Anna Records is most notable for issuing the first national Motown hit, "Money (That's What I Want)", recorded by singer-songwriter Barrett Strong, which hit number two on the R&B chart in early 1960. The label wasn't so successful afterwards and in 1961 Anna and all its artists were absorbed by Gwen and Anna's brother Berry Gordy into Motown. Gaye, in particular, became a solo artist and signed with the corporation's oldest label Tamla while still serving as a session drummer, and Ruffin later joined the