The Funk Brothers

Remembering Motown: Here, There & Everywhere

By Harvey Kubernik

2009 is a celebration of Motown Records 50th anniversary.  Some of the current appreciation and critical response to the Motown legacy also has to be traced to Allan Slutsky's award-winning book and feature length documentary Standing In The Shadows of Motown, which illustrates the story of the legendary Funk Brothers, the Motown session musicians who fused the backbeat and soul into the countless hits on the legendary label.

The film, initially released in November 2002, tells the story of the surviving Funk Brothers by combining reminiscences, archival footage, exclusive interviews, re-enactments and brand new performances by the reunited Funk Brothers. The movie was done on location in Detroit, as the Funk Brothers returned to famous Studio A at Motown's "Hitsville U.S.A." Actor Andre Braugher is the film's narrator.

A soundtrack of these recordings has been issued on Hip-O Records. In February 2003 it earned a Grammy in the Best Soundtrack Album category. In February 2004, NARAS bestowed a Lifetime Achievement Award on the Funk Brothers and honored them in the Grammy ceremony at The Staples Center in Los Angeles.

In May, 2004 Hip-O Records issued a Deluxe Edition of the acclaimed 2002 2-CD album set of Standing In The Shadows Of Motown. Disc One is the previously issued soundtrack from the documentary, plus three bonus tracks heard in the film. But there's a Disc Two "In The Snakepit" that presents "Naked Instrumental Remixes" of 16 original hit tracks from the Motown vault. There's even a bonus vocal-and-instrumental track of "You're My Everything" from the Tempations with Funk Brothers bassist James Jamerson.   

The core foundation of the Funk Brothers were: Joe Hunter, Johnny Griffith, and Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, Robert White, Joe Messina, and Eddie Willis on guitar, James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt on bass, Jack Ashford on percussion and vibraphone, Eddie "Bongo" Brown on congas and Benny Benjamin, Richard "Pistol" Allen and Uriel Jones on drums.

Paul Riser, a Motown producer, who currently works with Lauryn Hill and Stevie Wonder once said, "As individuals they were great musicians; as a unit they were the best."    

Slutsky's 1989 book, Standing In The Shadows of Motown: The Life And Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson, winner of the first Rolling Stone/Ralph J. Gleason award for music book of the year, provided the film's initial inspiration. "It started as just another book," Slutsky says. "Working on another project, I had to transcribe some of James Jamerson's Motown basslines. Like everybody else I had never really thought about the musicians of Motown, I was listening to the singers, be it Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross or Stevie Wonder. You take it as a whole because it's so familiar."

"I went to visit Jamerson's widow in Detroit, just to talk about royalties for a transcription book, and she took me around to visit some of the other guys. Their stories were so riveting, I realized there was more there than just a bunch of notes. And from there the project kept building: first the book and now the film."

The genesis of the movie might have started with the Jamerson project, but Slutsky also cites the death of Funk Brother guitarist Robert White. "There were various kicks in the butt along the way, that made me ratchet it up to another level. Robert's death was one of them. Earl Van Dyke's death was one of them. The fact that towards the end I started to see the window close because a couple of the guys are in their seventies, a couple in the sixties. And, when Earl died, and Robert died, I really felt I had let them down. Of course I hadn't, I got 30,000 hours in this thing, but being Jewish, I have terminal guilt. It just killed me when they died, and I just refused to give up, and not have their story documented for all time. We knew we had the greatest story of the Sixties."

"When we were doing the research," he continues, "we talked to a lot of record labels if they had interest. What was the point of having the Funk Brothers playing with the original Motown stars? You can buy that album in the store right now. There was nothing new about it. We picked the songs and the artists. This is like spreading the gospel. The young urban audience does not know about the Funk Brothers. They need to know. The rock audience does not know about the Funk Brothers. They need to know. We had a lot of masters we were trying to serve in the recruitment of the stars. Joan Osborne was with us ten years ago. Joan was into this thing for ten years. We didn't even have a deal yet, and wanted an artist to put their name on the line so I could go to somebody, if you give us the money. And nobody would do it, but Joan did when I pitched her."

"I walked around for 11 years a very angry man. I couldn't deal with the level of disrespect. Here I had a diamond in my hand, and when we would pitch it people would look at me like I was bringing them a sack of garbage. It got me angry but kept me going. And I did not want to let those bastards win."

"After the success of The Buena Vista Social Club, that helped, because now we had a category. ‘It's like this...' After seven years Buena Vista comes out, ‘Oh you mean like Buena Vista..."

"The Motown sound is two things: the songs and the grooves. The songs had an instantly accessible sound and such strong hooks that as soon as you heard one, you remembered the whole melody. But the music of Motown also makes you want to get up and dance. And what is that? The grooves. And that's the Funk Brothers. There have been soul fans waiting for this for decades," he declares.        

Over the years. Slutsky would be joined by veteran music video and documentary director Paul Justman (J. Geils Band, Diana Ross, The Doors, James Brown, The Neville Brothers), who was co-editor on Robert Frank's Cocksucker Blues, an infamous portrait of The Rolling Stones' 1972 tour of America. "To me it is such an important American story. Turn on your radio and you hear Motown. Walk through an airport or go shopping, you hear Motown. It's everywhere. But you don't think of the guys playing it. To me there's only one story like it. It's a unique set of circumstances that brought their music to the world and yet left them unknown. And once I met the guys I felt a real emotional bond to them."

It was the passing of Funk Brother Robert White, guitarist on such classic songs as "My Girl" and "You Can't Hurry Love," which in some way was the final push to get this movie to the finish line. Justman explains, "I don't like to look at it this way, but time was running out. After Robert White died, I said to myself, I thought it was over. We had been at it for seven years. I'll go up to Detroit and film with just a MINIDV camera if I have to. I just decided to do it no matter what. I wanted to do something for them. I had a hundred versions of the story with Allan. When Allan brought it to me, I realized these guys had played on the soundtrack of my life. And I didn't know who they were. And that idea for a director is mind blowing. So I knew there was a movie there. As we got to know the guys, we got more and more determined to make the film. Robert White lived in L.A. so I got to know Robert well. The footage in the film is footage that I had shot in order to make a little piece to try and sell the film. It was a ‘pitch piece' done in the studio. On the DVD there is more stuff from him talking about Stevie Wonder."

Director Justman has done a masterful job of weaving all the visual source tapes and audio clips into Standing In The Shadows of Motown. Asked about the challenges of combining so many different technical formats and archive elements into the film, he said, "I had come from an editing background, and had worked on the Stones' thing with Robert Frank who shot it in 35mm, 16mm and super 8, which had just come out in 1972. So that was a film with a lot of textures. When you put the film together you have to come up with a kind of vocabulary, so the film doesn't look like one big mess. In the film there are places where it's all black and white, and also in the re-creations that we did, because we had no footage of these guys when they were young, and it was important to see them as young guys when they were funny. We wanted to give a flavor."                     

"With the new live concert sequences, it was impossible, due to scheduling, to get all the artists on stage at once. So we did one artist a day. The casting people put out the word on the radio and in newspaper ads and crowds would come to that particular day. We cut two songs a day, with some multiple takes. The Stones' movie had a lot more money for the performances, and many more cameras. I thought a lot about these songs because they had to be changing focus all the time. We had six cameras for concerts. My idea, because I'm an editor, every camera had to film a full performance. In other words, the camera was not the drum camera. There was not a vocal camera. Every camera from their angle had to film an entire performance, because I didn't have that much film. And I said if you don't feel it in there, we would rehearse, and if you don't feel it in the lens, and I don't see it in the monitor, I'm not gonna use it. So take chances. Things can go out of focus. It's OK. I'm not going to jump down your throat for mistakes. What's gonna bother me is if I'm not excited about this footage. We don't have a lot of money for lights. We don't have a lot of money for film. But what we have are great cameramen and the vision of how this was gonna be. I had a crane. So I knew what I wanted and the cameramen had balls."                     

Sandy Passman, the producer of the film further adds, "I am extremely proud of this movie. The music is so rich and meaningful to me personally and to millions just like me. The 1960s were a turbulent time, the country was tearing itself apart, and for people who grew up on this music it just speaks volumes. If I never make another movie, my name will be on this for all time. I'm happy to have spent the years working on it. I get very emotional about it and all that we went through. But when I see it onscreen and hear the music I can't tell you how thrilled I am."       

Maybe not the tight-knit recording unit they once were, the Funk Brothers have stayed in touch throughout the years. Benny Benjamin (died 1968), Eddie Brown (died 1983), James Jamerson (died 1983), Earl Van Dyke (died 1992), Robert White (died 1994), and Pistol Allen (died 2002), but he is thankfully a recent participant in the documentary. Johnny Griffith, who died the night the movie premiered in Detroit, played shows in Las Vegas before his passing.  Motown's first bandleader Joe Hunter passed away in February 2009 from his battle with diabetes. This March drummer Uriel Jones died in Detroit after complications from a heart attack the previous month. Paul Riser, Motown arranger/musician told the Los Angeles Times that Jones' lively drum sound "drew inspiration from his days in the boxing ring, yet he could play with restraint when the song called for it. There was a pulse in his playing...that nobody else had. He loved music for the sake of music. He loved when it came out good, and he hated when it came out bad."  

The rest are still going strong. Joe Messina, besides owning a successful chain of car washes in the Detroit area, has become a virtuoso of the chromatic harmonica. Bob Babbitt is an in-demand session player in Nashville. Jack Ashford and Eddie Willis are semi-retired, but still play the occasional club date.

The Motown Records impact is furthermore evidenced on portions of the Andrew Loog Oldham-produced studio efforts of the Rolling Stones during his 1963-1967 management of the band. The Stones also covered "Money (That's What I Want)," as well as Jobete Music entries "Can I Get A Witness," "Hitch Hike" and "My Girl." I recently asked Oldham about Motown, his own interaction with Gordy decades ago, and the current influence of Motown on the radio and record sales charts. From Bogota, Colombia he emailed me.

"‘Can I Get A Witness' is a great young version by the Stones, Mick (Jagger) was out of breath on this one as he'd run across Soho to UK Motown publisher's Freddy Bienstock to get the lyrics. ‘Hitch Hike' is a bit mindless and even though the track of ‘My Girl' is a bit naff, Mick nailed the vocal. But it's the spirit that counts and Motown made you feel like everything was possible, it's rhythms were very often unusual for Top 20 fare and the lyrics and delivery spoke to young moments. Motown was something to dress up to."

"I worked for Berry Gordy's Rare Earth label in 1970 whilst Mr. Gordy had headed west to seek and seize the rarer earth of Hollywood. What I was working on was not of much consequence, and what the soul and embodiment of the music of young America, Mr. Gordy was working on. Suzanne De Passe, one of his assistants at the time, invited me to meet Gordy at Paramount, where he was wrestling and boxing with the Paramount executives, who looked not unlike the dead whitemill that I'd met at GAC and various UK record companies, you know, suits in a bad Jack Lemmon movie with no Dyan Cannon to come home to. They were interfering with Barry over his vision for the Diana Ross movie, Lady Sings The Blues. He punched their lights out with a firm but velvet glove to get the movie, then marketing it the way so his vision remained intact."

"We all know what Berry Gordy did for American song and World music. I don't think he's been tapped on the shoulder for what he has done for the Negro in American film. Lady Sings The Blues, Sydney Poitier's oater Buck and The Preacher, and Sounder, reminded America there was more to their land than Hopper and Fonda. Lady Sings The Blues may seem dated now in today's world of Denzel Washington, but back then it was the next mainstream best leap after Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner."

In November of 1974 for Melody Maker I interviewed Bobby Rogers, a member of the famed Miracles, and a Tamla Motown fixture since their inception in 1958, when he joined up with his sister Claudette, Ronnie White, Pete Moore, and William "Smokey" Robinson. Bobby and I were in a Hollywood recording studio one evening and had a chat about Motown, Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones and Marvin Gaye. 

"I really loved touring with the English groups, back in 1963 and 1964. We used to tour with the Rolling Stones and people like Georgie Fame. During the breaks from touring, a lot of the groups would ask questions about certain songs on our albums. I remember when we filmed The TAMI Show (perhaps rock's finest celluloid treatment with James Brown, Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, Supremes, Miracles and more). Mick Jagger would ask me about what I'd thought of the album James Brown Live At The Apollo, which was his favorite LP. One time on a tour he mentioned that he'd like to record a Marvin Gaye song for the next Stones album. A month later, 'Hitch Hike' was being played all over Detroit radio," reflected Rogers.

Bobby took pride in looking back at the time when the groups traveled by bus, and singers like Tommy Roe would have to buy food for them in restaurants where they wouldn't be served in the South. "Man, those early tours were a trip. Endless hours of bus rides and all these skinny English dudes asking us about the Tamla Motown sound. I never realized how important or influential we were on groups like the Beatles and Stones. He said his name was George and he was in a group named the Beatles. We used to party with all the groups, and have become good friends. You know, music travels in sort of a cycle. The early days were beautiful. We dug all the people we played with. Back in 1965 my favorite song was 'Get Off My Cloud.'"

"The Miracles have always to this point been a singles-orientated group. Smokey was writing for the group and everybody else. Smokey never really had the opportunity to do a concept thing. The best thing that ever happened to music has got to be the What's Goin On album by Marvin Gaye. Marvin was listening to everything that was around. Beatles, Stones, Pop, Jazz, etc. You know that Sgt. Pepper LP? It was always on Marvin's turntable. Marvin took some time off and really looked at what was happening. Society has changed. A long time ago black people were smoking dope and if they got caught they would go to jail. Now, white people are doing it and they bring the penalty down. Also, we had some racial hassles years ago in the South, and it's getting better now."

Earlier this century I went to meet and talk to seven of the Funk Brothers who were in Hollywood at the Knitting Factory venue for some select promotions and media-events around the release of Standing In he Shadows of Motown, along with the Slustsky and Justman team.

You could do a whole book just on the Motown songs utilized on film and TV properties since 1960. I thought it was important besides talking to Slutsky and Justman, specifically about Standing In The Shadows of Motown to profile and talk to the Funk Brothers themselves about the film, Motown in general, legendary songs and label artists and glean some viable insights on how the music was physically made that we've often heard on celluloid.        

I had seen some of the 1960s Motown Records live road shows in Los Angeles when a couple of these fellows were in the touring lineup. And I had gone to a handful of music TV show tapings where the Motown groups would perform, like "Shindig!" on Prospect Ave. where the lead singers often do live vocals to pre-recorded tracks or the house band at the studio program was provided with Motown song charts. But I never thought I'd see the collective Funk Brothers in my hometown, let alone talk to these historic music-makers in person.

Joe Hunter (keyboards): From Jackson, Tennessee, who was playing with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters when he joined Gordy's fledging operation in 1958. This is the guy who was instrumental in recruiting many of the players that would define the Motown Sound. That's him on "Heat Wave," "Hitchhike," and "Come Get These Memories." "Well, Berry had come on one of my gigs and told me what he was all about," remembers Hunter. "He wanted to start a record company, and he also mentioned that really wasn't his goal. He wanted to make some motion pictures. But he had to do that record business first. I met him at a nightclub I was working at. I had been working with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and one of the guys quit, so I quit when he quit because he gave me the job. And he had told Berry about me and Berry came on my job. He bought me a drink, and asked me if I had time to talk. And I had time to talk to him because he was very interesting. He's a very charming individual. He was very convincing also. He could convince you that we would all make a lot of money, but he didn't tell me it wasn't until I would be 100 years old. (laughs). I love him, because if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here today. Our first rehearsals were at Claudette's house, the person Smokey Robinson married. I knew 99 percent it was going to be successful, but the 1 percent came when James Jamerson came ‘cause we had another bass player who played on the first hit. Prof. Joe Williams. He spoke three languages. Our first tune was with Marv Johnson via United Artists. People from my high school called me at the time ‘cause they heard it on the radio. It was a hit. ‘Hey...Introduce me to Mr. Gordy.' That's what I did. And that's my story." Before he leaves, I corner Hunter and ask about the song "Heat Wave?" "Well, it meant a whole lot to me for the simple reason that the morning we went in for the session, Brian Holland had a little chord sheet, and asked me ‘what kind of beat goes with this?' I walked to the piano and ran down the chords, and I said I would put a ‘Charleston Beat' to it. One of the beats they had way back in the 1920s. So, that's what I did on the piano. That's why it was so interesting when I really heard it when it came out and it had a groove."

"Me and Marvin Gaye had played with a fellow named Jimmy Reed when he came to Detroit at a lounge. So I told him, ‘when you do your next gig I'm gonna put some stuff in the game.' That's when we did ‘Pride and Joy.' One of my favorites, really. Because it allowed me to steal Wes Montgomery's introduction, and do what I wanted to do."

Uriel Jones was born in Detroit in 1934. He worked with Sarah Vaughn, Billy Eckstine, Mahalia Jackson, and Dakota Stanton, and joined the Motown session band in 1964 after a period as part of Marvin Gaye's touring group. He didn't become a Benny Benjamin clone, as some thought, but developed his own style. His sticks hit on "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," "I Can't Get Next To You," "I Second That Emotion" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "For Once In My Life" by Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross' "Ain't No Mountain high Enough," "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" from  Marvin Gaye, and the Temptations' "Cloud Nine," and "Ball Of Confusion." "I did most of the Temptations stuff with producer Norman Whitfield. We knew all of the producers and knew their styles," Jones states. "We knew that they would be doing something along the lines of the previous hit they had. So, when the producer came in with something, we just about knew what he wanted. ‘Cause you knew his style. You needed a hint what it was going to be like. We took it from there. We did a lot of the so-called arranging ourselves. The musicians. Because they would come out there with just lead sheets. Every now and then someone would come in with an arrangement. But most of the time the chord or lead sheets and they'd rely on us. Like on ‘War.' The drum solo was on there first. When the singing started they added stuff to the drums. When he (Edwin Starr) would sing, some of those parts were drum parts first. Songs were written to band tracks. Some producers would say, ‘you're playing too crooked. Make a few mistakes.'"

Berry Gordy, Jr. commented about the genius Norman Whitfield during a 2001 interview. "Norman to me was probably the most underrated of all the producers, because he was producing by himself. And he would deal with different sounds, different beats, change with the times and write his stuff, and also Barrett Strong would work with him as a writer on many of his things. Norman was innovative and he had fire. And he had a different kind of style. His beat was different and could go from 'Cloud Nine,' ‘Psychedelic Shack,' ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone,' to ‘Just My Imagination.' He was sensitive and I think he could do so many different types of things. Then he'd come right back with ‘War' and then ‘Ain't Too Proud To Beg.'"

"He could take one chord," Gordy marvels, "like on ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone,' and play the same chord and do all these different beautiful melodies and things that many people could not really imagine this guy doin'. And I would watch him and he did it all by himself as a producer. He would work with five guys in the Temps and he would change leads on each one. He would pick the right lead for the right song, ya know, and he'd utilize all five of those leads in a song that was just incredible. When I listen to ‘em today, now that I have time to listen to ‘em, I'm saying, ‘Wow!' This guy was probably the most underrated producer we had."

"We made money recording," Uriel Jones continues, "but we had our fun in the clubs. Back then some of the guys were pretty wild, and we drank up all our money. Sometimes we even owed money! At the time we were all jazz musicians. When we listened to the radio we listened to the jazz stations. We didn't even know the impact these Motown songs were having. Suddenly it hit us that the radio was full of our tunes!"

"We knew Motown was going to make a move to L.A. The sessions were getting smaller and smaller. Even after they moved to Los Angeles, we were cutting in Detroit. For a while. Stuff they would cut in L.A. they would send it back to us for overdubs. I didn't go out west ‘cause they didn't offer me a guarantee." About the film's concert sequences, Jones describes being understandably nervous. "After so many years, we were all a little unsure about playing together. After about a week of rehearsing, we surprised ourselves! We had the Motown sound. Things we had forgotten about, and as soon as we hit that studio it all came back. I can't even explain it. It was a fantastic feeling," beams Jones. "It used to be we had to take a smoke or liquor break, but now we take a medication break."

At the time made I plans with Jones in a year to have another conversation, like drummer to drummer, about some specific information I wanted to really learn about his stick work on those memorable Motown grooves. Thankfully, we talked again on the telephone in early 2004. I asked him then what it is like playing these songs live in a concert setting 30, 36 years after he first cut them in the studio when he was in his twenties?  "More seasoned. And it automatically makes you feel better playing them now knowing people are so into it. I have a telepathic relationship with these guys on stage. We just about know what each one is gonna do before they do it all. It was just a puzzle that came together," he says.