Post by ClassicSoul on Jul 20, 2006 18:35:38 GMT -5
Original house band The Funk Brothers finally steps from the shadows into spotlight
Sunday, July 16, 2006
BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer
The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas -- it doesn't matter who your favorite Motown act is. They all have one thing in common.
Between 1959 and 1973, the era when Motown Records was actually based in Detroit, all those acts -- all of Motown's singing sensations -- made their records with the same backing group: a collection of musicians whom Motown founder Berry Gordy plucked from the Detroit jazz and blues scene to become the house band for his fledgling label.
The classic Motown era was lightning in a bottle: In one place at one time were some of the greatest singers of the era and songwriters of any era, and innovative producers who put the whole package together.
But when it came time to cut the tracks, it was this group of musicians who fused the danceability of soul music and R&B with the smooth accessibility of pop music. They played on more Number One records than the Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley combined.
And virtually no one knew who they were.
Most people didn't -- still don't -- know that it was the same group of players on all the classic Motown records, playing one song after another, sometimes not even knowing who would sing it, in a recording studio built into a garage, during all-day sessions that resembled the assembly lines at the auto plants that also made Detroit home.
They called themselves The Funk Brothers, but that was just a nickname. Motown didn't put musician credits on albums until Marvin Gaye's 1971 What's Going On record, and still not very often after that. And no one put musician credits on singles.
When Motown finalized the move of its operations to Los Angeles in 1973, it was the end for The Funk Brothers. Some followed the label; some went elsewhere; some stayed home in Detroit. And for many years, that was that.
Recognition at last
In 1989, musician-writer Allan Slutsky wrote a book of transcriptions of the parts of Motown bassist James Jamerson, widely recognized among musicians as one of the greatest bass players ever. While working on the book, he got to know the remaining Funk Brothers, put some of the history in the book, and also thought their story was worthy of a documentary.
In 2002, Standing in the Shadows of Motown (also the title of the book) put the remaining Funk Brothers on stage, playing Motown classics with singers including Chaka Khan, Ben Harper, Gerald Levert, Joan Osborne and more.
Many of the songs had been covered before, some by excellent singers. But you can hear all the imitations fade away when the real Funk Brothers latch back onto the grooves.
"We thought [Slutsky] was crazy," drummer Uriel Jones says now. "Nobody wants to hear nothing about no musicians.
"The first time we went to the premiere of the movie, at the Smithsonian, the way the people applauded us -- it was a funny feeling," Jones says. "We had been playing in the background, and we had never had that feeling. It was really something to behold. . . .
"We were just sidemen, and we were content. They were paying us pretty good. . . . We weren't bitter, because we came in and that was our job, and we were satisfied with what we were getting for that.
"But we didn't know until we started traveling [after the film] what we had put out."
Those travels continue today, and bring The Funk Brothers, with original-era members Jones, bassist Bob Babbitt and guitarist Eddie Willis, to the Providence Performing Arts Center for aSoundSession performance on Friday.
Hard acts to follow
In their heyday, The Funk Brothers had a revolving cast of about 15. Since the mid-'60s, time has taken its toll.
The first to go were two of the greatest players: Drummer Benny Benjamin died in 1967, bassist Jamerson in 1983.
Benjamin had a groove and a feeling that made the music bounce, and his fills became such a signature element of the Motown sound that all drummers who followed him at the label copied them.
"I tried to clone myself after him," Jones says. "He laid down a foundation where any drummer who came into that studio, if you couldn't play almost like Benny, you weren't going to work in that studio."
Jamerson reinvented his instrument, using his jazz background to take the electric bass farther than it was generally thought able to go, with syncopations, blue notes and speed that could dazzle those who were listening for them while never getting in the way of the vocal or the main theme of the song. Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," Gladys Knight and the Pips' "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" are hallmark examples.
But both of them had their troubles. Babbitt and Jones were hired at Motown in part to cover for the unreliability of Jamerson and Benjamin.
"Benny was just strung out on so many different things," Jones says quietly. "Benny would get lost and you wouldn't see him for a week.
"Jamerson had a drinking problem. Benny Benjamin had a heroin addiction. A little different than trying to talk to [Jamerson]. But we hung with him for a long time."
Fighting demons
When Motown left for Los Angeles in 1973, Jamerson (along with a few other players) followed the label, which Jones says was a mistake.
"See, if Jamerson hadn't left Detroit," Jones says, "I believe there'd be a good chance that he'd be alive now. Because when Jamerson was here, and he started drinking too much and getting out of hand, we would check him. When you're in a strange city like L.A., he had nobody checking him. His family couldn't do it. He had nobody he would listen to."
Jones also says that "Babbitt probably had the hardest job of all of us, filling Jamerson's shoes. And he filled them very well. And he and Jamerson were very close."
Babbitt says he felt "on the hot seat" at Motown. "Almost every time." You could feel it more with certain people, he says. "And that's hard on you."
But Babbitt downplays the role of Jamerson's problems. "He was fighting some demons. But also, the company was expanding. . . . Jamerson needed help anyway."
Even so, "I respected him -- there's not enough words to say. I've always felt like I was fortunate to be part of it. . . . [Jamerson's] whole presence in the music business was so huge that I feel sometimes like somebody should keep his name and his style of playing going. And I feel like I can do that, and I should do it.
"And when I sit down to play in a studio [now], a lot of times I get into a situation where I'll think 'What would he have done here?' if it's that style of music. And along with what I do, maybe something he would do helps get me through it."
(You can hear the influence on Babbitt's signature Motown moment, Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered.")
Winging it
Sometimes The Funk Brothers' parts would be written out for them, but more often than not they came up with their parts on their own.
They'd sometimes get a chord sheet, Willis says. "It'd have five or six chords on it. It didn't help us much. A lot of times, the producers, the only way we'd know where they were going was, they'd have to sing the song."
Jamerson's wizardry, Robert White's iconic guitar intro to "My Girl" -- much of this was come up with on the spot, hour after hour, day after day, hit after hit.
More than anything, the sound of The Funk Brothers was the sound of sensitive musicians doing more listening than playing. There could be three guitarists and two drummers on a session, and a song would still come out swinging.
Communication -- verbal and non-verbal -- was the key.
"We were all jazz-oriented musicians," Jones says. "So we weren't wild playing. We were feeding off on another. In the studio, we all had eye contact with one another. [So] it was just a natural thing."
"We played accordingly, and we stayed out of each other's way, and it worked out fine," Willis says.
And they all agree: The combination of factors that produced The Funk Brothers and the classic Motown scene won't be coming around again.
"Before Motown got real big and was strictly business," Jones says, "it was all family. All the artists, the musicians, everybody was on the same level. Even Berry Gordy -- we all came up together.
"So we had a warm family thing. So the way the record business is now, I don't think it could happen again."
On to nightclubs
When Motown left, Jones, 72, stayed in Detroit, and he lives outside the city today.
"I just shifted gears," he says, "started doing a lot more nightclubs."
Willis, 70, eventually ended up in his native Mississippi, where he lives today. He does occasional studio work, but mainly The Funk Brothers are enough for him.
The busy nightclub scene of Memphis is only about 80 miles away, he says, but "I really don't care to be in it. I don't want to get back into that hassle of here and there."
Babbitt, 64, headed east when Motown headed west, working in New York and with Philadelphia International Records, with writer-producer Thom Bell.
He played on seven albums for former Motown act The Spinners, and made his own iconic mark on the bass world by playing on Knight and the Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia."
"When they say 'the right place at the right time,' there's truth to that. And if I'd moved to L.A., I don't know if that would've happened."
Dwindling numbers
More Funk Brothers passed on as the years went by, even after the movie was in motion. White died early in the filming; drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen played in the film but died before it was released.
"We try not to forget them," Jones says of the Brothers who are no longer with them. "We always bring their names up at shows, because they laid the foundation for us."
It hasn't all been smooth. Guitarist Joe Messina retired recently, as his wife's health made it too much of a burden to go on the road. And percussionist Jack Ashford and pianist Joe Hunter split off and formed their own group. A dispute over the Funk Brothers name ended up in court.
"We hated that," Jones says. "We really hated that."
"It's been kind of a rough road," Babbitt says, alluding to the dispute as well as hassles over money the Brothers made or didn't make from the film, " . . . but I think that's the nature of the business."
So that leaves three.
Jones, Willis and Babbitt get together anywhere from two to four times a month to reunite The Funk Brothers, with the help of auxiliary musicians, many of whom have worked with the Brothers over the years, some even at Motown.
"The three of us, that's as strong as ever," Willis says. "I hate to say it, but another one of us would have to drop aside for us to [consider retiring]."
The goal is to remind and to remember.
"You can't forget them," Willis says of his departed comrades, "because they started out with the same thing, and they wanted everything that we are attempting to do now. You can't help but think about it, man.
"A lot of times, I'm up there with tears in my eyes. . . . You're trying to play for them now."
LINK
Sunday, July 16, 2006
BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer
The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas -- it doesn't matter who your favorite Motown act is. They all have one thing in common.
Between 1959 and 1973, the era when Motown Records was actually based in Detroit, all those acts -- all of Motown's singing sensations -- made their records with the same backing group: a collection of musicians whom Motown founder Berry Gordy plucked from the Detroit jazz and blues scene to become the house band for his fledgling label.
The classic Motown era was lightning in a bottle: In one place at one time were some of the greatest singers of the era and songwriters of any era, and innovative producers who put the whole package together.
But when it came time to cut the tracks, it was this group of musicians who fused the danceability of soul music and R&B with the smooth accessibility of pop music. They played on more Number One records than the Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley combined.
And virtually no one knew who they were.
Most people didn't -- still don't -- know that it was the same group of players on all the classic Motown records, playing one song after another, sometimes not even knowing who would sing it, in a recording studio built into a garage, during all-day sessions that resembled the assembly lines at the auto plants that also made Detroit home.
They called themselves The Funk Brothers, but that was just a nickname. Motown didn't put musician credits on albums until Marvin Gaye's 1971 What's Going On record, and still not very often after that. And no one put musician credits on singles.
When Motown finalized the move of its operations to Los Angeles in 1973, it was the end for The Funk Brothers. Some followed the label; some went elsewhere; some stayed home in Detroit. And for many years, that was that.
Recognition at last
In 1989, musician-writer Allan Slutsky wrote a book of transcriptions of the parts of Motown bassist James Jamerson, widely recognized among musicians as one of the greatest bass players ever. While working on the book, he got to know the remaining Funk Brothers, put some of the history in the book, and also thought their story was worthy of a documentary.
In 2002, Standing in the Shadows of Motown (also the title of the book) put the remaining Funk Brothers on stage, playing Motown classics with singers including Chaka Khan, Ben Harper, Gerald Levert, Joan Osborne and more.
Many of the songs had been covered before, some by excellent singers. But you can hear all the imitations fade away when the real Funk Brothers latch back onto the grooves.
"We thought [Slutsky] was crazy," drummer Uriel Jones says now. "Nobody wants to hear nothing about no musicians.
"The first time we went to the premiere of the movie, at the Smithsonian, the way the people applauded us -- it was a funny feeling," Jones says. "We had been playing in the background, and we had never had that feeling. It was really something to behold. . . .
"We were just sidemen, and we were content. They were paying us pretty good. . . . We weren't bitter, because we came in and that was our job, and we were satisfied with what we were getting for that.
"But we didn't know until we started traveling [after the film] what we had put out."
Those travels continue today, and bring The Funk Brothers, with original-era members Jones, bassist Bob Babbitt and guitarist Eddie Willis, to the Providence Performing Arts Center for aSoundSession performance on Friday.
Hard acts to follow
In their heyday, The Funk Brothers had a revolving cast of about 15. Since the mid-'60s, time has taken its toll.
The first to go were two of the greatest players: Drummer Benny Benjamin died in 1967, bassist Jamerson in 1983.
Benjamin had a groove and a feeling that made the music bounce, and his fills became such a signature element of the Motown sound that all drummers who followed him at the label copied them.
"I tried to clone myself after him," Jones says. "He laid down a foundation where any drummer who came into that studio, if you couldn't play almost like Benny, you weren't going to work in that studio."
Jamerson reinvented his instrument, using his jazz background to take the electric bass farther than it was generally thought able to go, with syncopations, blue notes and speed that could dazzle those who were listening for them while never getting in the way of the vocal or the main theme of the song. Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," Gladys Knight and the Pips' "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" are hallmark examples.
But both of them had their troubles. Babbitt and Jones were hired at Motown in part to cover for the unreliability of Jamerson and Benjamin.
"Benny was just strung out on so many different things," Jones says quietly. "Benny would get lost and you wouldn't see him for a week.
"Jamerson had a drinking problem. Benny Benjamin had a heroin addiction. A little different than trying to talk to [Jamerson]. But we hung with him for a long time."
Fighting demons
When Motown left for Los Angeles in 1973, Jamerson (along with a few other players) followed the label, which Jones says was a mistake.
"See, if Jamerson hadn't left Detroit," Jones says, "I believe there'd be a good chance that he'd be alive now. Because when Jamerson was here, and he started drinking too much and getting out of hand, we would check him. When you're in a strange city like L.A., he had nobody checking him. His family couldn't do it. He had nobody he would listen to."
Jones also says that "Babbitt probably had the hardest job of all of us, filling Jamerson's shoes. And he filled them very well. And he and Jamerson were very close."
Babbitt says he felt "on the hot seat" at Motown. "Almost every time." You could feel it more with certain people, he says. "And that's hard on you."
But Babbitt downplays the role of Jamerson's problems. "He was fighting some demons. But also, the company was expanding. . . . Jamerson needed help anyway."
Even so, "I respected him -- there's not enough words to say. I've always felt like I was fortunate to be part of it. . . . [Jamerson's] whole presence in the music business was so huge that I feel sometimes like somebody should keep his name and his style of playing going. And I feel like I can do that, and I should do it.
"And when I sit down to play in a studio [now], a lot of times I get into a situation where I'll think 'What would he have done here?' if it's that style of music. And along with what I do, maybe something he would do helps get me through it."
(You can hear the influence on Babbitt's signature Motown moment, Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered.")
Winging it
Sometimes The Funk Brothers' parts would be written out for them, but more often than not they came up with their parts on their own.
They'd sometimes get a chord sheet, Willis says. "It'd have five or six chords on it. It didn't help us much. A lot of times, the producers, the only way we'd know where they were going was, they'd have to sing the song."
Jamerson's wizardry, Robert White's iconic guitar intro to "My Girl" -- much of this was come up with on the spot, hour after hour, day after day, hit after hit.
More than anything, the sound of The Funk Brothers was the sound of sensitive musicians doing more listening than playing. There could be three guitarists and two drummers on a session, and a song would still come out swinging.
Communication -- verbal and non-verbal -- was the key.
"We were all jazz-oriented musicians," Jones says. "So we weren't wild playing. We were feeding off on another. In the studio, we all had eye contact with one another. [So] it was just a natural thing."
"We played accordingly, and we stayed out of each other's way, and it worked out fine," Willis says.
And they all agree: The combination of factors that produced The Funk Brothers and the classic Motown scene won't be coming around again.
"Before Motown got real big and was strictly business," Jones says, "it was all family. All the artists, the musicians, everybody was on the same level. Even Berry Gordy -- we all came up together.
"So we had a warm family thing. So the way the record business is now, I don't think it could happen again."
On to nightclubs
When Motown left, Jones, 72, stayed in Detroit, and he lives outside the city today.
"I just shifted gears," he says, "started doing a lot more nightclubs."
Willis, 70, eventually ended up in his native Mississippi, where he lives today. He does occasional studio work, but mainly The Funk Brothers are enough for him.
The busy nightclub scene of Memphis is only about 80 miles away, he says, but "I really don't care to be in it. I don't want to get back into that hassle of here and there."
Babbitt, 64, headed east when Motown headed west, working in New York and with Philadelphia International Records, with writer-producer Thom Bell.
He played on seven albums for former Motown act The Spinners, and made his own iconic mark on the bass world by playing on Knight and the Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia."
"When they say 'the right place at the right time,' there's truth to that. And if I'd moved to L.A., I don't know if that would've happened."
Dwindling numbers
More Funk Brothers passed on as the years went by, even after the movie was in motion. White died early in the filming; drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen played in the film but died before it was released.
"We try not to forget them," Jones says of the Brothers who are no longer with them. "We always bring their names up at shows, because they laid the foundation for us."
It hasn't all been smooth. Guitarist Joe Messina retired recently, as his wife's health made it too much of a burden to go on the road. And percussionist Jack Ashford and pianist Joe Hunter split off and formed their own group. A dispute over the Funk Brothers name ended up in court.
"We hated that," Jones says. "We really hated that."
"It's been kind of a rough road," Babbitt says, alluding to the dispute as well as hassles over money the Brothers made or didn't make from the film, " . . . but I think that's the nature of the business."
So that leaves three.
Jones, Willis and Babbitt get together anywhere from two to four times a month to reunite The Funk Brothers, with the help of auxiliary musicians, many of whom have worked with the Brothers over the years, some even at Motown.
"The three of us, that's as strong as ever," Willis says. "I hate to say it, but another one of us would have to drop aside for us to [consider retiring]."
The goal is to remind and to remember.
"You can't forget them," Willis says of his departed comrades, "because they started out with the same thing, and they wanted everything that we are attempting to do now. You can't help but think about it, man.
"A lot of times, I'm up there with tears in my eyes. . . . You're trying to play for them now."
LINK