Post by ClassicSoul on Jun 19, 2006 12:35:46 GMT -5
Monday, June 19, 2006
By Mark Bialczak
Staff writer
This Funk Brother lives in Nashville.
Bassist Bob Babbitt says the country music mecca is perfect for a guy who has made funk and R&B styles his bread and butter since the days when the house band called The Funk Brothers was the backbone of Detroit's Motown sound from the late 1950s until 1973.
"I was living on the East Coast, and the music turned to synthesizer," Babbitt says during a recent phone interview from his Nashville home. "I just went for the human element. There's still a human element here. There's a lot of different genres of music going on. All styles of music from all over the world.
"I actually started coming (to Nashville) in 1986. I finally bought a house here in '90. And I'm glad I did," Babbitt says.
Then a funny thing happened in 2002. The documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" turned the spotlight on the way these sessions musicians laid down the melodies of hit songs from The Temptations, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, Mary Wells, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
The Funk Brothers were back in business.
Babbitt now plays with two other musicians who also appeared on those Motown hits, guitarist Eddie Willis and drummer Uriel Jones. The Funk Brothers, as they're named, headline the Friday night tribute to Detroit on the main stage at the M&T Syracuse Jazz Fest. They'll bring three female vocalists, a vocalist/percussionist, a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboardist who doubles as The Funk Brothers musical director. They found others steeped in the Motown sound.
"What we have now, we're really having fun," Babbitt says. "We ended up getting some guys who worked some sessions with us (in the years since the Motown recordings ended). Now we sound more like the records than we did before. There was a Motown sound for a reason.
"It was the style we were playing. The guys together, the chemistry and the spiritual connection created the sound that everybody knows now, that was so different from other sounds," Babbitt says. "It's a certain amount of people who can do that. You can hear a bar band do it, but it won't be the same."
It's a sound you know when you hear it. The Motown hits from at least a dozen artists ranging from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas to the Temptations shared the traits of catchy melodies, memorable chord progressions, deep percussion and an energetic vocal style that had lots in common with gospel music.
Babbitt says "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" helped put the right faces in the right places.
"All those years, there were people who claimed to play on all those records, because there were no credits (on the albums)," Babbitt says. "People say to me, 'How do I know you played on that?' I ran into people down here (in Nashville) that said they played on it, and they wanted to stay away from me because they knew that I knew they didn't."
Babbitt says life changed after the release of the film.
"All of a sudden, we found more work," he says. "Last year, Frank Malfitano invited The Funk Brothers to headline at the Detroit International Jazz Festival. Malfitano, the artistic director of that fest and the executive director of the M&T Syracuse Jazz Fest, says the Funk Brothers got perhaps the best reception of any band in the 2005 Detroit fest.
"That was great," Babbitt says. "We went to Detroit for Super Bowl week (in January), and it was pretty great, too. It's such a reward to see people, the smiles on their face. They bring their kids, and they're dancing and having a good time."
Back in the Motown studio nicknamed Hitsville, that's something they missed.
"When you're in the studio, you don't see that end of the business," he says. "You're making a record, and you can't envision what the reaction is because there's no crowd there, no people there. When you're playing live in front of the people, it's really something."
Now, Babbitt says, there are more opportunities for The Funk Brothers. "It's a shame it took so long. But at least it happened. For some people, it never happens."
LINK
By Mark Bialczak
Staff writer
This Funk Brother lives in Nashville.
Bassist Bob Babbitt says the country music mecca is perfect for a guy who has made funk and R&B styles his bread and butter since the days when the house band called The Funk Brothers was the backbone of Detroit's Motown sound from the late 1950s until 1973.
"I was living on the East Coast, and the music turned to synthesizer," Babbitt says during a recent phone interview from his Nashville home. "I just went for the human element. There's still a human element here. There's a lot of different genres of music going on. All styles of music from all over the world.
"I actually started coming (to Nashville) in 1986. I finally bought a house here in '90. And I'm glad I did," Babbitt says.
Then a funny thing happened in 2002. The documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" turned the spotlight on the way these sessions musicians laid down the melodies of hit songs from The Temptations, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, Mary Wells, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
The Funk Brothers were back in business.
Babbitt now plays with two other musicians who also appeared on those Motown hits, guitarist Eddie Willis and drummer Uriel Jones. The Funk Brothers, as they're named, headline the Friday night tribute to Detroit on the main stage at the M&T Syracuse Jazz Fest. They'll bring three female vocalists, a vocalist/percussionist, a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboardist who doubles as The Funk Brothers musical director. They found others steeped in the Motown sound.
"What we have now, we're really having fun," Babbitt says. "We ended up getting some guys who worked some sessions with us (in the years since the Motown recordings ended). Now we sound more like the records than we did before. There was a Motown sound for a reason.
"It was the style we were playing. The guys together, the chemistry and the spiritual connection created the sound that everybody knows now, that was so different from other sounds," Babbitt says. "It's a certain amount of people who can do that. You can hear a bar band do it, but it won't be the same."
It's a sound you know when you hear it. The Motown hits from at least a dozen artists ranging from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas to the Temptations shared the traits of catchy melodies, memorable chord progressions, deep percussion and an energetic vocal style that had lots in common with gospel music.
Babbitt says "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" helped put the right faces in the right places.
"All those years, there were people who claimed to play on all those records, because there were no credits (on the albums)," Babbitt says. "People say to me, 'How do I know you played on that?' I ran into people down here (in Nashville) that said they played on it, and they wanted to stay away from me because they knew that I knew they didn't."
Babbitt says life changed after the release of the film.
"All of a sudden, we found more work," he says. "Last year, Frank Malfitano invited The Funk Brothers to headline at the Detroit International Jazz Festival. Malfitano, the artistic director of that fest and the executive director of the M&T Syracuse Jazz Fest, says the Funk Brothers got perhaps the best reception of any band in the 2005 Detroit fest.
"That was great," Babbitt says. "We went to Detroit for Super Bowl week (in January), and it was pretty great, too. It's such a reward to see people, the smiles on their face. They bring their kids, and they're dancing and having a good time."
Back in the Motown studio nicknamed Hitsville, that's something they missed.
"When you're in the studio, you don't see that end of the business," he says. "You're making a record, and you can't envision what the reaction is because there's no crowd there, no people there. When you're playing live in front of the people, it's really something."
Now, Babbitt says, there are more opportunities for The Funk Brothers. "It's a shame it took so long. But at least it happened. For some people, it never happens."
LINK