Post by Emerald City on May 1, 2005 15:37:06 GMT -5
Here's an Interview with Joe conducted last year From the BBC Website
It's short and sweet so Enjoy
The Funk Brothers - Joe Messina interview
JOE MESSINA (Guitarist)
The man who patented the trademark Motown guitar backbeat started life as a virtuoso jazz guitarist before he was signed up by Berry Gordy. A pleasant, diffident sort of bloke, he's surprised and delighted by his belated step into the spotlight.
Jim Clarke talked to Joe...
...on getting the band back together:
"Alan very *friendly* personsky kept calling me over the years about the film project..I didn't think it would ever happen. One day he phoned me, said he'd got someone to back the film and told me to get practising! "I hadn't played for thirty years so it wasn't easy getting my chops together..but its coming. "All this is the icing on the cake..I didn't expect after all these years but now its here, its great."
...on the Motown Sound:
" I think it was something to do with the size of the studio at Motown..we called it The Snakepit.We were so close together..we always had eye contact..so there was always this closeness and I think that's reflected in the sound. I think that fact that we all liked each other was important too..that has to have an effect on the sound you produce. There was a lot of love there."
...on his favourite artist:
"Has to be Marvin Gaye. You hear stories of him in his later years and sure, he had problems, but when we worked with him he was a very calm man..easy to work with. I liked the guy."
...on the records he made:
"I didn't really listen to them at the time. We came in for a session, laid down the notes they wanted and the vocal track was put on later. I played what I had to but I never listed to the radio stations where they played our music, I just listened to jazz. So I never really knew whether a record I had played on was doing well or badly."
It's short and sweet so Enjoy
The Funk Brothers - Joe Messina interview
JOE MESSINA (Guitarist)
The man who patented the trademark Motown guitar backbeat started life as a virtuoso jazz guitarist before he was signed up by Berry Gordy. A pleasant, diffident sort of bloke, he's surprised and delighted by his belated step into the spotlight.
Jim Clarke talked to Joe...
...on getting the band back together:
"Alan very *friendly* personsky kept calling me over the years about the film project..I didn't think it would ever happen. One day he phoned me, said he'd got someone to back the film and told me to get practising! "I hadn't played for thirty years so it wasn't easy getting my chops together..but its coming. "All this is the icing on the cake..I didn't expect after all these years but now its here, its great."
...on the Motown Sound:
" I think it was something to do with the size of the studio at Motown..we called it The Snakepit.We were so close together..we always had eye contact..so there was always this closeness and I think that's reflected in the sound. I think that fact that we all liked each other was important too..that has to have an effect on the sound you produce. There was a lot of love there."
...on his favourite artist:
"Has to be Marvin Gaye. You hear stories of him in his later years and sure, he had problems, but when we worked with him he was a very calm man..easy to work with. I liked the guy."
...on the records he made:
"I didn't really listen to them at the time. We came in for a session, laid down the notes they wanted and the vocal track was put on later. I played what I had to but I never listed to the radio stations where they played our music, I just listened to jazz. So I never really knew whether a record I had played on was doing well or badly."
