They Played on Hundreds of Millions of Records

New film Standing In the Shadows of Motown spotlights the legendary Funk Brothers:

Producer Allan Slutsky says he knew he had stumbled upon "the last great unmined story of rock 'n roll" when he met the Funk Brothers, a group of unknown studio artists who performed the music behind some of America's most legendary Motown hits.

But his film "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," which documents the Funk Brothers' career, took more than 16 years for Slutsky to complete.

"The reason it took so long is because the story was too far out of the box," Slutsky said, adding that the obscurity of his subjects made it difficult to find financial backing for the film.

"It didn't fit into any category. It was a story about some unknown studio musicians."

"Standing in the Shadows of Motown," directed by Paul Justman, is based on Slutsky's 1989 book of the same title. It follows the Funk Brothers as they recount their heyday in the 1960s and '70s, when they performed in Detroit nightclubs and recorded albums with stars such as Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations.

...."For four decades, the Funk Brothers have been woven in the very fabric of our lives... They've celebrated with us, every party, every wedding, every bar mitzvah," Slutsky said.

But, he added, "You have this impact and this monumental achievement, but it's faceless. It's tragic."

In the time it took Slutsky and Justman to secure cash for the film, however, two of the band members, keyboardist Earl Van Dyke and guitarist Robert White, died.

And just after the film was completed, the Funk Brothers lost another member, drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen, to cancer.

"At least with Pistol, it wasn't as hard a pill to swallow because at least I know he knew when he died, his legacy was preserved," Slutsky said. "Robert died thinking he was forgotten."

In the film, Slutsky recounts a moment when he and White were in a restaurant, when suddenly the sound system began playing "My Girl," one of White's most memorable recordings.

"He (White) turns to the waiter and goes, "Hey! You hear that? That's..." and then he stops and looks down at the menu and goes 'I think I'll have the barbecued chicken'," Slutsky said.

When Slutsky pressed White about why he didn't tell the waiter about his role in the song, White answered, "He'd think I was an old fool. He'd never believe me."

Slutsky said he hopes the film's success will relaunch the remaining Funk Brothers' careers.

Justman said he realizes the power the film might have on the future of the remaining Funk Brothers and joked about the impact of his role as its director.

"How does it feel to be Moses?" he said, laughing. "We did it quicker than Moses. Moses took 40 years."

But, he added: "I'm just happy these guys can live with their heads up and can say, 'People know who we are now'."

"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" received critical acclaim when it made its debut at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in May. It is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and has been scheduled for release on Nov. 15.

The Berry Gordy Jr./Motown story is an American legend. Gordy must be given his due as a meta-producer who assembled the vastly talented Motown creative team of Smokey Robinson, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Norman Whitfield, William Stevenson, Henry Cosby, Frank Wilson, Ashford and Simpson, and many others; and created a competitive atmosphere that spurred the writer/producers to make the finest body of American music of the '60s, generating 79 Top Ten singles over that golden decade. Gordy was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Gordy was also a talented songwriter, arranger and producer in his own right who recorded the Motown debuts of many of his brightest stars, including the Miracles, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and the Supremes. Gordy's finest production work probably came toward the end of his famous ten-year run, as part of the Corporation, with his last great group, the Jackson 5.

Berry ("Pops") Gordy Sr. and his wife Bertha came to Detroit from the South in 1922. Once in Detroit, the driven Pops first went into the plastering business, then opened a grocery store and a printing shop; he also produced seven children including Berry Jr., born in 1929. As his father had done before him, Pops instilled the twin tenets of hard work and family concord in his offspring.

Berry Jr. bought the dream but not the means, and in pursuit of big, quick, cash the adolescent turned to boxing. Pops encouraged this pursuit - he wanted his boys to be able to take care of themselves - and Berry rose to the challenge. He trained hard - sometimes with Jackie Wilson, the local Golden Gloves winner - and had enough success as an amateur bantamweight (later featherweight) to quit school at 16 and turn professional. Berry finished his career after about 15 fights with a winning record; but purses weren't large for the little guys, opponents in his weight class were scarce, and he was tired of people beating on his face.

After a stint in the Army, Berry labored unenthusiastically for his father in the day and frequented the hot jazz clubs of Detroit almost every night, making the scene and digging on Charlie Parker or Thelonious Monk. Gordy tried to turn his passion for jazz into a living when he opened the 3-D Record Mart in 1953, but the public was more interested in R&B and the blues, and the store closed two years later, a victim of public taste. Reluctantly, Gordy went to work at the Ford plant to support his young family, humming made-up tunes in his head as he fastened chrome strips to Lincolns, according to Nelson George in his excellent study of Motown, Where Did Our Love Go?

Meanwhile, two of Berry's older sisters, Anna and Gwen, snared the photography and cigarette concession at the swinging Flame Show Bar. As Berry began to write his tunes down, the sisters started showing them to the musicians who played the club, including Jackie Wilson, who recorded Gordy's "Reet Petite" in 1957. Overtly commercial, the bouncy "Reet" hit No. 11 on the R&B chart, followed by "Lonely Teardrops" which featured some future Motown emblems: lyrics with stories, a rocking backbeat with tambourine, a big sax break, and a family of supportive background singers.

Marv Johnson's hits in '59 and '60 featured many of the same amenities as Gordy moved into production. Gordy had met a 17-year-old Smokey Robinson at an open audition and had encouraged the youth’s songwriting efforts. Gordy wrote and produced Smokey and the Miracles' first hit, "Got a Job" and licensed it to End Records. The song hit No. 1 R&B but Gordy's total royalty take was $3.19.

Despite his succession of hits, cash was short and Gordy was sick of it. His attitude can be found on his biggest pre-Motown hit, Barrett Strong's rock 'n' roll anthem "Money," written and produced by Gordy and released on his sister's Anna label with the immortal lines: "Your lovin' gives me a thrill, but your lovin' won't pay my bills, I want money." It was time to combine love and commerce.

Gordy took the bull by the balls and with help from Robinson and the Gordy family, he set up a recording studio (first with a single three-track tape machine, then a pair of Ampex eight-tracks with state of the art equalizing capability by '65) and offices at 2648 West Grand Boulevard ("Hitsville, U.S.A.") and established the Motown/Tamla record group, Jobete Music Publishing, and International Talent management.

Now he was in charge, and Motown was to become the most profitable black entertainment company in the country. Determined to hang on to the cash, Gordy set up restrictive accounting practices that only allowed performers to see the books twice a year, and prohibited outside agencies like the R.I.A.A. from seeing them at all. This practice led to Motown receiving no gold record certifications in its heyday.

Writers, producers and artists were put on weekly salaries that were then deducted from their royalties. Studio musicians were on weekly retainer, not paid by the session, and on 24-hour call. Motown succeeded where others failed because Gordy, in addition to his keen ear for talent, was able to achieve a literal (most of his brothers and sisters came to work for Motown) and figurative family atmosphere where camaraderie and friendly competition brought out the best in talented artists, writers and producers while the company made most, but not all, of the money.

Gordy also audaciously sought to capture both black and the white audiences by emphasizing beat and soul in the vocals, but with a pop (i.e., non-blues-based) melody, and relationship-based (i.e., non-race-specific) lyrics (this formula changed in the late-'60s when the Supremes and the Temptations tackled social themes).

To ease his (black) artist's segue into the (white) world of television appearances and posh night clubs, Gordy established the Artist Development Department, which included a vocal coach, choreographer Cholly Atkins, live music director Maurice King, and an etiquette/style instructor. Some blossomed and some chafed under Gordy's "I'll take care of you" paternalistic eye. Mary Wells left after her first contract expired in 1964, while Smokey lasted until the '90s.

Motown's most productive writer/producers - the team of Eddie and Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier - left after a royalty dispute in 1967, cutting off the flow of hits for the Four Tops and the Supremes. Only Gordy's personal devotion to the Supremes, and to Diana Ross in particular, kept them going for a few more years.

The family dream ended when Gordy picked up the company and moved to Los Angeles in 1971, where he expanded into film, producing Lady Sings the Blues (with Diana Ross as Billie Holiday) and The Last Dragon, among others. He sold Motown to MCA in the late-'80s for around $60 million.

Motown's first big hit was the Miracles' "Shop Around" in 1961. Its evolution is telling of Gordy's skills. Smokey wrote the song and produced the first version.
Gordy loved the song, but something was wrong with the arrangement. He sped up the beat and got drummer Benny Benjamin to play with brushes instead of sticks when they re-recorded the song at 3A.M. When it shot to No. 1 R&B, Motown was on its way.

Gordy's assembly line training expressed itself in the company's Quality Control Department: wherein creative staff (but not artists) reviewed the week's output - sometimes listening to as many as a dozen different takes of a given song - and then voted upon the results. Gordy often brought in neighborhood teenagers to rate the songs, a la American Bandstand.

As Motown came to dominate the charts in the mid-'60s, there came to be something called a "Motown sound." This sound can be traced to the writers: Gordy, Robinson, Norman Whitfield, H-D-H; the artists; engineer Lawrence Horn; and to the band - the fabled Funk Brothers - who backed up most of the artists recorded at Hitsville. The prototypical lineup was Benny Benjamin on drums, James Jamerson on bass, Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, James Giddons on percussion, and Robert White or Joe Messina on guitar.

In his history of record production, Good Vibrations, Mark Cunningham alleges that as early as 1963, (white) musicians from Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew, including Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye on bass, and Tommy Tedesco on guitar were in fact contributing to the Motown sound from Los Angeles. If so, the real matter is that the West Coasters were forced to emulate the Funk Brothers. Confusion over results is a tribute to the power of the prototype and the skill of their imitators.

In addition to the classic rock 'n' roll of "Money," Gordy's best work as a producer includes the Contours' rocking "Do You Love Me"; Little Stevie Wonder's raucous debut "Fingertips," a harmonica and call and response workout that captures the child genius at his most irrepressible; and Junior Walker's sax-plosion "Shot Gun" which captures a similar blast of adrenaline.

After several years in the mid-to-late-'60s concentrating on the business side,
Gordy returned to production to help out his beloved Supremes after H-D-H left the company. He went to work with the writing/production team of Deke Richards, Frank Wilson, R. Dean Taylor and Hank Cosby, known as the Clan, to come up with the stinging single-mother commentary "Love Child," followed by the similar, but less so, "I'm Living In Shame" (this was another Motown modus operandi: put out slight variations on a successful theme until the public cried uncle). The Clan evolved into the Corporation, which guided Motown's last great group, the Jackson 5.




Click here for more fine Blogcritics.org reading, or scroll down to see comments on this story and add one of your own. Support Blogcritics.org by shopping at Amazon.com from this page.





Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971 Various Artists Motown / Pgd 03 November, 1992 $46.99 at Amazon.com





The Encyclopedia of Record Producers: An Indispensable Guide to the Most Important Record Producers in Music History Eric Olsen, Paul Verna, Carlo Wolff Watson-Guptill Pubns July, 1999 $24.95 at Amazon.com





Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise & Fall of the Motown Sound Nelson George, George Nelson St. Martin's Press September, 1987 $9.95 at Amazon.com





Cellarful of Motown: Rarest Motown Grooves Various Artists Universal 30 July, 2002 $16.99 at Amazon.com




---

Posted by Eric Olsen on September 13, 2002 09:41 AM (See all posts by Eric Olsen)
Filed under: Books: Entertainment, Music, Music: News, Music: Pop, Music: R&B, Video: Documentary, Video: Performing Arts