Post by Jonel on Nov 11, 2002 9:18:54 GMT -5
BIRMINGHAM: Motown unknowns move into spotlight
Funk Brothers are subject of a movie
November 11, 2002
BY DAVID LYMAN
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
So what if the Funk Brothers started playing 90 minutes later than scheduled Sunday night?
Most of the more than 300 people in the invitation-only crowd at the Roostertail had been waiting more than 30 years to hear the legendary Motown Records house band.
First on the playlist was "Uptight (Everything is Alright)" -- without Stevie Wonder. Then "Stop! In the Name of Love." Without Diana Ross.
For decades, these guys -- they're all men -- were the anonymous ones who created the Motown Sound.
The gently rolling bass line in "My Girl," the insistently twangy guitar throughout "You Keep Me Hanging On." It was all Funk Brothers.
"Motown was the heartbeat of young America," said Jerome Meriwether, griot and a tour leader at the Motown Historical Museum. "But these cats were the heartbeat of Motown."
The group, almost all of them in their 70s, returned to Detroit for Sunday afternoon's local premiere of "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," a documentary about their part in the Motown legend. The movie opens nationally on Friday.
At first glance, it was one of those gatherings of old men celebrating the glories of their youth. Veterans of some long-ago football team, perhaps, or the last few members of a World War II battalion.
But as the stories and music began to unfold on the screen of Birmingham's Uptown Palladium 12 theater, it soon became apparent that, despite their low public profiles, the music they made as the Funk Brothers is as synonymous with Detroit as automobiles.
For years, though, they toiled day and night in Studio A -- the Snakepit -- the tiny basement studio in the complex of houses on West Grand Boulevard in which Motown founder Berry Gordy created his empire.
But while Gordy transformed dozens of people into household names -- think Ross, Wonder, the Jackson 5 -- the musicians who made the music behind them remained almost invisible throughout their careers. "Stevie, Diana Ross, the Four Tops -- I listened to all of them," said Syvette Donald, 43, of Detroit. My first record was Smokey Robinson's 'Ooo Baby Baby.' But I never heard of the Funk Brothers until I got an invitation for this movie in the mail this week."
The festivities were tinged with an edge of grief, though. On Sunday morning, Funk Brothers pianist Johnny Griffith, who had been living and performing in Las Vegas for years, died in a downtown Detroit hotel.
"You should have heard him Thursday at the Apollo," said Paul Justman, the movie's director. "It was a remarkable performance. But that's how he was -- always on. Always amazing."
But as the remaining Funk Brothers took the stage, whatever sadness they may have carried inside was covered with jubilance at being together again.
Contact DAVID LYMAN at 313-222-6823 or dlyman@freepress.com
View photo and links here:
www.freep.com/entertainment/music/nfunk11_20021111.htm
Funk Brothers are subject of a movie
November 11, 2002
BY DAVID LYMAN
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
So what if the Funk Brothers started playing 90 minutes later than scheduled Sunday night?
Most of the more than 300 people in the invitation-only crowd at the Roostertail had been waiting more than 30 years to hear the legendary Motown Records house band.
First on the playlist was "Uptight (Everything is Alright)" -- without Stevie Wonder. Then "Stop! In the Name of Love." Without Diana Ross.
For decades, these guys -- they're all men -- were the anonymous ones who created the Motown Sound.
The gently rolling bass line in "My Girl," the insistently twangy guitar throughout "You Keep Me Hanging On." It was all Funk Brothers.
"Motown was the heartbeat of young America," said Jerome Meriwether, griot and a tour leader at the Motown Historical Museum. "But these cats were the heartbeat of Motown."
The group, almost all of them in their 70s, returned to Detroit for Sunday afternoon's local premiere of "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," a documentary about their part in the Motown legend. The movie opens nationally on Friday.
At first glance, it was one of those gatherings of old men celebrating the glories of their youth. Veterans of some long-ago football team, perhaps, or the last few members of a World War II battalion.
But as the stories and music began to unfold on the screen of Birmingham's Uptown Palladium 12 theater, it soon became apparent that, despite their low public profiles, the music they made as the Funk Brothers is as synonymous with Detroit as automobiles.
For years, though, they toiled day and night in Studio A -- the Snakepit -- the tiny basement studio in the complex of houses on West Grand Boulevard in which Motown founder Berry Gordy created his empire.
But while Gordy transformed dozens of people into household names -- think Ross, Wonder, the Jackson 5 -- the musicians who made the music behind them remained almost invisible throughout their careers. "Stevie, Diana Ross, the Four Tops -- I listened to all of them," said Syvette Donald, 43, of Detroit. My first record was Smokey Robinson's 'Ooo Baby Baby.' But I never heard of the Funk Brothers until I got an invitation for this movie in the mail this week."
The festivities were tinged with an edge of grief, though. On Sunday morning, Funk Brothers pianist Johnny Griffith, who had been living and performing in Las Vegas for years, died in a downtown Detroit hotel.
"You should have heard him Thursday at the Apollo," said Paul Justman, the movie's director. "It was a remarkable performance. But that's how he was -- always on. Always amazing."
But as the remaining Funk Brothers took the stage, whatever sadness they may have carried inside was covered with jubilance at being together again.
Contact DAVID LYMAN at 313-222-6823 or dlyman@freepress.com
View photo and links here:
www.freep.com/entertainment/music/nfunk11_20021111.htm
