Post by Jonel on Nov 8, 2002 12:42:31 GMT -5
The musicians behind Motown
Overlooked for decades, the men who made the sound get their moment in the spotlight
October 27, 2002
BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE WRITER
TORONTO -- Detroiter Joe Hunter is about halfway through what he has complained is "the hottest damn piece of fish I ever ate" in a downtown Toronto cafe when a semi-recognizable piece of music comes out of the restaurant's sound system.
The charging 4/4 beat, the syncopated piano breaks, the insistent bass line that drives the tune -- it's the Four Tops hit "Bernadette," remixed and stripped of Levi Stubbs' heartbroken vocal. Hunter stops gulping water and pricks up his ears.
"Now, you tell me, who wants to hear that without the singing?" asks Hunter.
"You'd be surprised," answers Allan Slutsky, a musician who has spent nine years on a labor of love, a labor that culminates with the Nov. 15 opening of the documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown."
Slutsky and the film's equally Motown-obsessed director Paul Justman have been on a mission. Their goal: to make obvious something millions of people around the world have given scant thought to while listening to "Where Did Our Love Go?" "Shotgun" and "Baby, I Need Your Loving" on the radio, at home, in movie theaters, at the barbershop and beauty parlor: It wasn't Motown making the Motown sound; it was musicians.
Selling a crazy idea
"So this dude (Slutsky) comes to me a few years ago and says, 'I want to make a movie about you guys because you never got the attention you deserved,' " recalls Hunter, 73, a pianist who played Motown before it was Motown, on one of the first sessions Berry Gordy Jr. ever produced, and then on the first wave of hits from Hitsville, U.S.A., including the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?"
"And I said to him, 'Boy, you must be crazy.' "
"Then he comes back a couple of years ago and says, 'Hey, I got 3 million dollars to make this movie, and we're ready to go.' " says Hunter. "And I thought, man, this fool is really crazy."
"Guy looked kind of like a computer nerd to me," says a dapper Jack Ashford, 68, who played keyboards, vibes and, most importantly, tambourine on dozens of Motown standards.
"I didn't really think (the movie) would come to much, to tell you truth," says Ashford. "But then, you know, I'm the guy who, after we recorded 'Shotgun,' said that noise would never be a hit."
Discovering the Funks
Slutsky's relationship with the Motown session musicians now known as the Funk Brothers began in the early '80s when he came to Detroit to research a tab book, one in a series of musicians' manuals Slutsky wrote under the name Dr. Licks. The tab books transcribed much-played solos and rhythm parts, and this one was to transcribe the bass parts played on Motown discs by the late James Jamerson, universally acknowledged as one of the giants of the electric bass.
"His widow took me around to meet some of the old players from Motown," says Slutsky, who once played Motown tunes in a Philadelphia cover band called the Majestics. "The more stories these guys told, the more I realized how enormous a role they played on those records," he says.
"Everybody at Motown had gotten their props -- the artists, Berry Gordy, Holland-Dozier-Holland and those other great producers. Everybody had the recognition they deserved but these guys."
The result of this revelation was the 1989 book "Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson" (Hal Leonard Publishing, $35 for book-CD set), which would win Rolling Stone magazine's Ralph J. Gleason Award for music book of the year. By that time, Slutsky was thinking about a film to document the contribution these musicians made to pop music and pop culture.
For the next few years he made pitches to producers and funding organizations. The National Endowment for the Arts deemed the project too commercial, while movie producers would tell him it wasn't commercial enough.
Meanwhile, Slutsky hooked up with Justman. A film editor turned director, Justman had learned his craft making memorable music videos in the early days of MTV and then moved on to music documentaries. Despite the lack of financing, the two men began shooting interviews with various Funks, including guitarist Robert White.
Not long after, White died, and Justman argued for abandoning the idea of an elaborate feature and "just getting the story on the record."
"Without sounding too morbid about it, we had already lost Robert and Earl Van Dyke," says Justman.
(cont.)
Overlooked for decades, the men who made the sound get their moment in the spotlight
October 27, 2002
BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE WRITER
TORONTO -- Detroiter Joe Hunter is about halfway through what he has complained is "the hottest damn piece of fish I ever ate" in a downtown Toronto cafe when a semi-recognizable piece of music comes out of the restaurant's sound system.
The charging 4/4 beat, the syncopated piano breaks, the insistent bass line that drives the tune -- it's the Four Tops hit "Bernadette," remixed and stripped of Levi Stubbs' heartbroken vocal. Hunter stops gulping water and pricks up his ears.
"Now, you tell me, who wants to hear that without the singing?" asks Hunter.
"You'd be surprised," answers Allan Slutsky, a musician who has spent nine years on a labor of love, a labor that culminates with the Nov. 15 opening of the documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown."
Slutsky and the film's equally Motown-obsessed director Paul Justman have been on a mission. Their goal: to make obvious something millions of people around the world have given scant thought to while listening to "Where Did Our Love Go?" "Shotgun" and "Baby, I Need Your Loving" on the radio, at home, in movie theaters, at the barbershop and beauty parlor: It wasn't Motown making the Motown sound; it was musicians.
Selling a crazy idea
"So this dude (Slutsky) comes to me a few years ago and says, 'I want to make a movie about you guys because you never got the attention you deserved,' " recalls Hunter, 73, a pianist who played Motown before it was Motown, on one of the first sessions Berry Gordy Jr. ever produced, and then on the first wave of hits from Hitsville, U.S.A., including the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?"
"And I said to him, 'Boy, you must be crazy.' "
"Then he comes back a couple of years ago and says, 'Hey, I got 3 million dollars to make this movie, and we're ready to go.' " says Hunter. "And I thought, man, this fool is really crazy."
"Guy looked kind of like a computer nerd to me," says a dapper Jack Ashford, 68, who played keyboards, vibes and, most importantly, tambourine on dozens of Motown standards.
"I didn't really think (the movie) would come to much, to tell you truth," says Ashford. "But then, you know, I'm the guy who, after we recorded 'Shotgun,' said that noise would never be a hit."
Discovering the Funks
Slutsky's relationship with the Motown session musicians now known as the Funk Brothers began in the early '80s when he came to Detroit to research a tab book, one in a series of musicians' manuals Slutsky wrote under the name Dr. Licks. The tab books transcribed much-played solos and rhythm parts, and this one was to transcribe the bass parts played on Motown discs by the late James Jamerson, universally acknowledged as one of the giants of the electric bass.
"His widow took me around to meet some of the old players from Motown," says Slutsky, who once played Motown tunes in a Philadelphia cover band called the Majestics. "The more stories these guys told, the more I realized how enormous a role they played on those records," he says.
"Everybody at Motown had gotten their props -- the artists, Berry Gordy, Holland-Dozier-Holland and those other great producers. Everybody had the recognition they deserved but these guys."
The result of this revelation was the 1989 book "Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson" (Hal Leonard Publishing, $35 for book-CD set), which would win Rolling Stone magazine's Ralph J. Gleason Award for music book of the year. By that time, Slutsky was thinking about a film to document the contribution these musicians made to pop music and pop culture.
For the next few years he made pitches to producers and funding organizations. The National Endowment for the Arts deemed the project too commercial, while movie producers would tell him it wasn't commercial enough.
Meanwhile, Slutsky hooked up with Justman. A film editor turned director, Justman had learned his craft making memorable music videos in the early days of MTV and then moved on to music documentaries. Despite the lack of financing, the two men began shooting interviews with various Funks, including guitarist Robert White.
Not long after, White died, and Justman argued for abandoning the idea of an elaborate feature and "just getting the story on the record."
"Without sounding too morbid about it, we had already lost Robert and Earl Van Dyke," says Justman.
(cont.)
