Standing in the Shadows…

… of Motown. Today in rock history, on this date in 1953, James Jamerson moves to Detroit and takes up the bass. James was a member of the “Funk Brothers,” who, along with founding members Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke (piano); Benny "Papa Zita" Benjamin and Richard "Pistol" Allen (drums); Robert White, Eddie Willis, and Joe Messina (guitar); Jack Ashford (tambourine, percussion, vibraphone, marimba); Jack Brokensha (vibraphone, marimba); and Eddie "Bongo" Brown (percussion), made up the “house band” at Motown in the ‘50’s ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. They were responsible for the “Motown Sound” of the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, and on and on. Until the documentary “Standing in the Shadows” was released in 2002, little was known about the tightest, most bad-ass R&B/soul band around – Motown did not start crediting studio musicians until Marvin Gaye’s 1972 album “What’s Goin’ On” was released. The band used innovative techniques. For example, most Motown records feature two drummers, playing together or overdubbing one another — Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" used three drummers. A number of songs utilized instrumentation and percussion unusual in soul music. The Temptations' "It's Growing" features Earl Van Dyke playing a toy piano for the song's introduction, snow chains are used as percussion on Martha & the Vandellas' "Nowhere to Run", and a custom oscillator was built to create the synthesizer sounds used to accent Diana Ross & the Supremes' "Reflections" A tire iron was used in the Martha & the Vandellas "Dancing in the Streets". One interesting thing I noted while watching the documentary is that most of the musicians still used charts when playing songs that they’d probably been playing for 30 years or more. I remember thinking, “jeeze, you’d think they’d have memorized their parts by now!” At any rate, let’s enjoy the Funk Brothers one more time (and any time you listen to a classic Motown tune), the great unsung heroes of the Motown years. Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_Brothers and http://www.rockhall.com/notes/today-in-rock/ for the info, and keep on rockin’!