I don't like to gush about a lot of things. I hate being "that person" who won't stop yammering on about something they have a passion for. But there are one or two things that I am unashamedly effusive about. This week's film is one of them and I'm trying to figure out how I've never featured it in one of these "sermons" before.
I became familiar with it when it was first released on DVD. We carried it in the music department at Barnes & Noble. It's a film about music--specifically Motown. As a fan of Motown, I took a look at it. The statistic on the front of the DVD case caught my attention the most and still boggles my mind more than twenty years later: "They played on more #1 records than the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and Elvis Presley combined..." I'll let you do the math on that. Based on that tagline alone, I rushed over to my video rental place. (Remember those? I think I may still have my membership card somewhere.) The music geek in me was moved and would never be the same.
Who are these musical geniuses, you may be asking? Los Angeles had The Wrecking Crew. Memphis had Booker T. & The MGs at Stax. And Detroit had... The Funk Brothers.
The Funk Brothers were some of the finest jazz and blues musicians playing in Detroit clubs in the late 1950s, many of whom had migrated north to work in the car factories. Berry Gordy Jr., who founded Motown Records in 1959, had converted his garage into a recording studio and hired these musicians to play for his fledgling label. For the next 13 years, they played for every artist to record in that studio--Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, just to name a few. Like a lot of people, I grew up listening to Martha and Stevie and Marvin and the Temps and the Tops, but I had never heard of the Funk Brothers until seeing this film. That's because they never received credit on the records until Marvin Gaye's 1971 epic What's Going On--a year before Gordy closed up shop in Detroit and relocated to Los Angeles.
This film absolutely changed the way I listened to music. I already had a habit of paying attention to certain parts of songs in my favourite recordings--drums, piano, whatever. After seeing this film, I became even more attuned to individual parts of songs. As an example, take the song "Bernadette" by The Four Tops. James Jamerson was such a genius bass player that if you listen to his work on this track, it almost doesn't sound like it goes with the rest of the song. But it fits beautifully. AND HE DID IT WITH ONE FINGER!!!! It's no wonder that today, Jamerson is considered by many to be the greatest bass player of all time.
The bonus features on the DVD include mini biographies of the musicians. In these, percussionist extraordinaire Jack Ashford is described as a "tambourine virtuoso," which... well, frankly, is not a phrase I would have ever uttered. But then I listened closely to his tambourine on Edwin Starr's "War," which was absolutely mind-blowing. I have never heard the tambourine played like that before or since, and I doubt it ever will be again.
The biggest change that it made in my music listening habits is that when I listen to Motown recordings today, I no longer hear Marvin or Smokey or The Temptations... I hear The Funk Brothers.
Perhaps the best review I can give of the film is as follows--after being completely enraptured by this film, I bought my own copy. At one point, I loaned it to my dear friend Tad Sare as well as my father. We all watched it individually of each other. When we spoke to each other about it later, we all said, "Yeah, I cried at the end."
Released in 2002, the film is part documentary, part concert. It tells the story of these amazing musicians interspersed with performances from a reunion concert that brought together the surviving Funk Brothers playing their hits sung by contemporary (twenty years ago) artists including Gerald Levert, Ben Harper, Montell Jordan, Chaka Khan, Joan Osborne, Bootsy Collins, and Meshell Ndegeocello. Narrated by the great Andre Braugher, written by Walter Dallas, Ntozake Shange, and Alan "Dr. Licks" Slutsky (based on Slutsky's book), and directed by Paul Justman, I cannot recommend highly enough Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Even if you don't like Motown, if you fancy yourself a music lover, you should check out this movie.
I will be taking next week off from these weekly musings. Until I return, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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