Standing In The Shadows of Motown

The Funk Brothers

FUNK BROTHERS: STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN The Soul Behind The Sound Soundtrack Liner Notes Detroit, Michigan, 1959 Berry Gordy gathers the best musicians from the city's thriving jazz and blues scene for his new record company: Motown. For the next 14 years these players are the heartbeat on "My Girl," "Baby Love," "Ooo Baby Baby," "Bernadette,", "I Was Made to Love Her," "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," "Dancing In The Street," and every other hit from Motown's Detroit era. By the end of their phenomenal run, this unheralded group of musicians plays on more Number One hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and The Beatles combined, making them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. They call themselves the Funk Brothers. But no one knows their names. It's a frigic winter in Detroit, 2000. Huddled in a corner of the stage at the Royal Oak Music Theater, guitarists Eddie Willis and Joe Messina take advantage of some down time to trade guitar licks and friendly jibes, just as they had done as members of Motown's Funk Brothers during their countless recording sessions at the Hitsville USA studio in the '60s. As a particularly tasty phrase from Eddie catches Joe'e ear, he asks, "That's a cool part. What's that from?" Eddie lets out a laugh. "You should know," he says. "You played it on Marvin and Tammi's 'Your Precious Love!" Joe blushes, but only for a moment. "How the hell should I know," he bellows back. "Ninety percent of the time, we never knew who the session was for and the songs had no titles. They just threw a chord chart at us and said, 'just play and make us a hit.' We never knew where our music would wind up." The last place the Funk Brothers ever thought their music would wind up is in a feature film about them. "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" is that film. More than 40 years after they played their first note on a Motown record, the surviving Funk Brothers reunite back in Detroit to play their music and tell their unforgettable story. Their compelling journey -- Hitsville studio by day and the club scene of Detroit by night; their musical roots, triumphs and eventual heartbreak -- is told with love and soul through archival footage, new interviews and great music old and new, including the live performances on this disc. But behind the scenes is a movie within a movie: The teary-eyed reunion of band members who hadn't seen or spoken to each other in more than 20 years; their commitment to doing right by those who could not be there -- the late, great James Jamerson, Benny Benjamin, Eddie "Bongo" Brown, Robert White and their leader, Earl Van Dyke; the pitbull determination of drummers Uriel Jones, who needed quintuple bypass surgery, and Pistol Allen, who had terminal lung cancer, and who both refused to back down until they'd thrown down their signifyin' grooves; the looks on the faces of Joe Hunter, Johnny Griffith, Bob Babbitt and Jack Ashford that said, "I've waited my whole life for this moment and it's finally here." And then, the biggest reward: the first few notes of "Heat Wave," live on stage, when it was apparent the Funk Brothers still had it. They're finally out of the shadows. - AS & HW PS: A note on the original Motown vault recordings heard in the movie and included here: "The Flick" was the Funk Brothers' theme song in the clubs. As recorded in the studio, this jam helps to introduce them early in the film and serves to honor them again here. New mixes of two other vault recordings, also excerpted in the film - the classics "Bernadette" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On" - bring to center stage the brilliant bass, drum, keyboard and guitar parts that for decades were lost behind the stars. These re-focused tracks provide gut-bucket snapshots of what it was like on the floor of the snakepit -- a bunch of cats from Detroit trading grooves and licks, all the while honing in on the ultimate Motown sound.

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