The Funk Brothers

The Funk Brothers played on more number 1 singles than any other band in history. Sadly, their status as sidemen for Motown Records largely consigned these unsung pioneers to the forgotten corners of the annals of popular music, although a 2002 documentary Standing In The Shadows Of Motown went some way to redressing the balance.

They were instrumental in fashioning the trademark Motown sound, a fact the astute Berry Gordy (Motown owner) realized by keeping most of the musicians under contract for the period between 1959 and 1972 when the company was based in Detroit.

In what was called Hitsville USA, the Funk Brothers worked with all the leading stars of America's premier black music label, a role call including such giants as the Miracles, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Supremes. Sequestered in the tiny Studio A (the "Snakepit"), the musicians spent all day recording the instrumental backing for releases by Motown artists, who they rarely ever saw because vocals were added at different sessions. Paid at the rate of $10 a song, the Funk Brothers were given no credit on album covers (save Gaye's 1971 masterpiece “What's Going On”) and rarely toured with the big stars.

When Motown relocated from Detroit to Los Angeles the Funk Brothers were left behind by the now waning company. Several members found work on the local club circuit while others gave up music and settled into an altogether different routine of day jobs and raising families.

The players who featured in the Funk Brothers were drawn from the local Detroit jazz and blues clubs. The personnel included: guitarists Robert White, Joe Messina, and Eddie Willis, bass players James Jamerson, and Bob Babbitt, drummers Benny "Papa Zita" Benjamin, Richard "Pistol" Allen, and Uriel Jones, percussionists Jack Ashford, and Eddie "Bongo" Brown, and keyboard players Joe Hunter, Earl Van Dyke, and Johnny Griffith. Hunter was the original band leader, a position he relinquished in 1964 to Van Dyke.

The revival of the Funk Brothers began in the 80s when Allan Slutsky aka Dr. Licks wrote a book about the deceased bassist James Jamerson. Slutsky's work helped elevate the unsung musician to the status his extraordinary bass work deserved (he was later posthumously inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame).

A project about the rest of the session crew was a natural follow-up, and Slutsky began work on the documentary Standing In The Shadows Of Motown in the 90s. The surviving Funk Brothers (casualties included Jamerson, Van Dyke, Brown and White; original drummer Benjamin had suffered a fatal stroke in 1969) reunited at the insistence of Slutsky to shoot new footage for the documentary, with guest vocalists including Joan Osborne, Ben Harper and Chaka Khan. The film was finally completed in 2002 and was released the same year to rapturous applause, winning the Best Film Of The Year Award (non-fiction) from the National Society of Film Critics.

The reunited Funk Brothers embarked on a US tour with guest vocalists including Osborne, Bootsy Collins and Maxi Priest. The soundtrack from the film later won two Grammy Awards, for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance (for a cover version of "What's Going On" with Chaka Khan). Sadly, in the ensuing period two further members of the Funk Brothers died, keyboard player Johnny Griffith and drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen. Even sadder, after all the various members had been through, was the announcement at the start of 2005 that the Funk Brothers had split into two camps due to personal and legal reasons.

At the Grammy Awards in 2004, the Funk Brothers were presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Show less