All language subtitles for Standing.In.The.Shadows.Of.Motown.2002.1080p.WEBRip.x264-[YTS.LT]ENGENG

It was bigger than we
thought it was gonna be.

We didn't know it was gonna be that big.

To be or not to be... It was bein'.

First we didn't notice what was goin' on.

We were too busy creating
the music and the magic.

Finally you know
that, uh,

you have, uh, played on
hit records.

And the jukeboxes and the radio is playing,

and somebody said,
"Oh, boy, that's Motown."

But they never know us. Nobody
never mentioned too much about us.

Really a long time it goes,
and finally it gets to you.

Finally, when the dust cleared,

it was all over,

and we realized we were
being left out of the dream.

It's the end.

And, as the years go by,

we wonder,
will anyone ever know...

who we are or what we did.

Yeah. What you gonna do?

They were the days of American innocence...

OfFather Knows Best.

Lady Day passed on,

and Fats Domino enticed the
nation to visit "Blueberry Hill."

Elvis Presley burst out of
Mississippi like a tornado,

gathering followers from
every sphere of American life.

There was a cultural tidal
wave in his hips and music.

Radio stations flooded the country
with this new sound from the South.

But the roots of that music... the
originators... remained unknown.

These pioneers of rhythm
and blues could be found...

at the far reaches of the radio dial,
playing soulfully for their loyal fans.

But they were confined to frustration...

as they watched their white counterparts
triumph with the style they'd created.

Struggling to find the key to
mainstream America's heartbeat,

scores of black artists
and record companies...

searched for a new sound that would
free them from the race music label.

In Detroit, that sound arrived.

Yeah, we're, uh, doing a
documentary about some music.

You know a lot about music? You
gotta know something about music.

I know something about music.
You know anything about Motown?

- I like to listen to Motown.
- Yeah. I was brought up on that stuff.

Do you know about Motown? Oh, yes.

Do you know a lot about music?

- I like to think so.
- Yes. I'm from Detroit.

- Yeah.
- Motown? Yeah, sure. The sound of Detroit.

I know a little too much
about music.

What's your favorite
Motown group?

I wouldn't say group.
I would go with Marvin Gaye.

- I'd have to say Smokey Robinson probably.
- Of course, Stevie Wonder.

- I love the Supremes.
- Four Tops.

Would you happen to know who played
the music on the Supremes albums?

You know,
the instruments and stuff. I have no idea.

Did you ever think about that? Mmm, I think
about it with... No, I haven't, actually.

Do you know who played the music
for Smokey? Mmm, not right offhand.

- It's the Miracles.
- Um...

It was Gladys Knight & the Pips,
wasn't it?

But did they play the music?

- The Pips.
- I don't think I know any of the musicians.

Yeah.
I'm familiar with Marvin Gaye.

His band? No.
Unfortunately, I can't say.

What if I told you it was a group called the
Funk Brothers who played on all that stuff?

Wow. I had no idea.

Who are the Funk Brothers?
Who are they?

- Really?
- If it's true, I would believe it.

They still around?

People will ask,
"What is the Motown sound?"

They've asked producers. They've
asked, uh, executives from Motown.

"What was the Motown sound?"
It was the musicians. Okay?

When these cats cut tracks,

no offense to any of the great artists that sang
on them, but anybody could have sang on them.

You could've had Deputy Dawg singing on some
of this stuff. It would have been a hit...

because the tracks
were just so incredible.

They were musical entities
unto themselves.

They had a natural feel
for music.

They were just
that exceptional.

Being really good jazz musicians,
they could swing like crazy.

That's something that's
not always present in pop music.

- The bass drum had a note.
- It wasn't a dead...

- It was a boom.
- So you had...

When there's a groove like that,

the subliminal effect
is everybody feels good.

They were the groundwork. They were the
things that everything else was built on.

It was like a river
constantly flowing.

Talent, creations, you know.
People come in.

"Who's available? Who's
on the list? Well, call them in.

Where are they? This one's
out of town? Call the other one."

But it was always
the Funk Brothers.

Always the Funk Brothers.
First.

Without them, there really
wouldn't be a Motown.

That was the sound.
That was the foundation.

That was it.
That was the essence of Motown.

That essence was an overpowering
lineup of veteran groove masters...

and trailblazing virtuosos.

Guitarists Eddie Willis, Joe
Messina and Robert White...

and keyboardists Johnny Griffith,
Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke...

wove an irresistible tapestry of
instrumental hooks and counter-rhythms...

over the electrifying core
of the Motown groove...

A core comprised of James Jamerson,
the tormented genius of the Motown bass...

and late-era bassist Bob Babbitt,

percussionists Jack Ashford
and Eddie "Bongo" Brown,

drummers Uriel Jones, "Pistol" Allen...

and the explosive Benny
"Papa Zita" Benjamin,

the creator of the Motown drumbeat.

The dance floors of the
world didn't stand a chance.

After World War II, the
auto industry boom...

turned Detroit into an economic magnet
for people in search of steady work.

Tens of thousands migrated to the city.

Among them, several future Funk Brothers.

Actually, Jamerson
came from South Carolina.

Uh, Eddie Willis
came from Mississippi.

Pistol came from Memphis, Tennessee,
and I'm from Jackson, Tennessee.

We came north...
Mostly our people came north...

to get jobs in the car factories
here in Detroit, Michigan.

And, uh,

I worked at Chevrolet myself.

I worked at Chevrolet
for about a year and a half.

The last thing we wanted to do
was work in the factories.

We really wanted to play music,
and that's what we ended up doing.

The Funk Brothers ended up
playing music.

Berry showed up down at
Little Sam's one time.

He walked over by the bandstand
while we were playing and, uh, said...

He said to me, "Would
you have time to talk to me?"

I says, "I got more
time than money."

And he explained to me what he was about.

He wanted to set up a record company...

and he needed good musicians.

I thought it was a wonderful idea.

And wanted to know, did I know
anybody that could feel the thing.

He already knew Mr. Benjamin...
Benny Benjamin, "Papa Zita."

So he called the first rehearsal
over at Claudette's house...

Smokey Robinson's wife
at that time.

That was late '58.

And then Papa Zita was
already there, and I was there.

We eventually found the
great James Jamerson on bass.

I remember my dad saying
as a child growing up...

that he would take a stick
and take a rubber band...

and put one part at one end
and the other part at the other...

and stick it in an ant hole...

and make the ants dance.

When he was a kid on Edisto Island,

James and his friends would slip through a
window into their little two-room schoolhouse.

They'd light a fire and play
the piano until class started.

After school, they'd continue making
music in a neighbor's vacant summer home,

where there just happened to be
an old piano and an upright bass.

The most important pointer
that my father taught me...

When I'm playing, if I
don't feel it, don't play it.

You know, a lot of guys
would just play straight...

With no feeling.
But he would play it like...

You know, put something in
it. He just felt life was music.

He used to tell this story...

This one song he did...

He saw a fat woman
walking down the street...

and just her butt going from boom
to boom to boom, badoom, badoom...

That was
his interpretation of music.

He put music to just about
anything that had life to it.

There's an indentment
right here in the bass...

where he kept his thumb
right here as a rest.

That's how old this bass is.

You can see
all the dirt on here.

Uh, as he says,
"The dirt keeps the funk."

This has been the original bass
ever since he started playing,

before he switched over to Precision.

He used this on "Heat Wave,"
"My Guy," "Shop Around"...

Most of the Mary Wells stuff...

"You Beat Me To The Punch,"
some other earlier stuff with Stevie.

He played with one finger
on all those hits just like this.

The finger was called
the hook.

It would hook like this. On
all them songs that you heard,

basically it was done with one finger.

I have trouble playing with two
fingers the line that he played.

You couldn't even touch
his timing,

because he could hear
another time in his head...

and be playing cut time against
what you're playing and it would fit.

There was never a bass player
on no coast then...

If there was a West Coast, East Coast...
whatever coast you wanna call it...

That was comparable
to a James Jamerson.

It's the height of creativity,
you know, and freedom...

and experimentation
and fearlessness.

You have to be absolutely fearless
to play those notes in that place...

and yet be responsible
for your...

For the bottom
of the groove like that.

I thought bass playing was
played like that all the time.

Little did I know that it was my
father changing the course of bass.

["]

Soon about 19 and 60, Berry bought
a house on West Grand Boulevard.

This house had a garage...

with a dirt floor.

Walk down the four timeworn wooden steps...

into the basement of 2648
West Grand Boulevard,

and you enter a fantasyland...

A tiny, dimly lit room
with smoke-stained walls,

where dreams came true
for Motown's young stars...

A place where timeless classics like
"I Can't Help Myself," "Shop Around"...

and "Where Did Our Love Go" were born.

This is Hitsville, U.S.A.,

the home of the Motown sound.

But to the musicians who
worked there, it was just Studio "A,"

affectionately referred to as the Snakepit.

It was the site of countless
steamy 4:00 a.m. sessions...

where monster hits were
cranked out in an hour or less...

A place where deadly grooves
threatened to set the walls on fire.

This was the home of Motown's
studio band, the Funk Brothers.

Smokey was the main one that
pulled this off. He'd dream of a song.

He'd come in with something
written down... two bars...

Or two verses of it
on some paper...

It's basically, "Hey, I got a
tune. What do you think of this?"

Joe would say, "This is
what you're trying to play."

He'd give him the chord and
full structure. Next thing you know,

"Hey, hey. Come here, James." He'd make James
play this line. In a minute you'd have a song.

That's how the studio was every day.

And they'd fight to get to Studio "A."

This is the first time we've been
in here to play since the '70s.

A lot of these people come here for the first
time... they have no idea what's in here.

Because,
along with our creativity,

was Berry's prayers in here...

that we would be successful in what
we were doing to make those hits.

We used to hear it in his voice,
the way he used to talk to us.

We used to hear the artists...
How they would talk to us.

A lot of prayers were in this
building, wasn't there, Joe? Yeah.

True. You have no idea the gravity...

of what went on emotionally.

I swear to God, when
I went in there tonight,

I could just feel it.

I could almost touch it.

It never left that room. Yeah.
It's a strange feeling.

It never left that room.
It's in there.

I was playing up in
Boston, Massachusetts...

when I ran into Marvin Gaye.

I didn't know who he was.
Someone from his entourage said,

"I want you to meet
a famous singer."

I said, "Okay." He said,
"His name is Marvin Gaye."

I didn't realize Marvin was standing
with the guy. I didn't know who he was.

"You ever heard of Marvin Gaye?"
I said, "Nah. Never heard of him.

If he don't play jazz,
I don't know him."

I was kind of cocky because
all jazz musicians were cocky.

Everybody wanted to be
like Miles Davis,

no matter what instrument
you played.

So I talked with Marvin, and he was
telling about... He was starting a band...

and would I like to come to Detroit?

No musician turns down a
good gig, so I said I'd come.

Was this, like, a garage area? Garage.

It was a dirt floor
from the beginning.

They had a piece of plywood in this
area with a piano sitting right there.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

And the walls had carpeting.

Cinder block.Yeah.

And the entrance
was right about there.

Not being a bass player, not being
a guitar player, not being a drummer,

arrangers would come in and
just have a general idea of...

Or a concept... and we'd
leave it up to the masters.

You were allowed four songs
in a three-hour session.

Right. And we would
get no less than two.

But that's because the same guys
played together all the time. All the time.

So the only thing that changed
was the changes. It was like a home.

- We spent so much time there.
- It was always usually Jamerson kicking something off...

and, uh, everybody falling in.

Or either Benny. If Benny
kicked something off,

Jamerson had something to
throw in that fit it.

And, uh, then everybody
could come in.

Back then, you guys would
have to do the tune all in one take.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. From beginning to end.

In the earlier days, they only
had three tracks to work with.

That was a great school for mixing
because we only had one shot at it.

You only had one shot. You had to
get it right the first time. That's right.

We felt as though it was our job to lay
the groundwork for these kids to have...

as a place to really develop their careers
in singing because we had the experience.

They had the talent. We had the
experience. They were all really young?

Very young. Most of the producers
were young. All the producers were young.

There was a bunch of fellas
standing around, drinking a little wine,

called the Contours.

We was up there doing a funny band
track... something I'd never heard before.

They had the charts out...

We start playing, you know... start playing
the chart when the director came up there.

And, uh, after we finished,

I said,
"That will never be a hit."

And the Contours walked up
to each one of us like...

a little kid eating ice cream, "Oh, thank you.
Thank you. That's a beautiful band track."

I said, "They're crazy."
You know what I mean?

In the early days of Motown...

the Funk Brothers played on some
big hits, like the Miracles' "Shop Around,"

the Marvelettes' "Please, Mr. Postman"...

and Mary Wells' "You Beat Me To The Punch."

But still there was not enough recording
work down in the Snakepit to make a living.

So, in 1961, James Jamerson, Joe Hunter
and a few of the other band members...

left to go on the road with Jackie Wilson.

But Wilson was recovering
from a gunshot wound...

and didn't have the strength to
perform more than once or twice a week.

Realizing their new situation was
worse, they returned home to Motown,

where Berry Gordy welcomed
them back with open arms.

But their touring days were not yet over.

Like, in the early '60s, you
went out with the Marvelettes.

- I went out with Marvin and Stevie Wonder.
- Yeah.

Then we did gigs maybe 200
miles outside Detroit occasionally.

- That weren't nothing.
- Yeah, Joe.

The first really big tour
was the 1962 Motor Town Revue,

Right. Where we had 30 one-nighters...

in New England and in the South...

and then ten days at the
Apollo. Oh, man. That's a long trip.

That was a thriller.
All that was a thriller.

We were on the road, coming
back from up north on that gig,

Yep. And everyone was
packed in the car half sleeping.

Mm-hmm. As I think back on that,

Marvin Gaye was the drummer
on that gig, wasn't he? Yep.

That was religious. I think
he was a better singer though.

You know that's right. And they
had us in this big old station wagon.

Right, right. It was about 2:00
in the morning.

Right. And it was freezing.

And Jamerson
in the car with you. Ain't that somethin'.

Damn.
I know that was rough. Yeah.

It was about ten degrees outside.

We were coming down the mountainside.

We were all dozing off. We told
all the jokes we could think of.

And Jamerson says,
"Can you pull the car over?

Robert, can you pull the car over?"

Damn. What you doin', man?

Hurry up, man.
It's cold outside.

So, he pulls over to the side of the road,

goes back there to get to the
trunk, pulls this brown paper bag out,

jumps back in the car.
Man, it's cold outside.

He decides to put his pajamas
on in the back of the car.

In order for me to go to sleep, I got to
put my p.j.'s on. He's bumping people...

and slamming people's heads and everything.

Everybody's complaining now.

Everybody settles back down again,
'cause we knew about being around Jamerson.

Just try to keep him as tranquil as possible,
because he can really get out there.

And all of a sudden that bag rustles again.

Oh, my God. He got pig's feet, man.

Smelled like somebody kicked
a doggone skunk in the behind.

Everybody really got ticked
about that 'cause it was rancid.

Man, we raised so much Cain in
there, he just said, "Okay, okay... ".

All right. I might
put the top back on.Aw.

I might. You better put the top back on.

That stuff
stinks, man. Just to keep the peace.

So he put the lid back
on it. So he's sitting back...

Everybody's kind of dozing again.

We see a light light in the back.
Somebody lit a match. It's Jamerson.

He lights his funky, stogie cigar.

That's it! Hey, Rob.

Rob,
pull the car over, man!

He said, "Pull the car
over. We're putting him out."

Somebody need to
regulate you, James.

So, sure enough, Robert pulls
over to the side. Out goes James...

with his funky pig's feet,
his pajamas and his cigar.

- Well - That's right.
- That was Jamerson for you.

We thought about it and went back.

Yeah, to run over his butt.

Benny played with Dizzy, Charlie Parker,

Ray Charles, Lowell Fulson, Muddy Waters,

Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry.

Benny played with
the best was out there.

He was the main
standard drummer,

and I was the pianist
at that time.

Right. Before Earl got there.

Anyway, uh, we liked to frequent the corn
liquor places. He had a taste for corn liquor.

So, this day we went, and
we hadn't had too much sleep.

Benny was up there. He was doing a
tune called "Hitchhike" by Marvin Gaye.

They kicked off the tune, and Benny
was noddin' and dropped his sticks.

So the A&R man went up there
and smelled his breath.

He said, "Benny! I see
you been drinkin'. Benny!"

He picked up his sticks real quick,
and he said, "Papa Zita. Papa Zita."

After that, everybody in the
studio started calling him Papa Zita.

He come in the studio one
time late, and he told Berry...

He said, "Man, I was on
the freeway on my way here."

Said the traffic got tied up...

'cause the circus
had just come into town,

and the truck had an accident, and the
elephants got out of the truck and got loose...

and was holding up the
traffic. Oh, man. Come on.

And everybody knew... They knew
he was lying, 'cause, guess what.

Benny didn't even drive.

First of all, Benny was a
master at lockin' a tempo.

He was like a...
He's like a metronome.

He would lock it, see.
And, uh,

then he had certain kinds of pickups,
which, uh, were only unique to him.

For instance, a Benny Benjamin
pickup would go like this...

Like that. You know.

That's different. Okay, Uriel
Jones would play, you know...

Then, if I was playing four bars
or something like that, I'd play...

All three of those pickups
came from Papa Zita...

Benny Benjamin... you
know, he originated them.

I'm really curious as to how you
all got the name the Funk Brothers.

Look here, one day, when
Benny got ready to leave,

he walked up them steps, and Benny said,

"You all are the Funk Brothers."

And I'll remember that
all of my days.

All of my days. And we
are the Funk Brothers.

Blow that horn! Come on.

I was raised in Detroit.

I studied classics for about 10, 12 years.

Then I found out I couldn't
make any money doing that.

So I went on a rampage of singers.

I worked for so many.
I was an accompanist.

So I did some work with Sarah Vaughan.

I did some work with Lou
Rawls and Dinah Washington.

She was the queen of the blues,

supposedly, at that time,
you know... until Aretha.

They crowned Aretha
the new queen of the blues.

I was working with her at that
time. I worked with both the queens.

I was working in the club, and
first Mickey Stevenson came by.

He told me, how would I
like to be a studio musician?

I said, "Well, what is that?"

He said, "Well, come by the studio
and listen to what Joe is doing...

and work from that point."

I said, "Okay, fine."

So, I went by there...

and Joe was doing this record.

It was "Pride and Joy"
or something like that.

I sit and listen. I said,
"What the hell are you doing?"

'Cause we never played
to nobody singing.

The tracks... You just cut
the tracks and you just played.

I said, "How do you know what to
play?" 'Cause I was used to accompanying.

He said, "Just play
what you want to play.

"They don't know what
they're listening to anyway.

Just play. If it's too
much, they'll let you know."

He was my, uh,

introduction to the...
To the R&B record scene.

Joe was the man around
town as far as recording.

He'd been recording for everybody.

Actually, my mother... she could teach
up to around the third grade of music.

So she had a lot of
little students in the area.

I was out trying to shoot marbles
and play football with the rest.

They didn't figure
I had any talent.

But I'd be listening to everything that she
was teaching when I was in the living room.

Actually, I thought it was a spiritual
thing really, the way that it came about.

I was trying to play "Stormy Weather."

It looked like the keys was
just going by themselves.

I was trying to stick my hands into
those holes and catch up with the keys.

When my grandmother came in,
she said, "Donna"...

That's what she called my mother... "This
boy is in here playing 'Stormy Weather.'"

My favorite classical
pianist was Rachmaninov.

I heard him. He had
such a terrific left hand.

I said, I wish my left
hand could be like that.

I'd put my right hand in my
pocket and just play with my left,

trying to get as fast as Art
Tatum and Rachmaninov.

In the 1960s, jazz clubs were
springing up all over Detroit...

with names like the Flame Show
Bar, Phelps Lounge, the Apex,

the 20 Grand and the Chit Chat.

These venues were oases where
the Funk Brothers could escape...

the pressure cooker
atmosphere of the studio...

by returning to their roots and playing
cool jazz into the wee hours of the morning.

New ideas that hatched in
these spirited jam sessions...

often shimmied their way into the Snakepit,

adding new textures and
rhythms to the Motown sound.

My stage name was Lottie the
Body, and I had a beautiful body.

I was an exotic dancer... one of the
greatest exotic dancers in the world.

As a matter of fact, I
considered being the greatest.

I worked with small
bands, big, big orchestras.

Teddy Harris' big orchestra.
I worked with Count Basie.

You had to know how...
If she moved one cheek,

there was a certain drum
she wanted you to hit.

If she moved the left leg, there was a
certain drum. You had to catch all this stuff,

plus keep in rhythm
with the band.

But after you worked with her a while, you
feel her out, and it was a little easier.

But the first time
I worked with her,

I swore I wasn't
gonna do it again.

I'm sorry, darling. Oh, it was a pleasure.

You feel like it? Yeah. Let's do it, baby.

Don't kill me, baby. I ain't gonna
kill you.

Just kind of
make me feel good.

A lot of the rhythms that
we did do in the studio...

is rhythms that came
from working with Lottie.

Because we wasn't doing too much
what you call Afro-Cuban, you know.

So, just like both "Grapevines."
Marvin Gaye's, like...

And Gladys...

All that's Latin stuff. We
did all that stuff with Lottie.

This is the spot where
a whole lot of stuff happened.

The third...
One, two, three...

The third door over there.
That's where the Chit Chat was.

When I was coming here today
earlier, and when I passed by here,

I looked over, and I
said, "There they are."

It couldn't be no clearer.

The Chit Chat was a place...
Though it was small,

everybody in Detroit
knew about the Chit Chat...

and knew what was happening
at the Chit Chat.

With Motown being not that far
down the street here, you had...

Any Motown act would show up
at the Chit Chat,

from Marvin...

to the Four Tops,

Contours, the Originals,

the Temps.

We was still really enjoying
our jazz thing then, you know.

But we did things here that we
would do in the session the next day.

Right. That was the uniqueness
of the Funk Brothers,

because, if we were doing a tune
and a change was similar to something...

in one of the jazz tunes
that we played,

Earl would say, "Well, do so-and-so,
so-and-so like we did last night."

And we would interject that
into the change of the song. That's right.

And the song would take on a different
color... something they hadn't planned on.

Of course, the producers... "Oh,
man, That's hip." And they had a hit.

The Funk Brothers ruled the nightlife...

of Detroit's club scene in the '60s,

but their realm was a
rough-and-tumble world,

where getting paid at
the end of the evening...

often proved as challenging
as the music they were playing.

Benny was working with us.

And Benny used to go in there in the
daytime when we wasn't working and drink.

And sometimes I think the waitresses would
put a higher tab on him than anything else.

But when the owner
got ready to pay us off,

he'd reach up in his thing and
pull out a great big, old fat gun...

Looked like
a German "Lukas" .45... Mm-hmm.

And popped it on the table and he
looked around at each one of us and said,

"Your drummer Benny
has over-tabbed."

He says, "In fact,
he's gone into y'all's money."

At that particular time, Jamerson pulled out
a piece... his piece... and laid it down.

He says, "I got to feed
my family." He looked.

Then Robert White
pulled out a piece...

And nobody expected Robert to
pull out a piece... and he laid his down.

He looked around, and I pulled
out my little .22 and laid it down.

He said, "What kind of band
have I got here?"

He got so confused
until he even paid Benny.

He paid everybody.
Yeah.

Motown was really...
It was America's introduction...

to soul music.

It was America's introduction
to soul music.

And soul music is powerful.
Soul music makes you believe.

Soul music gives you hope
in the way that you feel...

In the way that
you want to feel.

That's what was coming out of the
sounds I heard these men making as a child.

It gave me unconscious hope. I
didn't know why. It gave my father hope.

So, for years and years, players...

and producers
have been trying to...

find that magic
Motown sound and pocket...

as if it's
some sort of a formula.

People would always say
everything but the musicians.

They would say it was
the artist, the producers,

the way the building was
structured or the wood in the floor,

or maybe even food.

I'd like to see 'em take some barbecue ribs
or hamburgers and throw down in that studio,

shut the door and count out one, two,
three, four and get a hit out of there.

The formula was the musicians.

I'll be Earl Van Dyke.

Take "Ain't Too Proud To Beg,"
which I think everybody is familiar with.

All right. Uriel, give it
to me... you and Pistol.

See how that feels right there?

I'm gonna put a little bass in
there. One, two, three, four.

All right. Now bring a little
bit of guitars in there for you.

One, two, three, four.

All right. We'll bring a little
Johnny Griffith on keyboard in there.

You see how that feels?

That's part of
the Motown sound, right?

Now I'm gonna add
my tambourine to it.

Only a beat better.

By the time the Funk Brothers
recorded Jimmy Ruffin's...

"What Becomes of the
Brokenhearted" in 1966,

the Motown sound had traveled a
great distance from the twist records...

and blues and doo-wop-influenced
tracks of its early days.

Advances in recording technology and an
influx of skilled arrangers and composers...

had brought about new levels of
sonic clarity and musical sophistication.

But the most noticeable
difference was power...

Raw power.

The added muscle coincided with the
emergence of keyboardist Earl Van Dyke...

as one of the central
figures down in Studio "A."

He was a natural born leader
whose forceful playing style...

was jokingly called "gorilla piano."

Van Dyke became the hub through
which Motown's producers and arrangers...

often communicated their ideas to the band.

He was like the glue
for everything... Earl was.

He's... solid keyboard. He'd
have the piano rocking actually.

Actually rocking. That's
why we call him Big Funk.

They'd have to have a piano
tuner come in and redo things...

after Earl got through playing
because he put so much muscle into it.

When Earl came in, that's when we developed
the style of two pianos playing...

Not together...
But accompanying each other.

But there were so many good days
among the musicians in the studio.

You guys had fun.
We had fun. We had fun.

And you must... Like I've said before...

There were kids like Stevie
who we could never get rid of.

Stevie liked to hang out with
the guys, him being a musician.

We could never really get rid of
Stevie. Stevie was always there.

Stevie and the Four Tops and Marvin Gaye...

They were always in there.
Bobby Taylor.

The older guys have
always been our favorites.

He was part of the foundation of Motown.

He was one of the first
ones to teach me piano.

A lot of the people
here today are really, um,

people that were the
musical foundation of Motown.

Earl was a great man and,
most of all, a spiritual man.

Stevie came here with Mr. Paul...
Clarence Paul.

They were standing on the
steps as you go into the studio.

When we got through doing the little ditty,

first thing he walked over to
was the piano where I was.

He says, "I like the
way you play the piano."

I showed him a few chords.
He said, "What's that?"

I said, "That's an E-flat major, and
I'm throwing a color tone in there,

which is the flatted fifth,"
and so forth and so on.

He shake his head, "Yeah."

Finally I found out about a
year later he didn't need me.

He done learned
more than I'd learned.

The same thing with Benny. Benny
taught him how to hold his wrists...

and how to use those sticks,
and I don't think he needed Benny.

- He fired everybody he worked with.
- Yeah.

When I started playing music, I didn't
start on drums. I was playing trombone.

At the same time I was playing trombone,
I was training down at Brewster Center.

You know, boxing. I was
determined to do both of them.

But it was kind of hard, 'cause
they was kicking my butt at Brewster,

and when I'd come to class to play
trombone, my lip would be swollen.

I'd be trying to play
out the side of my mouth.

My music teacher told me,
"You gotta make up your mind.

You're gonna either box
or you're gonna be a musician."

So I said, "Okay." That's
when I started playing drums.

So, I didn't have no full set of drums.

I had a snare drum. I had a high hat. I
don't know what I was using for a cymbal.

But I know my bass drum was one of
those old heavy cardboard beer cases.

And right to the day, I have
never found the sound...

that sound as good
as that beer case did.

We were sneaking around town.
Different studios. United Sound.

Pack Three. Pack Three.

You know. We was doing
a little outside moonlighting.

And you weren't
supposed to?

No, see, 'cause some of these guys
were under contract... exclusive contracts.

Motown wanted to
keep the sound.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess they was paying for it.
I guess a few bucks. You know.

So they started putting spies
around in different places.

Like, in hidden cars
and behind buildings...

and the shrubbery
that was near the studio.

They had spies
like that around, you know.

They offered me a hundred
dollars a week to be a spy.

How much? A hundred.

One hundred dollars.

Extra hundred bucks a week.
Naturally, I took it. I said, "Well, yeah."

Throw it all in the pot.
It's all the same to me.

I had no intentions
of spying on anybody anyway.

When they'd see us coming out, there would
be at least a couple of them are gonna say,

"We caught you.
You're fired. You're fired.

You're fired."

This is real.
And you said to Jack,

"You're fired twice...

because we saw you
coming out of there yesterday."

Finally they called me in and
said, "Look, we're paying you.

You haven't told us anything.
Who's doing what where?"

I said, "Well,
there's nothing happening."

They said, "Well, no, we've got pictures
of people coming out of the studios...

"and, you know...

As a result, you're fired."

I said, "Wait a minute.
How can you fire me?

"From what I've seen...
James Bond and all these guys...

"The usual spy... you get
a Maserati or you get a...

You gonna give me a hundred
dollars a week... I can't even buy gas."

They said, "Look,

we're still firing you."

So I lost my job as a spy,

but they let me continue to...
To play piano.

Even during Motown's golden period,

when Hitsville sessions were
going on around the clock,

the Funk Brothers were
still dashing all over Detroit...

recording for any studio or record label...

that offered them another
opportunity to create some magic.

Among the hits recorded outside of Motown
were Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher,"

John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom Boom"...

and the Capitols' hit
dance tune, "Cool Jerk."

In the mid-'60s, Motown
was a permanent fixture...

at the top of theBillboard charts.

As their artists chalked up one
number-one hit after another,

they began to emerge as
some of the brightest stars...

in the galaxy of R&B and pop music.

But the Funk Brothers remained
earthbound and unknown.

While they were beginning
to share the financial success,

they missed out on
that elusive entity... glory.

Their last great tour before they
became totally studio-bound...

opened their eyes to what fame could mean.

It was the acclaimed 1965
Tamla-Motown revue...

that took England by storm.

What amazed me...

They actually knew the musicians.

When we got off of the plane in London,

these little British guys come
up to us with these signs,

and I said, "Who are these guys?"

They walked up and said, "We're the
James Jamerson Appreciation Fan Club."

I said, "James Jamerson?
He's not even with us.

Maybe I'll be James Jamerson.
I could use a fan club."That's right.

While Motown invaded the U.K.,

the British were invading the U.S.,
armed with some American weapons...

Motown tunes.

The Beatles landed in New
York with cover versions...

of "Please, Mr. Postman," "Money"...

and "You've Really Got a Hold
on Me" in their musical arsenal.

John Lennon remarked that the Motown
drummer hit a snare with so much force...

"it sounded like he hit
it with a bloody tree."

There was no doubt they were listening
to Motown's musicians and listening hard.

In subsequent years, other
British bands covered Motown hits,

including the Rolling Stones, with their
renditions of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg,".

"My Girl" and "Going to a Go-Go."

The Funk Brothers' musical influence
had spread to musicians all over the world,

whether they knew it or not.

You know, in the mid-'60s
when we were at Motown,

we were pretty hot and we would
have producers lined up back to back...

waiting to get into the
studio to work with us.

They didn't even consider the fact that it
was a 12-hour or 14-hour day sometimes.

"Rig" means when you
play the song so much...

until it begins to get stiff
and everybody's tired,

you'd say,
"Rigor mortis is here now."

'Cause you exhausted your
creativity on it, you know.

Which happens sometimes,
especially when we had a producer...

that we told him he was wasting his
money, then he was gonna prove he wasn't.

"Take 64!"
He starts floggin' us.

Wasn't nothin' really
gonna happen then.

So we had to find some place to relax...

because it was really a pressure
cooker in the Snakepit at that time.

This one time, Earl came
up and said that he'd found...

a funeral parlor that we
could go and hide out.

Shit. So we would just do
this on many occasions...

because, as I said, we were
cutting seven days a week.

The studio finally found out
where we were hanging out,

and damn if Motown didn't send
somebody over there from management...

to find out where we were
hiding. What's that smell?

Just a little
embalming fluid.

Earl had had the funeral
director trained what to say...

in the event that someone
would come over there.

- But I really, really have to go.
- Wait.

I want to show you how to use
my saw and bone crusher.

We would fall down laughing.

You're not gonna believe this. I
was forced to play a tambourine.

In church? No. With Charles Harrison.

Came to the rehearsal when
they were the big tambourines.

Looked like a dishpan.
I'd never touched one.Right.

So I got finished doing my solo. He
said, "Pick the tambourine up, man."

I said, "Hell, no."
He said, "Pick the tambourine... ".

He got angry 'cause I wouldn't
pick the tambourine up.

So I picked the damn
tambourine up.

I didn't know what happened.
I said, "Damn, this feels good."

I started playin', and the tambourine
just took on a life of its own.

I came from Memphis, Tennessee,
and I started...

First began on the drums
and everything.

I started in a commerce class,
you know, on a Royal typewriter.

You know? I wanted to be
a CPA, an engineer.

So we had to take
typing class, you know.

So I was sitting there at the
desk listening to drum beats,

so I wind up playin'
drum beats on the typewriter.

So the teacher'd say, "Hey, what do you
want to do? Play the drums or be a CPA?"

I said, "I want to play drums." So she kicked
me out, and that's how I got into playing drums.

And I moved to Detroit,
West End, with all the guys,

got into the jazz thing.

Then while at the 20 Grand with Levi Mann,

Benny used to come in and play some
of the shows; I met Benny Benjamin.

And Benny said, "Hey, man, you
sound good. Why don't you come down?

"You can play this stuff. It's easy.

All you gotta do is play...
And keep your mouth closed."

Fine. I got in.

"Grapevine..." The beat
on the tom-tom like that... Mm-hmm.

It came like the old days,
took it from the backbeat.Yes.

With a backbeat to it. So Shank,
Joe Messina and three guitars...

Uh-huh. So Jamerson came in...

So Shank, Joe and Robert came an
octave ahead of, you know, Jamerson.

That's where that funk got to get in.
But you got to have that head action.

Uh-huh. You like that?

Yeah, baby!

- She's getting down already.
- Turn the tape on.

We were all quite happy about the success
of... "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."

At the same time, there was a mixed emotion
type thing going on with Benny Benjamin.

He had a drug problem, a bad drug problem.

He was just about
at the bottom.

But at one point, Benny kind of
disappeared for a couple of weeks.

So Earl, you know, started trying
to find out what happened to him.

And he, uh...
He found Benny.

And Earl came in just before
the session started and said,

"Guys, I don't think there's gonna
be no session. See, Benny just died."

And, uh, you know,
that was it.

It turned everybody
around. Yeah, it turned...

So we didn't do
no session that day.Yeah.

You know, when they would pass
the music out to the musicians,

every group would get
their own little stuff together.

I'd get together with Earl
because I played vibes,

and they'd pass the music
over to the guitar players.

And they would huddle together like
a group of little magpies workin' on it.

They'd be tryin' their parts
and laughin' up their sleeves.

So Earl would just look at 'em, and
he named 'em Heckle, Jeckle and Son.

And they'd jump up and say,
"Yeah, we got it. We're ready."

And so, you know... They'd really tear it up,
too, because they really did have it together.

All of it was important,
as you know... the parts.

And we'd just work around each other,
and nothin' ever ran into each other.

I think the magic was
we'd listen to each other.

And we liked each other,
which was important.

Yeah, right, Joe. Yeah. We had
a friendship. I think that helped.

I was born in Mississippi. My
little town was Grenada, Mississippi.

I built my own guitar
out of a broom wire...

and attached it to the house,
and I made the house rock.

I moved to Detroit
in '52.1952.

My dad had a guitar in the
house. He liked the instrument.

He used to play Italian weddings.
You know, they played the Italian music.

All that influenced me.
You know, just anybody.

Whoever was playing
guitar. Listening to radio,

and listening to Chet Atkins,
B.B. King or Albert King.

I'd practice all day. At times, I
would skip school to practice.

First gig was with this group
with Marv Johnson,

and eventually he did take me into Motown
and I did a couple of his recordings.

It so happened, everybody
liked what they heard, you know.

I was playing some pretty
good funk, man, you know.

And they kind of went for it,
so I ended up stayin' there.

I end up on the night show
with Soupy Sales.

Uh, I was there
for 14 years.

We had some very good
musicians.

Who used to come there?
We had Charlie Parker,

Miles, Coltrane.

I never listened to guitar
players. Mainly horn men.

I was more
in the jazz vein.

I liked Charlie Parker,
so I'd get all his records.

I was working a club
called the 20 Grand...

with Levi Mann,
and Berry came in.

And, uh, he talked to me. He
asked me if I wanted to record for him.

I said, "Yes, I will."

Did y'all mention Eddie Bongo?
'Cause he was a Funk Brother. All through.

Eddie was a good guy. Eddie
kept a whole lot of mess going,

and he was Marvin's right-hand man.

The thing I remember about him most was
his conga playing. He could really play.

If there's one guy that kept things
loose, it was Eddie "Bongo" Brown.

Bongo's got the music sheets up there. I don't
know why they put that music sheet up there.

He couldn't even read. Had the sheets
sitting up there. Got the producer tricked.

Bongo's just playing his ass off. He's
playing. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

I look over there, and he's got a
nudie magazine sittin' up there...

with legs gaped over him
with moon feet.

Oh, my God! And they
swore that he was readin'. Readin'.

He invented a couple
licks that I hear a lot now...

I think he borrowed
them from the Caribbean...

Where he'd lick his finger and slide it
over the drum and get a great sound.

He got all kinds of neat
little sounds that way.

He'd put 'em in between his licks,

and people would say,
"What was that? What was that?"

The producer would go crazy.
"What's that? Do that again."

When I started out singing, I used to sing
in this little blues bar called Dan Lynch,

and they had
this amazing jukebox.

I would go over there pretty
much every night after I played,

and I would play that song, "What
Becomes of the Brokenhearted."

I feel as though "Brokenhearted"
is a song that could really live again.

This'll be the audition
today, and see if we can...

No, it won't be an audition.
You've already passed the test. For me.

It's a good opportunity to see if you
really like it after we finish playing it...

To see if we still have it.

You know, that's probably
one of the more recognizable...

guitar licks
of the early Motown days,

and when I originally
played it 27 years ago,

I didn't think much about it...
Only that it worked.

In the small confines
of Studio "A,"

myself and the rest of
the musicians didn't realize...

what an impact we'd have
on the rest of the world.

He was very quiet, and he
had a mystique about him.

But you couldn't find
a better, steadier guitarist.

And the chords were jazz,
but he made it fit in R&B.

They called us the Oreo
Cookie Guitar Section,

because... Robert White sat to my
right and Eddie Willis sat to my left.

And the white boy.
Joseph.

Shortly after Earl Van Dyke died in 1992,

I was going out to visit
Robert in Los Angeles.

We went out to eat,
and wouldn't you know it,

as we're about to order
and the waiter's comin' over,

all of a sudden you hear the
guitar line from "My Girl"...

come over the speaker
in the restaurant.

And Robert got real excited,
real animated, and he said...

As the waiter walked over, he said, "Hey,
man, you hear that? That's... That's... ".

And he stopped dead.

Then he kind of looked embarrassed
and looked down at the menu, and he says,

"I think I'll have
the barbecued chicken."

Then I just ordered my thing,
and the guy walked away,

and I said, "Robert, you were gonna
tell him that was you, weren't you?"

He said... He kind of looked
embarrassed, and he said,

"Yeah, yeah, but... I don't know. He'd look
at me and say look at this tired old fool.

He'd never believe it."
And that floored me.

Because here's a guy who played
a guitar line that's the equivalent...

It's like one of the top five
all-time guitar hooks.

It's right up there with
"Satisfaction" by the Stones...

and "Paperback Writer" or
"Come As You Are" from Nirvana.

At that point I realized, here's a guy who's
lived for 30 years, this close to his dream,

and yet instead of being
inside the dream looking out,

he was on the outside of the dream
looking in, never able to touch that dream.

I knew at that point Robert desperately
needed some recognition in his lifetime.

But he didn't make it across the
finish line with the rest of the guys.

The summer of love introduced the world...

to the soaring guitar and
pulsating wah-wah of Jimi Hendrix.

The following year, Sly Stone's relentless
Oakland funk swept over an enraptured public.

Mesmerized by these new trends, Motown producer
Norman Whitfield enlisted the Funk Brothers,

along with innovative newcomers
Wah Wah Watson and Dennis Coffey,

to help fuse these new
elements into the Motown sound.

Psychedelic soul had
arrived down in the Snakepit.

In San Francisco with Jimi Hendrix,

they had a lot of the fuzz tones...

and they had the wah-wah
pedal and things like that...

The special effects on some of the guitars.

And what happened was, in one
of those earlier sessions...

where we were rehearsing
and working with producers,

Norman Whitfield came in and he
brought in this song, "Cloud Nine."

And I had a wah-wah pedal with me,
and I took it out and started playing it.

And within a few days, I got
the call to do the session.

I haven't heard anybody play "What's
Going On" like the record, ever. Nobody.

The only person I ever heard do it was
Babbitt last week. I never heard Babbitt.

Oh, Babbitt did it last week?

When I heard Babbitt... I'm sorry... the
other night, it just blew me away, man.

Dang, I felt like I was back, you
know, 35, 40 years ago as a kid.

I'm sorry. What'd you say?
Ralphe, you remember?

As a bass player in Detroit,
I know I came a little later...

You were late. It was '74, '72.

But if you could not play that solo
from that record that Bob Babbitt did...

You remember?
"Scorpio"? Oh, yeah.

You weren't a bass player.
You couldn't get a gig! That's right.

You couldn't play,
man. He's tellin' the truth.

You couldn't get a gig. "Scorpio."

You couldn't get a gig if you couldn't
play that. You wasn't doin' nothin'.

See, what was so beautiful about it... People
loved Babbitt. It wasn't about no color.

They just loved
his musicianship. That's all it was.

All the cats in the hood.
"Man, that's Babbitt."

When I went to...

Seventh grade, I guess
it was, I was in the choir,

and the same choir teacher
was also the orchestra teacher.

She said to me, "I know somebody that's
gonna play bass in the orchestra next year."

And I... Boom, it's me she's
looking at and pointing at.

So I started playing
upright bass.

I'm supposed to be studying classical, which
I am as long as my mother and dad are up.

Soon as they go to bed, they had
some stations on the radio in Pittsburgh...

where they had what they call "race music,"
where you could hear the black music.

And I'd take my bass
and go into the kitchen,

turn the radio on while everybody's
sleeping, and I'd be playing with the radio.

Around 1967, I had been working
live with Stevie Wonder, and...

Stevie brought me in to do
my first session at Motown.

You gotta remember, James...

He set the bass style
for the Motown sound.

Man, nobody can play this.

What? Nobody could play this
laying on their back.

You could if you
were James Jamerson.

This is the story. This is
hard to believe, but it's true.

You gotta tell me this one.

Let me tell you. Marvin was puttin'
this together with "What's Goin' On."

And he was experimenting
with a lot of things.

But what happened... He
decided he needed Jamerson.

So Jamerson was workin' a local club,
and Marvin found out where he was workin'.

He went over there to get
him. Jamerson was blasted.

So he said, "Well, I gotta get him back,
because I got this. I gotta get it off."

Brought him back over here
to the studio.

Jamerson really
didn't want to do this,

but because of Marvin,
he said, "Okay, I'll try it."

So Jamerson couldn't sit up on... You know,
he had a high stool he used to sit on.

He was afraid he was gonna
fall. Like a string bass player.

He laid right out where you were
laying and started playing this.

No one believed it.

He did a job that no one
could do standing up.

He did it laying down. That was James
Jamerson. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the master.

Pressure meant nothing to you?

You felt no pressure? It was like I'd
go in, I'd-I'd have to go play... bang.

Sure there was pressure. I mean,
uh, you're sitting in Jamerson's seat.

Right.And... you know
what I'm sayin'?

And-And as far as that...
There was...

To do what he did was... you know,
you couldn't... It was almost impossible.

I'm sure you just were yourself.
I tried to do the best I could.

Another strange question.

Watching a documentary that was talking
about some of the Atlantic recordings...

with Aretha Franklin...
Early recordings.

And she had, like, basically, a
totally white band from Nashville.

They were from Memphis
and Muscle Shoals.Right. Okay.

And then Martin Luther King
was assassinated.

Uh, James Brown started to change
his vibe with "I'm Black and I'm Proud."

The whole thing changed,
and a lot of people felt,

well, we didn't want to use
the white musicians.

Did you feel any sort of...

Coming into this environment, did
you feel any sort of racial difference?

There was...
There was such a...

A closeness.

I mean, I can't...

And when Martin Luther King
died...

They never
expressed to me...

any kind of hostility
or anything,

and I was...
I felt as sad as they did.

And, uh, uh...

But I never felt anything
from any of those guys.

I always felt like...
I don't know, like...

I was, like,
one of them, you know? Yeah.

And-And, uh...

I'm sorry. No, that's okay.

On the evening of July 23, 1967,

the Detroit police busted up an
after-hours blind pig speakeasy...

at the corner of 12th and
Claremount, and all hell broke loose.

The Funk Brothers came out of a
recording session to a city in flames.

Yeah, the sky was red.
Everything was burnin' down.

You'd protect your family.
That's just the way it was.

And I would've gone down for them, even if
it was at the hands of a black brother...

'cause he's invading my territory.

That's just the way I felt. I didn't think
about color. These are my brothers here.

So no one had to rally us. It was
just, we have to get from here to the car,

and that was the only thing
we were interested about.

It was our mission to
get our people home safe.

But I also feel
at the same time...

that had the role
been reversed...

and we had been in an area where it
was more predominantly a white area,

and something broke out that I
would've took a bullet for Jack.

I believe it.
I believe it. I would've done the same.

The end of the 1960s found
America watching in horror...

as a daily stream of televised death
came back from the war in Vietnam.

Back on the home front, the
cultural and social revolution...

being waged in the streets was
further polarizing the masses.

Motown played a preeminent role in the cultural
sound track that framed all these events,

and nowhere more so than in Vietnam...

where terrified and disillusioned G.I.'s...

found comfort in the grooves
played by the Funk Brothers...

and in the words and melodies
sung by Motown's stars.

But there was no comforting
refrain down in the Snakepit.

Still reeling from the
death of Benny Benjamin...

and concerned that James
Jamerson's personal demons...

were leading him down the same path,

the Funk Brothers needed a
rallying cry to pull themselves together.

In 1970 they found it in "What's Going On,"

Marvin Gaye's anguished plea
for sanity in a world gone mad.

Helping Marvin realize his vision,

the Funk Brothers elevated
the level of their artistry...

from the dance floor to the world stage.

When Marvin Gaye first
recorded "What's Going On,"

to us, it was a very important record.

Musically, we felt that
it was some of our best work.

It was the first record that Motown ever
given the musicians some credit on an album.

And little did we know,
you know, we were...

We were biding our own time.

But we kept recording
for about another year...

and that... many more hits
to come, you know.

So one day...

we went to the studio
and we were supposed to record.

There was a big sign
on the door saying, uh,

"There won't be any work here today.
Motown are moving to Los Angeles."

Wow, what a break.

I suppose they were just
looking for a new sound,

I suppose, you know?

So we just kept doing what we usually
do... what we were doing before Motown...

And that was playing
in the clubs around the city...

Playing our blues,
playing our jazz.

That's just about
the way it ended.

When Motown left Detroit,
there was no warning,

no announcement and no way
of preparing for it.

And that's the move
they had to make.

A major company doesn't have to explain
to every individual that they're moving.

But it kind of left all of us kind
of like, "What are we gonna do?"

The funny thing was we always had
that idea about how it would never end.

You know, we felt like
it would go on and on and on,

but as you can see,
it ended.

Hoping to hold on to their dreams,

some of the Funk Brothers
followed Motown to Los Angeles.

But the west coast music
scene was too foreign to them,

and without the emotional
support the Funk Brothers' family...

had always provided for
each other, they were lost.

He missed his friends,
the Funk Brothers.

Just the atmosphere. It's totally
different in California than Detroit.

He wasn't getting... receiving
the phone calls like before,

working in a studio...
Yeah, to work in a studio.

And... there was
a battle there, you know,

of emotions and probably
feeling less than a man...

or less than a dad
to provide for us...

from what he used to do before.

I've seen a lot of hurt
and pain and the illness...

and the struggles
with the alcohol.

It wasn't going right for him.
He wanted to do everything.

He's used to doing everything for everyone.

And then it was his time
where heneeded help,

and a lot of times
no one was there.

Or he didn't wanna listen, 'cause
he could be hardheaded too, so...

In 1983, James Jamerson scalped a ticket...

for the nationally
televised showMotown 25...

and slipped into a balcony seat.

Two months later, he
slipped away... forever.

Ladies and gentlemen,
it's time to give it up!

Give up the love...

for Detroit's unsung musical heroes!

The drum section...

Uriel Jones and Pistol Allen...

and the late Benny Benjamin.

On the vibes and percussion,

the fabulous tambourine
man, Jack Ashford...

and the late Bongo Eddie!

Guitar section...

The one, none other,
the brother, Eddie Willis,

Joe Messina...

and the late Robert White.

On the keyboards, Joe
Hunter, Johnny Griffith...

and the late, great
Earl Van Dyke.

And on bass, Bob Babbitt...

and the greatest
bass player of all time,

James Jamerson!

Here they are.

Ladies and gentlemen,
the greatest hit machine...

in music history...

the... Funk Brothers!

I think it's very important
for people of my generation...

to not only know history but to also
experience it and allow it to change them.

I have so much respect and so much to learn
from these people that came before me.

The people are great people,
not just great musicians.

I think that's what I'll carry with me...

Just being able to
converse and talk to people...

who have done so much
to influence...

what I do
and what I want to be.

The people bring the place alive,
and I think that's very important.

Hitsville wasn't this building. It was
the people that were in the building.

And I think that's been made very clear.

We're at the Chit Chat Lounge,
and what a crowd we have here.

We took our microphones out
to the new Chit Chat Lounge...

located at 823512th
Street at Virginia Park...

where we present again Operation Jazz.

This is Jack Sherell at
the Chit Chat Lounge now,

and what a crowd we have here.

We'll be presenting the
James Jamerson Quartet,

plus our little jam
session and guest stars...

Guest artists who will be popping in.

So come on by. We still
have a few more chairs...

A few more seats, I should say.

And join in on the fun.

Now the James Jamerson
Quartet gets things under way nicely.