Sic Semper Tyrannis

Standing in the Shadows of Motown

A couple nights ago I watched a pretty good documentary/concert called Standing in the Shadows of Motown. It's the story of the musicians who played on every Motown hit, from the beginning until Motown moved their operations to Los Angeles. They were known as The Funk Brothers and they were responsible for some incredibly layered musical creations. (This movie was, however, a little lacking in explanation of the process a song goes through to get from songwriter to arranger to musicians.) I was curious as to just how much creation these guys were responsible for. My hunch is that the staff arrangers were responsible for getting lead sheets together and left the details up to the band.

Anyway, it's an interesting, sometimes sad, story of musicians plying their craft in a strange purgatory of notoriety and anonymity in that everyone heard their work, but they were never credited, (until Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On?)

I recommend this movie to anyone interested in music in general and Motown music in particular. There is also footage of a live reunion concert of the surviving Funk Brothers paired with soulful singers- my favorites being Gerald Levert, (who knew?) and Joan Osborne, (again, who knew?) And you can't beat Bootsy Collins covering "Do You Love Me?"

posted by Mike @ 6:57 PM