Got a Job: Reading Berry Gordy's Mind
THE SNAKEPIT’S FIRST BANDLEADER
He may have been the most erudite of the Funk Brothers. (After all, quoting Shakespeare and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was not something done by your average musician of the day.)
He played on Tamla’s historic first release, Marv Johnson’s “Come To Me,” as well as on the pre-Motown recording debut of the Miracles, “Got A Job.”
He wrote the only memoir (“an autobiographical novel”) by an original member of the first Motown studio band.
The Joe Hunter Band (clockwise from top): Joe Hunter, Hank Cosby, Mike Terry, Larry Veeder, Benny Benjamin, James Jamerson
In later life, he became quite the dandy, kitted out in leopard-print shirts and Panama hats before his tragic, diabetic-induced demise in Detroit in 2007.
“Along with Richard ‘Pistol’ Allen,” says Allan Slutsky, the man most responsible for getting the Funk Brothers’ legacy appreciated around the world, “Joe Hunter was the most empathetic and kindest member of the band.”
And so to today’s subject: the piano player who served as that first leader of Motown’s studio crew, and who thus helped to make popular music history. “So it was and is with some people in the musical profession that fate has blessed some of us, and others seem to have been forsaken,” declared Hunter in the opening pages of Motown, Musicians and Myself, published in 1996.
Sixty years ago this week, Motown’s soon-to-be first Top 10 success of ’63 was occupying the airwaves of KRUX Phoenix, WEBB Baltimore, WIRL Peoria and other stations across North America. “If anyone thinks that my piano arrangement on the introduction of Marvin Gaye’s hit record, ‘Pride And Joy,’ was something new,” Hunter wrote in his memoir, “it was not. Wes Montgomery had once played the same melody with a different flavor or improvisation.”
Such was typical of the musician’s modesty and candour, as was the comment about the record which exemplified his talent perhaps more than any other. “The same rhythmic licks that I played on the piano for the hit record ‘Heat Wave,’ I borrowed from the old Charleston music during the 1920s.”
That Martha & the Vandellas milestone is soon to mark its own 60th anniversary – the single was released on July 10, 1963 – but it was not Hunter’s first association with the girls, as detailed in Kevin Goins’ comprehensive liner notes for The Hawk, a collection of the keyboard player’s early, non-Motown work. (More on that album below.)
THE POWER OF PERSUASION
In his interview with Goins, Hunter recalled auditioning the Del-Phi’s for Detroit’s Kable Records, a venture of which he was part. Including Martha Reeves and future Vandellas Annette Beard and Rosalind Ashford, they provided backing vocals for J.J. Barnes’ “Won’t You Let Me Know,” released by Kable in 1960. Among the session men were James Jamerson on bass and Hank Cosby on tenor sax, and Hunter said that the track’s “bounce” tempo was influenced by his experience recording “Come To Me” for Berry Gordy in December 1958.
It was Hunter’s earlier tenure with the band behind Hank Ballard and the Midnighters that connected him to the Motown founder. “Sonny [Woods] spoke highly of Berry and said he had already recommended me to him,” he recalled in Motown, Musicians and Myself. “Berry explained to me something as to what he was about and offered me the opportunity to join him.” Hunter added, “My decision for joining Berry in his musical works was based on the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, ‘Men exist for the sake of one another, teach them then or bear with them.’ I found Berry to be a man of action with the power of persuasion.”
The rehearsal for “Come To Me” was done at the apartment of Raynoma (“Miss Ray”) Liles – later to be Gordy’s second wife – while the recording took place at Detroit’s United Sound. In his book, Hunter identified the players: himself on piano, Joseph Williams on bass, Thomas “Beans” Bowles on flute and baritone sax, Eddie Willis and Joe Messina on guitars, and Benny Benjamin on drums. He also challenged Marv Johnson’s later claim to have played piano on the date. “If Marv did any playing on the session, then it was after the session, when I left with four dollars and a promise to get more of which I never received. However, ‘Come To Me’ opened doors at Hitsville U.S.A. and the early dawn of a new sound was born, the early Motown Sound.”
Still, Gordy’s business was in its infancy, and Hunter needed additional income. He undertook sessions for Stepp Records – Mickey Stevenson’s Detroit label before he joined Motown as A&R chief – and assembled a touring band for Jackie Wilson which included James Jamerson, Hank Cosby, guitarist Larry Veeder and saxman Mike Terry. He also played on various recording dates for Detroit producers Don Davis and Mike Hanks.
At 2648 West Grand, Hunter contributed to the Snakepit sessions which yielded the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” the Contours’ “Do You Love Me” and Mary Wells’ “The One Who Really Loves You,” among others. Of the Contours’ hit, he told Allan Slutsky for a 1993 Keyboard article that it was “the most fun we had on any session.” He continued, “Most of the guys went outside of the building, killed a few pints of wine, and came back red hot. It was one big happy party. Except for the vocals, we cut the whole thing live in three or four takes. The Contours were like little babies watching the session. They looked like they were about to get an ice cream cone. When they heard the finished track we laid down, they lit up like a Christmas tree, congratulating all of us and patting us on the back, It was their first hit, and they were happy to have some music they could sing behind. The part I played was a rhythm guitar kind of figure I adapted to the piano.”
Hunter went on to admit, “You see, some of the Motown stuff I had to play was not my style. The stuff I liked to play was more like Erroll Garner, with big ten-finger chords. I fit in at Motown because I could copy a lot of styles, and Berry wanted guys around who could read his mind. I let him use me as his robot.”
‘MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER’
Forty years after “Do You Love Me,” it was Standing In The Shadows Of Motown which gave long-overdue credit to Hunter and his history-shaping companions in the Snakepit. What had begun as Allan Slutsky’s biography of James Jamerson turned into the author’s near-religious determination to have the band’s achievements captured on film, as it was in the 2002 award-winning documentary.
“Of all the Funk Brothers, Joe Hunter is my favourite character,” Slutsky told me recently. “There was a genuine regalness to the man, which is why I was so thrilled with the way the gaffers lit him in the scene at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge when he talked about the gunplay at the Phelps Lounge. With a few backlighting tricks and some well-placed candles among the condiments on the table, they made him look like royalty.
Brothers in the 21st century (from left): Joe Hunter, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina (photo: Karen Sas)
“As far as his musical legacy, Joe got them through the early years, ending around 1963, when Earl Van Dyke came in. Joe was a gutbucket, blues keyboardist who could play a little jazz when called upon to do it, but he didn’t have the musical sophistication to handle the increasingly complex harmonic structures of tunes like ‘For Once In My Life,’ or the focus to play the simple, repetitive parts like Earl did that were part of Motown’s pop/R&B formula. He was too improvisational and inconsistent.
“But his musical spirit was strong, and shines through those early ’60s hits like ‘Stubborn Kind Of Fellow’ and ‘Do You Love Me.’ He had a lot of pride in what he did, particularly in coming up with the idea of playing that Charleston groove on ‘Heat Wave.’ ”
Joe Hunter left Motown at the end of 1963 and was succeeded as bandleader by Van Dyke – whom he had first met in 1946 “where we soldiered together” at the Lockbourne Army Air Base, outside Columbus, Ohio. In his book, he confessed that, after five years, his enthusiasm at Motown had waned and he was “ready to throw in the towel.” He also wrote that Berry Gordy offered him the opportunity to stay, but that he declined.
Further down the road, this remarkable man worked with a rainbow of singers and musicians, including another Motown sideman, percussionist Jack Ashford. Then, in the early part of this century, Standing In The Shadows Of Motown gave the surviving Funk Brothers a new lease of professional life, and they played and toured together at home and abroad.
This also granted them further opportunities to talk about their years at Hitsville, to a receptive media. In so doing, Joe Hunter would surely have quoted his favourite Roman emperor once or twice – perhaps even these few words, appropriate for the Motown years: “Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”
Music notes: in 2004, Aaron Fuchs’ Soul-Tay-Shus label issued an 18-track CD compilation of Joe Hunter’s early work, The Hawk, as cited above. Its remarkable contents are still available today in physical and digital formats, including the instrumental title track featuring Hunter, as well as J.J. Barnes’ “Won’t You Let Me Know,” featuring the Del-Phi’s on backup, and the latter’s answer disc, “I Will Let You Know.” The album’s origins date back to Fuchs’ adventures in Detroit some 15 years ago, “running around…speaking to many of the remaining, Motown-affiliated musicians and staffers and family members.” Thus, The Hawk came to be. Joe Hunter is also represented (of course) in Universal Music’s Grammy-winning Hip-O/Motown soundtrack album for Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, plus its later deluxe edition.
Book notes: Joe Hunter’s autobiography is a rare thing, indeed: on Abe Books, a second-hand edition is on offer for around $275. (My thanks to Keith Hughes for the loan of his copy.) Fellow Funk Brother Jack Ashford’s memoir, Motown: The View From The Bottom, is more readily available, and much cheaper. Also easily acquired is Standing In The Shadows Of Motown by Allan Slutsky (Dr. Licks), the original 1989 James Jamerson biography which gave birth to the movie. Why, this is even available as an e-book. The Funks would be pleased.