Seven of the Funk Brothers have survived to tell the tale–and they are wonderful storytellers, particularly percussionist-vibraphonist Jack Ashford and piano player Joe Hunter. Six have died, including hard-living drummer Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson, whose pioneering licks on the Fender bass created the blueprint for future electric-guitar players. For the movie, the remaining original team reunite to share their war stories and revisit the legendary Studio A, where “Heat Wave” and “Shop Around” and hundreds of other hits were recorded. Using their arrangements, they take to the stage in Detroit to perform more than a dozen classics with singers Joan Osborne (“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”), Ben Harper (“I Heard It Through the Grapevine”), Meshell Ndegeocello (“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”), Gerald Levert (“Shot Gun”) and others. These dynamite numbers reinforce a point made in the movie: with these guys laying down the grooves, just about anybody could have made these songs hits.
The Funk Brothers were jazz musicians at heart, and after they finished working for Berry Gordy they’d hit the late-night jazz clubs, and later incorporate their riffs into the Motown sound. Some of the Funk Brothers were white guys who grew up listening to the “race music” of the ’50s–guitarist Phil Messina and bass player Bob Babbitt–and when the Detroit riots broke out in ‘67, their fellow musicians were prepared to put their lives on the line to protect their hides. Justman’s movie gives us a thumbnail sketch of the social and musical forces propelling the Motown sound. It has some of the sweetness, melancholy and triumph that infused “The Buena Vista Social Club,” another movie concerned with redressing a longstanding musical injustice. But there’s little bitterness on display here. What blasts off the screen like a heat wave, burning in the heart, is the sheer toe-tapping, booty-shaking joy of making music.
