The Uncredited Drummers of Motown: The Funk Brothers
You’ve heard many of the classic R&B, soul, and funk hits produced by the Motown record label, whether you realize it or not. Motown is a huge player in the racial integration of popular music during the 1960s since almost all of the session musicians, as well as the label’s founder, were black men. While Motown’s music was universally loved in its day, the musicians that recorded and produced the music did so uncredited for over ten years. Publicly unnamed musicians are responsible for performing some of the most recognizable songs of all time. Some names may ring a bell nowadays since quite a few Motown musicians have achieved legendary status, but for the most part, the spotlight shined on the performing artists. Who exactly played on the hits?
In the recording scene, musicians rarely played with the same exact group from one session to the next. Instead of having a house band, studios often pulled from a pool of local musicians to get the job done, resulting in a sort of collective.
The Birth of a New Style
Based in Detroit, Berry Gordy Jr. founded the Motown label in 1959. For decades, it was the highest-earning black-owned business in the US. Initially signing blues artists, Gordy quickly adapted to new musical styles to appeal to younger and wider audiences. But doing so required the help of musicians possessing superior skill and creativity. Gordy tapped into the best drummers, bassists, guitarists, vocalists, percussionists, and horn players he could find living in Detroit and started cranking out hits. The collective of studio musicians hired by Gordy soon became known as the Funk Brothers.
While there are numerous drummers heard across Motown’s record catalog, three Detroit-based drummers in particular tracked the majority of the label’s hits: William “Benny” Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen, and Uriel Jones.
Benny Benjamin
Benny Benjamin first started working with Gordy in 1958, just before the birth of Motown. Benjamin’s biggest drumming influences include Tito Puente and Buddy Rich. Despite having a background in big band jazz, Benjamin’s timekeeping abilities and control of dynamics made him an ideal fit for the emerging Motown sound. He would frequently use brushes on recordings, a technique originating from jazz drumming. Several Motown producers, including Gordy, wouldn’t run a session unless Benjamin was on drums and James Jamerson, fellow Funk Brother, was on bass. Benjamin can be heard on tunes such as Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” The Temptations’ “My Girl,” Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” as well as many others.
Benjamin was well-loved by the other musicians and producers involved with Motown, but was notorious for arriving late to sessions. While he often crafted elaborate excuses, including once claiming he was shot shortly before call time, most of his tardiness can be attributed to his alcoholism and heroin addiction. As his addiction worsened, his abilities to perform at sessions deteriorated. “Pistol” Allen and Uriel Jones were called in to pick up the slack, eventually taking over Benjamin’s duties altogether. Due to his lifelong struggles with addiction and substance abuse, Benjamin died of a stroke in 1969 at the age of 43.
Pistol Allen
“Pistol” Allen was the next earliest drummer for Motown’s Funk Brothers. Recruited by Benjamin, one of his biggest musical influences, Allen began tracking for the label in 1962. Largely influenced by the great big band drummers Max Roach and Buddy Rich, Allen needed to adapt his playing style to best suit the emerging Motown sound. Benjamin advised Allen to leave the jazz drumming at home, hold down simple beats, and to keep his mouth shut. Allen followed suit and ultimately developed his own unique, highly desirable drumming style.
Allen was the go-to drummer for Holland-Dozier-Holland, a songwriting and production trio that helped shape the Motown sound through the 1960s. He popularized playing the snare drum on all four beats (instead of only the back beats, 2 and 4), which gave a much more driving feel to the music. Some notable hits featuring Allen’s drumming include “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” by the Four Tops, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye, and “Baby Love” by The Supremes. Allen passed away in 2002 at the age of 69.
Uriel Jones
The third drummer to join the Funk Brothers was Uriel Jones. Initially touring with Marvin Gaye and other Motown acts in the early 1960s, Jones began to take on more session work in 1964 as a fill-in for Benny Benjamin. His biggest influences were Art Blakey and, understandably, Benny Benjamin. While he was groomed to essentially function as a clone of Benjamin, producers quickly realized Jones had something more to offer. One of Motown’s songwriters and arrangers, Paul Riser, stated that “Uriel’s drum sound was the most open and laid-back, and he was the funkiest of the three guys we had.”
As Benjamin’s struggles with addiction worsened, Jones began getting called in for more and more sessions. You’ve undoubtedly heard his drumming before on songs such as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (both versions - by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967, and Diana Ross in 1970), “Ain’t That Peculiar” by Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life,” and “Cloud Nine” by the Temptations. Jones also performed live with the Funk Brothers at nightclubs around Detroit during the 1960s. Jones died of a heart attack in 2009 at the age of 74.
Occasionally, Motown producers would bring in other Detroit-area drummers, but Benny Benjamin, Pistol Allen, and Uriel Jones took on the bulk of the work with hundreds of hits to their names.
The LA Scene
During the later 1960s, Gordy began producing some Motown records using studio musicians in Los Angeles. While some of the Detroit musicians made the move to California, such as bassist James Jamerson, most of the LA sessions were comprised of different musicians. Many of the Los Angeles musicians Gordy hired were also members of the Wrecking Crew, which was another prolific collective of studio musicians responsible for recording hundreds of hit songs (and a deep topic to cover all on its own). The two most notable LA drummers to record for Motown were Paul Humphrey and Earl Palmer.
Paul Humphrey
Paul Humphrey was born and raised in Detroit and served in the US Navy through the 1950s. Upon completing his military service, he worked as a session drummer in New York City for numerous jazz artists including Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and many others. Humphrey relocated to Los Angeles in the 1960s to further develop his performing and recording career. While in LA, Humphrey recorded and performed alongside Motown artists including Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, and The Supremes. Aside from backing musicians on the Motown roster, Humphrey also performed with Jerry Garcia, Sammy Davis Jr., and anybody else that required an experienced sideman.
Earl Palmer
Earl Palmer is one of the most recorded drummers of all time. Primarily known for his work with the Wrecking Crew, Palmer didn’t know he was recording for Motown artists when he was first hired by Gordy. In an early 1980s interview, Palmer describes how he and other musicians did constant work for the Lewis Sisters, but an album was never released. After hearing some of his own performances on tunes he didn’t recognize, he learned that Gordy was essentially stealing the work of the LA session musicians to use as backing tracks for Motown artists. The musicians were paid out later after Gordy was caught (nobody said Berry Gordy Jr. was an ethical person…), but when Gordy decided to operate a bit more honestly, he still enlisted Palmer’s drumming from time to time. As Palmer devoted more time to providing drums for movies, television shows, and other recording artists, he eventually stopped recording for Motown altogether.
Very much like artists of generations past, Motown musicians didn’t achieve the wider fame and recognition they deserved until decades later. But other professional musicians took note of the Motown sound and continued to build and explore in new creative directions. The rise of new forms of dance music, particularly funk music in the mid 1960s and the disco era of the 1970s (both heavily influenced by the Motown sound), provided the foundation for more modern styles of music. These styles, pioneered by black musicians, had an extremely broad appeal across the US and internationally. Drum breaks from the 1960s were sampled, repurposed, and rearranged to create hiphop grooves and DnB (drum and bass) beats through the 1980s and 90s. The Amen Break, arguably the most sampled drum groove of all time, originated as the B-side of a single released by The Winstons, and resulted in the later formation of several new subcultures.
Now, The Funk Brothers have their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and many of the studio musicians have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their influence on popular music is undeniable and present in almost all modern musical styles. The Motown hits withstand the test of time due to the superior musicianship featured on each record.
Further reading: The Funk Brothers, The Wrecking Crew, History of Motown
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