Mike Terry Born 1940 - October 30,2008 Baritone saxophonist on Motowns greatest hits of the 1960s For a while in the mid-1960s, the baritone saxophone was the lead guitar of soul music. More precisely, it was the instrument identified by certain producers at the Motown studios in Detroit as the one ideally suited to provide a momentary contrast to the voices of Martha and the Vandellas, Mary Wells, the Four Tops, Kim Weston and the Isley Brothers on such hits as Heatwave, You Lost the Sweetest Boy, I Cant Help Myself, Helpless and This Old Heart of Mine. The man who played the solos that formed part of the warp and weft of those classic records was Andrew Mike Terry... As well as a string of Motown hits, made when he was a session man for Berry Gordy Jrs fast-growing company, Terry also participated in a catalogue of the eras dance-floor classics. They included Darrell Banks Open the Door to Your Heart and Our Love (Is in the Pocket), Jackie Wilsons Higher and Higher, the Fascinations Girls Are Out to Get You, Cliff Nobless The Horse, the Three Caps Cool Jerk, Edwin Starrs SOS (Stop Her on Sight) and Headline News, and the Show Stoppers Aint Nothin But a Houseparty. Later he became a peripatetic arranger and producer, moving from Detroit to Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York to help create recordings that cemented his place in the hearts of soul fans, particularly in the north of England. Born in a suburb of Houston, Texas, where his father ran a music shop, Terry moved with his family first to Kansas City and then to Detroit. He told his biographer, Rob Moss, that he remembered his mother, who played the piano, transcribing the saxophone solos of Charlie Parker, and when he enrolled at Detroits Cass Tech High School, where many Motown musicians were educated, he took up the baritone saxophone. No one else wanted it, he explained. I really wanted to play the trumpet. The baritone saxophone of Andrew Mike Terry remains an indelible component of the famed Motown sound -- his grunting, gutbucket solos electrified dozens of the most memorable hits from souls golden era, spanning from pop blockbusters including Martha & the Vandellas Heatwave and the Supremes Where Did Our Love Go to cult classics like Darrell Banks Open the Door to Your Heart and Cliff Nobles The Horse. Born in Hempstead, TX, in July 1940, Terry grew up in Detroit, later attending the citys noted Cass Tech High School, launching pad for a number of Motown artists and session players. There he took up the baritone sax, later proclaiming No one else wanted it...I really wanted to play the trumpet. In addition to saxophone, Terry also proved a talented arranger, and made his professional debut in 1959 as a member of pianist Richard Popcorn Wylies backing unit the Mohawks, serving alongside bassist James Jamerson and drummer Clifford Mack, both of whom later served as members of the Motown labels famed studio group, the Funk Brothers. A performance at the Detroit nightspot the Twenty Grand Club first brought Wylie and the Mohawks to the attention of Motown owner Berry Gordy, Jr., who signed the group to release the single Shimmy Gully, one of the companys first-ever releases. From there, Terry signed on with pianist Joe Hunter, who doubled as the Motown studio crews musical director from 1959 until 1964, and apart from a brief tour behind R&B sensation Jackie Wilson, Terry remained a Funk Brother throughout the first half of the decade, even touring with the first Motortown Revue in 1962. His first session for Gordy took place in the late 1950s. Before long he had joined several future Motown stalwarts in Popcorn and the Mohawks, who made a handful of unsuccessful recordings. In 1961 he went on the road with Jackie Wilsons band, and the following year he was on tour with the first Motortown Revue, ending at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. It was in 1963, with Heatwave and You Lost the Sweetest Boy, that the sound of Terrys baritone started bursting out of young Americas transistor radios. Restricted by the production team of Lamont Dozier and Eddie and Brian Holland to short interludes before the final chorus, usually no more than eight bars long, he made the most of his opportunity with a heated approach that was short on melodic invention but long on rhythmic drive. Unlike most of the saxophonists called upon to provide textural contrast on the hits of the time, Terry was not a jazz musician earning better money by playing down to the kids. His solos hit exactly the right tone, even when providing a contrast to the breathless croon of the young Diana Ross on the Supremes Where Did Our Love Go, their breakthrough hit in 1964. After Heatwave, a delirious gospel-based song whose success helped elevate the status of the label as a whole, he provided similar contributions to Martha and the Vandellas near-identical follow-ups, Quicksand and Live Wire. When it was not being used in a solo role, Terrys grunting baritone anchored the horn figures that gave impetus to songs such as Marvin Gayes Baby Dont Do It and Kim Westons Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While). Gordys policy of strict demarcation, one of several practices borrowed from Detroits automobile production lines, meant that his session musicians were not permitted to try their hand at arranging or producing. While making the production of music more efficient, men such as Terry were left frustrated at the denial of opportunities. So Terry enrolled at the Detroit Institute of Music Arts and began to moonlight for other labels. Spreading his wings, Terry went on to work with many artists whose names are cherished by cognoscenti, including George Clinton, the Fantastic Four, JJ Barnes, Maxine Brown and the Dells. In the 1970s he composed film soundtracks and worked on the off-Broadway production of Big Time Buck White, a black power comedy musical devised by the singer Oscar Brown Jr and starring Muhammad Ali. Terrys résumé reads like a roll call of souls greatest hits -- his Motown track record alone spans chart smashes including the Four Tops I Cant Help Myself, the Isley Brothers This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You), Kim Westons Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While), and Marvin Gayes Baby Dont Do It, and as a freelancer he played on monsters like Jackie Wilsons Higher and Higher, the Fascinations Girls Are Out to Get You, and the Capitols Cool Jerk. What Terry lacked in technical finesse he made up for in sheer rhythmic propulsion, maximizing the brief windows of opportunity afforded him by the Motown assembly-line production process. Over time, Terry nevertheless began to chafe under the strict limitations of the Motown approach, and in 1965 he left the label, enrolling at the Detroit Institute of Music Arts. A year later he signed with Motown rival Golden World, teaming with George Clinton and Sidney Barnes to form Geo-Si-Mik Productions and appearing on sessions including Edwin Starrs Headline News and J.J. Barnes Day Tripper. After Motown acquired Golden World in 1968, Terry relocated to Chicago, where he tenured at Epic subsidiary OKeh, and spent the remainder of his career as an arranger and producer, pursuits that led him to Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and finally New York City, where he composed film soundtracks and worked on the off-Broadway production Big Time Buck White.. Strangely, he was not invited to participate in the reunion of the Funk Brothers, the original Motown session band, six years ago. The award-winning documentary titled Standing in the Shadows of Motown took several of the surviving musicians on worldwide concert tours which finally earned them individual acclaim, and a measure of belated financial recompense for their hitherto anonymous labours in creating some of the best loved and most influential music of the last century. The death of Terry, following those of the organist Earl Van Dyke, the drummers Benny Benjamin and Richard Pistol Allen, the bassist James Jamerson, the guitarist Robert White, the pianists Johnny Griffiths and Joe Hunter and the tenor saxophonist Hank Cosby, reduces still further the surviving brotherhood of the Snake Pit, as Motowns Studio A was known during its glorious heyday as the fount of so many imperishable hits. Terrys wife predeceased him.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 02:58:02 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015