Great shot, Blueskies. Thank you. Brings back good memories. I remember seeing Bill Doggett there one night.
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Great shot, Blueskies. Thank you. Brings back good memories. I remember seeing Bill Doggett there one night.
marc, you ought to check out the original P-Funk labs - United Sound Studios. It's just around the corner from Hitsville at 5840 Second Av. Many a hit record came from that location.
thanks for the tip chidrummer; I'll start reading about United Sound Studios right away. I already found some info as well as a picture on the Soulful Detroit Tour: http://soulfuldetroit.com/web01-soul...ited-sound.htm
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It doesn't look too promising on Google Earth
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Dat is precies waarom ik rijd mijn fiets!
maar niet vandaag in Nederland Robb, want er ligt sneeuw en de gevoelstemperatuur is -10 Celcius!
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Jawel! Niet vandaag! Ik ben nu veel te oud!
Hi Ralph. I was playing at the Twenty Grand one night with one of the Motown acts. I was sitting at the bar with Bill Doggett. I told him how learning his songs was a rite of passage for us playing in the teen clubs. I told him how much we appreciated his music. He was very gracious and bought me a drink. We used his guitar player Billy Butler on a session with the Royaltones in NYC. It may have been the same time we saw you guys playing at the Peppermint Lounge as the Sunliners. I have been playing with my quartet at the Northern Lights Lounge on Tuesday night in Detroit two miles away from Motown for four years when I am in town. We play funk, Motown and jazz. When I was a member of the Funk Brothers at Motown, Earl Van Dyke, Uriel Jones, Robert White and a sax player were playing at the Chit Chat Lounge in Detroit. I was playing at the Frolic Show Bar on the John Lodge Service Drive and Clairmont with Lyman Woodard on organ and Melvin Davis Davis on drums. These clubs were two to three miles away from Hitsville. The audience in these clubs gave us feedback on what we were playing and helped us create our musical identities. We played on many hit records during the day at Motown using licks we had created in the clubs. If anyone wants to come to Detroit and learn about the music, please visit us the Northern Lights Lounge and hear how playing in clubs helped to create the music recorded at Motown. You will not be disappointed. I look forward to seeing you.
Dennis Coffey
Dennis,
I remember coming to see you when you were playing with Melvin and Lyman. You guys were awesome.. I think I saw you twice there.
Dennis,
Do you remember the story of the clinic Doggett's sax player did at Hewett's music? The Honky Tonk story.
I think the trouble with many young musicians these days, Dennis, is the lack of clubs to play.You are so right...the clubs honed us as musicians. Hell we were all playing six nights a week. And you may not remember, but you were the guy that introduced me to suspended fourths. In Atlantic City.
Hi Ralph. I do not remember that clinic. I used to go in Hewett's a lot back in the day. I know the son Tim Hewett who now runs the stores. They have one in Troy. There are still many clubs in Metro Detroit to play but they are usually one nighters with different acts each night. It's not like the old days where you could play six nights a week for two years in the same club. I have some great young players in my band and they stay pretty busy. I do remember the story of when sax player King Curtis came to Windsor to play a show. All of the local sax players were lined up to sit in. King invited one of them on stage to do Honky Tonk. You should have seen the look on the guy's face when King started the song in the key of F#. yikes......
Oh...that was in Windsor? That is the story I'm talking about, but I thought it was at Hewetts. From what I understand, King asked who the baddest sax player in Detroit was and at the time Davy Koverik seemed to be it. So he was invited to come up and play Honky Tonk with King. King counts it off...one....two....and then says 5 sharps as the song begins. Poor old Davey is stuck standing there with his horn in his mouth and nothing happening.
To the musically unschooled, Honky Tonk was in the key of F on the record. A relatively easy key to play in. F# is basically a bitch...