James Jameson And The Funk Brothers Guitarists

[timthemod]

Yesterday being JJ's birthday, I heard a London Radio station play two play 2 tracks to celebrate, one was a J5 track he didn't even play on! [[it wasn't one of the few Bobby Taylor Detroit tracks). I love JJ's bassline's, but these fact need to be historically correct, for example this sounds like a Hitsville track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND-iW51idC0

My other enquiry is a more general one about the roles of Robert White, joe Messina & Eddie Willis. I always thought Robert played most of the leads, and Joe and Eddie the fills. For example on the Marvin & Tammi Track who is playing the 'rich' chords at beginning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_vPJgEH3jw

These come up in various tracks from the mid-late 60's.

[Roger Polhill]

Tim you should get the Dr. Licks book "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" as this will explain who did what. James is the reason why I love Motown so much and what a great loss his is.

[Motown4Ever518]

As a musician, I feel you Tim. I concur with Roger that SITSOM is a great place to start, both the book and the movie! On the J5 version of Darling Dear, I do not hear JJ. The Smokey R & The Miracles version was very popular in Philly, it was I believe the B-Side of Point It Out, that track is JJ allowed to open up a little more, in the forefront of the mix. As far as the guitarists, my understanding is that, Robert White played most of the leads, Eddie "Chank" Willis played most of the "Chanks" and Joe Messina played in between. So on a song, Joe might be playing a "chank" but on the different part of the neck, or possibly playing off of a part of the bass line. This is why the sound from the classic period moves me so much, because even if it was not a top ten tune, the tracks were always the best they could be, and I never felt as though any of the musicians were not doing their best to make the session produce a number one selling song, even if it wound up not being released.