{"id":18799,"date":"2020-06-03T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T09:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18799"},"modified":"2020-06-04T07:44:37","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T11:44:37","slug":"outrageous-the-mind-excursions-of-dennis-coffey-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/03\/outrageous-the-mind-excursions-of-dennis-coffey-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Outrageous: The Mind Excursions of Dennis Coffey (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A look back at the renowned guitarist\u2019s Sussex Records years <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Dennis Coffey made his name among musicians as an in-demand session guitarist in Detroit. Coffey played on literally hundreds of sessions; that\u2019s him you hear laying down the memorable guitar parts on the Temptations\u2019 \u201cPsychedelic Shack\u201d and \u201cJust My Imagination,\u201d Edwin Starr\u2019s \u201cWar,\u201d Freda Payne\u2019s \u201cBand of Gold\u201d and countless others. As a key member of the studio aggregation known as the Funk Brothers\u2014Detroit\u2019s answer to L.A.\u2019s Wrecking Crew and the south\u2019s Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section\u2014Coffey gave a distinctive rock edge to soul, r&b and funk recordings; his facility at coming up with memorable licks and playing in most every style meant that he was one of the busiest musicians in Detroit.<\/p>\n

\"\"Enterprising music executive Clarence Avant took notice of Coffey, signing him to a solo record contract. Released on Maverick Records (a subsidiary of MGM), Coffey\u2019s 1969 debut Hair and Thangs<\/i> showcased the studio collaboration between Coffey and his production partner Mike Theodore.
\n\u201cI met Mike at Golden World Studio,\u201d Coffey says. \u201cI happened to be in there with some dudes from Wayne State, because I was majoring in music. I hired some of my friends to be the string section. Mike said that he knew how to do horns, but he\u2019d never written for strings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theodore suggested that he and Coffey team up and do arrangements for Detroit acts. Coffey says he bluffed his way into the partnership. \u201c\u2019Yeah, I\u2019m an expert,\u2019 I told him. I only did it once! So, we started doing that.\u201d Though many of the duo\u2019s productions were credited to Theodore, in reality both he and Coffey worked behind the recording console and on devising arrangements.<\/p>\n

\u201cRalph Terrana gave us the keys to his studio, Tera Shirma; we had an office over there,\u201d Coffey says. \u201cSo, at 2 o\u2019clock, I\u2019d get done playing a club. All my buddies were in bands, so I\u2019d pick [some musicians] and they\u2019d meet us over at Tera Shirma at 3 a.m., and we\u2019d record. That\u2019s how we learned how to produce.\u201d The results of some of those early sessions came out as records by the Sunliners, who later found greater fame as Rare Earth.<\/p>\n

Hair and Thangs<\/i> was credited to the Dennis Coffey Trio, a highly versatile group that included Lyman Woodard on organ; Coffey and Woodard had been playing together for some time in a soul-jazz trio, with a regular residency at Morey Baker\u2019s Showplace Lounge. Tapes of a 1968 soul-jazz performance have been released recently on other labels as Hot Coffey in the D<\/i> and One Night at Morey\u2019s: 1968<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Coffey and Theodore eventually became the \u201chouse producers\u201d for Avant\u2019s Sussex label. \u201cHe put us on salary,\u201d Coffey says. The duo produced the Gallery, scoring a hit with \u201cNice to Be With You\u201d (Cashbox<\/i> #1 in 1972), and (Sixto) Rodriguez\u2019s debut, Cold Fact<\/i>. With his songwriting, arranging and production skills developing rapidly, it made sense for Coffey to focus on making more albums under his own name.<\/p>\n

\"\"Evolution<\/i> (1971)<\/b>
\nCredited to Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Army, Evolution<\/i> is both an experiment and an exercise in commercial funk-rock. The concept came from Coffey. \u201cI had a sound-on-sound tape recorder at home,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI sat in my basement and wrote ten songs, and I thought, \u2018Instead of writing for horns and strings like Mike and I are doing, I\u2019ll make it a guitar band.\u2019\u201d With longtime associate (and fellow Funk Brother) Bob Babbitt on bass plus percussionist Jack Ashford, Evolution<\/i> featured three guitarists\u2014Coffey on alto guitar and sitar, Joe Podorsek on baritone guitar, and tenor guitarist Ray Monette\u2014with overdubbing effects creating a guitar assault.<\/p>\n

Most of the songs on the all-instrumental Evolution<\/i> were Coffey originals; an inventive reading of Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cWhole Lotta Love\u201d is the album\u2019s sole cover. But the breakout track would be Coffey\u2019s \u201cScorpio,\u201d a hit single (Billboard<\/i> #6) that eventually earned the group the honor of being one of very few predominantly white groups to guest on the popular Soul Train<\/i> TV show.<\/p>\n

Recorded at Detroit\u2019s GM Recording Studios, Evolution<\/i> featured a number of Coffey\u2019s buddies. But many\u2014including Uriel Jones, \u201cBongo\u201d Eddie Brown, Richard \u201cPistol\u201d Allen and Earl Van Dyke\u2014appeared uncredited. Motown\u2019s Berry Gordy had an iron-fisted rule against his musicians playing sessions for others. So as far as official records document, they didn\u2019t. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to get those guys in trouble,\u201d says Coffey. \u201cIsn\u2019t it funny, though? I was playing with them every day at Motown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evolution<\/i> reached #36 on the U.S album charts, and #13 on the R&B chart \u2026 but not at first.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a> …<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A look back at the renowned guitarist\u2019s Sussex Records years Dennis Coffey made his name among musicians as an in-demand session guitarist in Detroit. Coffey played on literally hundreds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,40,41,73],"tags":[664],"class_list":["post-18799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-instrumental","category-interview","category-vinyl","tag-dennis-coffey","cat-31-id","cat-40-id","cat-41-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18799"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18972,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions\/18972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}