Stepping Out of the Shadows:
Motown tambourine man Jack Ashford is hard at work on his first solo album. Charles Thomson caught up with him in London to discuss his legendary past and his future plans.
May 2008, Wax Poetics
When Jack Ashford shuffles out of the elevator in a red tracksuit, white trainers and a black baseball cap, he looks conspicuous amidst the palatial surroundings of the Radisson Edwardian Kenilworth Hotel. Only the lettering on Ashford’s baseball cap betrays his casual exterior, offering a solitary clue to his true identity. His hat reads, in bold white letters, ‘Motown’.
When Motown music first reached British shores in 1960, EMI Records boss Sir Joseph Blackwood scoffed that the studio would never produce hits. His reasoning; the tambourine was too prominent in the musical arrangements. That tambourine would become the very essence of the famous Motown sound, and the man who added that tambourine is Jack Ashford.
Bandleader and percussionist for the original Motown Rhythm Section, Jack has played on more number one records than Elvis Presley, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined – and earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award for his efforts.
At 73, Ashford has no intention of retiring, attacking a string of new projects with the energy of a man half his age. But Ashford is a man with a lot of lost time to make up for. I catch up with him in London, where he is set to play tambourine, marimba and percussion with his band for three sold out shows at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
Ashford has flown to London straight from playing a sell-out concert in Paris. “We tore France up!” he enthuses, punching the air. “They were queuing outside in the rain to see us! We have to go back soon at the venue’s request, but we’re going to tour the whole of France, not just Paris.”
Following his London shows Ashford will return briefly to the USA to rest before touring Europe and Asia… But not the USA: “I don’t like touring in the States,” he frowns. “Their interest over there is driven by something other than creativity and appreciation.”
Ashford is also hard at work on a brand new solo album – his first.
“I’m about sixty days late with the record already,” he says wearily, “but I have been so busy. We’ve got a lot of great stuff on this album. There’s one tune, ‘Sunshine Girl’, it’s what we call a real toe-tapper. I sing on it! I’ve never sung before but it sounds okay… I’ve been around a lot of great singers so I guess I know what not to do.”
For the album Jack has teamed up with Angelo Earl, owner of Soul Street Records, who is currently acting as the star’s tour guitarist.
“Angelo is extremely computer literate and he has put some of the more modern stuff in there… some hip-hop grooves. One of the songs has a real funk edge to it,” Ashford beams, tapping his feet as he sings a few bars and mimicks the hissing tambourine. “I guess you could describe the new album as the direction Motown was going in right before it closed down in the seventies; it’s reminiscent of Motown but with a new flavour.”
Listening to Jack describe his hectic schedule and speak so enthusiastically about his new album, it’s easy to forget that despite his influence and his years of loyal service at Motown, just a few years ago Ashford had given up hope on his music career.
In 1963 Ashford was spotted performing in a jazz club and invited to tour with Marvin Gaye.
“I remember this guy coming up to me and asking me if I wanted to go on tour with a famous singer called Marvin Gaye. I said I’d never heard of him – I was arrogant back then. All jazz musicians were arrogant. Anyway, I agreed and at the end of the tour Marvin invited me to join the Motown band. The rest is history.”
Jack remained at Motown for a decade, arranging hit after hit for icons such as Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder, and laying his signature percussion and vibes on classics including ‘My Girl’, ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’. His proudest achievement at Motown, though, was his integral role as bandleader on Marvin Gaye’s seminal 1971 album, ‘What’s Going On’. Such was the soul maestro’s impact on Jack that he once cited his two greatest influences as ‘God and Marvin Gaye’.
‘What’s Going On’ would turn out to be one of Jack’s final projects at Motown, for one cold morning in 1972 the percussionist arrived for work to find a group of devastated musicians staring a note in the window, informing staff that Motown had moved to Los Angeles and they had not been invited.
The various band members fell on hard times and several were forced to abandon their musical ambitions altogether. In his 2005 autobiography, ‘The View From The Bottom’, Jack spoke candidly of his ‘anger and disappointment’ at Motown, branding the sudden move a ‘betrayal’ and detailing his grief at the fact that several band members died never having been recognized for their outstanding body of work.
It was not until 2003 that the band’s impact on the music industry would truly be celebrated when Motown guitarist Robert White told his film producer friend Alan Slutsky of the band’s history. Intrigued by their story, Slutsky produced a documentary, ‘Standing in the Shadows of Motown’, charting the band’s phenomenal success and celebrating their achievements.
Rebranding the band ‘The Funk Brothers’ and billing them as ‘the best kept secret in the history of pop music’, Slutsky catapulted them into the limelight. But, says Jack, all was not what it seemed.
One of the terms of the band’s contracts was that following the film’s release, they would be managed by Alan Slutsky for a year.
“It was a disaster!” exclaims Jack. “We were set up to be cash cows.”
Although visibly angry about the situation, Jack soon adopts a more philosophical attitude.
“It’s not a perfect world we live in and we sometimes run into things we don’t like, but we have to endure them. I just thought of it all as a catalyst to getting where I am now. That was the only way I could get through it without having a nervous breakdown or hurting somebody.”
When the group’s one year contracts came up for renegotiation Jack and fellow band member, pianist ‘Papa’ Joe Hunter, elected to form their own group.
“Before we came to Motown we were mostly jazz musicians,” Jack explains. “Joe Hunter and I were the only guys left from the original group and we wanted to start playing some jazz in our concerts to show the audience what we’re doing now and how we’d evolved.”
The two became a successful touring act, playing a mixture of Motown music and jazz to full houses all over Europe. However, after two years of success, and just one week after last January’s sold out concerts at Ronnie Scott’s, tragedy struck.
Last year, Joe Hunter crashed his car and died shortly afterwards.
“I kept trying to call him,” Jack reminisces, “but he wasn’t answering his phone. In the end I called his son. His son went round there and found him dead. It looks like that night he was playing piano at home when he fell over backwards and died on the floor. He was bleeding internally and he didn’t know it. But at least he died doing what he loved.”
One year on Jack has come full circle, back in London with the same band and playing to more sold out audiences at Ronnie Scott’s. Following a series of concerts in the UK last November with funk legend George Clinton, Jack also looks set to star in his very own documentary.
“There was a film crew shooting the concerts for a George Clinton documentary,” he explains. “I got talking to the producer and he wants to do one on me now!”
Whilst clearly proud of his achievements and pleased with his new found fame, Jack explains that he feels duty bound to behave in a dignified manner and preserve the memory of the group.
“My history,” he posits, “I realise it is vast and very unique. How many guys can say they do what I do? I enjoy the adulation, but it can be a burden to be a legend; to carry that responsibility and be the voice of those who are no longer with you. When I speak, I don’t only speak for me. It’s the legacy of the band, of Berry Gordy, of Motown. The Motown story is not closed yet. I don’t know if the final chapter will ever be written because the music is still everywhere.”
For Jack the final chapter also remains unwritten. Excited about his new material and ever keen to achieve more, he says, “. When I went up to collect my Grammy Lifetime Achievement I said, ‘I kinda like it up here, I think I’m coming back.’ I’m gonna get back. I think ‘Sunshine Girl’ can get me back.”
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