This
was recorded at his home in Detroit
BR;
If you ever wondered who played the saxophone solos on records like
The Four Tops 'I Can't Help Myself’ and the Isley Brothers 'This
Old Heart Of Mine' and literally hundreds of other Motown classics ?
Well this is the man that did it
- Mr Mike Terry, welcome Mike.
MT;
Thank you very much.
BR;
It's great to get the opportunity to speak to you because you're
probably not aware of how much impact you've had on Soul music over
the years.
MT;
Yes it’s all a shock to me. I’ve been made aware in the
last twenty four months.
BR;
The list of credits that you've done is literally staggering. You
were a member of Jo Hunter's original studio band at Motown ?
MT;
Yeah I have a vague memory because that was twenty eight, twenty
nine years ago. In fact it was thirty years ago. It was a long time
ago, the beginning of the Sixties.
BR;
There were a lot of talented musicians in Detroit then.
MT;
A lot, that’s right..
BR;
You went out on the road with Popcorn Wylie and the first Motown
revue, that must have been quite an experience ?
MT;
Yeah that was one to remember because it was real cold I'd never
been that far up in Michigan and the snow was really high. It kind of
frightened me a bit but the show went along just fine. There were
some things that happened that weren’t as you say kosher, but it
was a good learning experience for me. That was one of my first trips
travelling on the road with Motown.
BR;
How did you feel about the whole Motown thing ? Did you feel that
the musicians got the credit they deserved ?
MT;
They didn't didn’t get the credit they deserved, cause they
were never really mentioned, you had to be mentioned to get any kind
of credit and that was one of their rules that on their liner notes
that they didn’t give any credit to their musicians, until later
on they started demanding it, but that was after I’d left.
BR;
I know they were always reluctant to let the best musicians go out
on tour, they didn't like them working live, they wanted to keep them
near the studio so that they were on tap if any one was coming in to
cut some stuff.
MT;
Because everybody that they finally finalised as being the person
for that particular part, that’s why they kept them there
because they found out that that was the sound they had wanted and
that they could get from these musicians. This was why they
wouldn’t let us go on the road.
BR;
You went out on the road with Jackie Wilson in 1961, with quite a
few of the Motown guys, James Jamerson, I think Benny Benjamin was
out there with you ?
MT;
No it was another drummer, I can't think of his name but it
wasn’t Benny at that time. Larry Levito was with us, Little John
was on Trumpet. I think Herbie Williams was with us at that time.
Hank Cosby was with us. I had my twenty first birthday then and it
was a rude awakening.
BR;
Jackie was a big star at that time.
MT;
He was a big star, but at that time it was just after he had gotten
shot, and so he wasn’t really working as often as he had in the
past. He was just working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we were
getting paid maybe $25 a night, and here we are living up in New York
City trying to pay rent and it wouldn’t work. It was real hard.
BR;
Did you play on any of Jackie's records ?
MT;
I played on 'Higher And Higher'.
BR;
When you decided to leave Motown was the reasoning financial or was
it that you wanted to be more creative than Motown allowed you to be.
MT;
The main reason was the fact that you were limited in what you could
do there. Not really there, what you could do outside of there,
I’ll put it like that. If they only gonna pay you so much a week
and you had the chance of making more because other people would like
to have you then you try and make more money.
And
they (Motown) would just be able to listen to records and say
“that‘s, you Mike or that’s you James or that’s
you Earl” who was the piano player at that time. They could just
pick us out.
Benny
especially because he only knew one type of pickup and that was his favorite,
and that was the groove for Motown. So therefore I had to leave
because they was only giving me X amount of Dollars a week, but
they had me on every song that was coming out of there.
BR;
So you were one of the guys who used to sneak over to Golden World
and earn extra money ?
MT:
That’s right, that's right.
BR;
Recording people like J J Barnes.
MT;
When I did JJ I didn't have to sneak I had totally left at that
time. So it was like I was free, I could think. It was J J, and not
only Golden World, there was other record labels in the city, that
you’ve probably found out.
BR;
You did work with Edwin Starr, Pat Lewis, and I always felt that
'Goddess Of Love' by the Fantastic Four was a fantastic song, the
arrangement on that was brilliant.
MT;
Yet I remember that and several others by The Fantastic Four, but
when you arrange you don’t really get a chance to get to the
artist, especially in my capacity.
I
would just do the music and the artist would come in later, so I
never really had the chance to meet them or get involved, as much as
I wanted to, and so there were other layers that were put onto the
music after I did it. I really hate that I didn’t know all these artists.
BR;
The group called The Brothers Of Soul on Boo records, I know very
little about these guys, but they did one song called ‘I Guess
That Don’t Make Me A Loser’ which I thought was absolutely wonderful.
MT:
Yes they were one of the best groups as far as creating a sound and
harmonising, they were like brothers but they weren’t related,
and they wrote some great tunes and I worked with them for a long
time, but it’s a shame that they didn’t continue. I wish
they would’ve kept on singing but they wanted to write and
produce, but they were great.
BR:
They produced ‘Night In Eden’
MT:
That’s Right
BR:
They co-wrote ‘Together A Dream’ by The Creations on
Zodiac which was another great record. Did you have a preference for
working with groups, or didn’t you mind ?
MT:
Like I was saying, I would really work mostly with the producers
before I would get to the groups because the producers would have the
group all ready and I would just have to put the music to it. If I
had a preference it was like all of them were good because it came at
a time when I was just learning and everything that people are
hearing and remembering now, you’ve got to remember that was at
the beginning.
It
was all a new experience to me and everybody that was able to
contribute to me and try to get me work I remember all of them, my
thanks to them. A lot of people just came to my door and said
“Can you do this ?”.
BR:
Did you come from a family of musicians, how did you come to be in
the business ?
MT:
I probably got it from my mother because nobody else in the family
plays music. My Mother, she had an ear, she could hear Charlie Parker
playing on the sax and go and sit at the piano and write down every
note that he played. No, I take
it back, it wasn’t at the piano, she wrote down every note in
the key of C. I never understood that to this day, how she could do that.
BR:
What people tend to forget is that Detroit was basically a Jazz city
before Motown. I mean Jazz was a big scene.
MT:
It was.
BR:
I think that was the reason the musicians were of such quality,
technically they were very good.
MT:
Yeah they had a background of a variety of music and Jazz being one
of them evidently, when they went to R & B it became basic, the
simplest form of their Jazz so they were able to expand on that, but
they had to watch how they expanded on that because it would take it
too far to the Jazz so everything was done with taste. God blessed us
with the musicians that we had to come up with that sound in your
head that was like a groove
BR:
It was incredible that so many musicians of that calibre were in the
same place at the same time, once in a million years I think. Another
all time classic that you were credited with the arrangement on was
Darrell Banks' 'Our Love Is In The Pocket'. Darrell's career was cut
very short did you know him well ?
MT:
I didn't know him that well. He war another artist that I never
really got to. The way the chain of events went in the recording
studio, I saw him, I met him I talked to him, but I never really got
chance to get to know him personally. I Just looked at him as a
singer, he was good. J J Barnes was different, we were banging
together, we hung out and we knew everything about everybody, but
Darrell I remember as such, being a suave type of a dude. Very suave,
a ladies man.
BR:
The strange thing about 'Our Love In The Pocket', J J's version,
which is absolutely wonderful but you never got a credit on that and
you used the same track.
MT:
When I was thinking about, I was talking about that tune, and I was
really dumbfounded
because I didn't remember arranging it. There was another tune that
Darrell did that I didn't do, that was a bigger tune.
BR:
'Open The Door To Your Heart'.
MT;
'Open The Door To Your Heart', that's the one that I was
referring myself to. That's the one that sounded like it. I
think I did arrange In The Pocket. I do remember that
Yeah, that's
right, the first one was the one that was played more. I keep
thinking I didn't arrange that, but the other one I did - So
many things happened
BR:
You must have been working twenty four hours a day to have worked on
all the material you worked on, did you ever sleep ?
MT:
No I didn't sleep much I was always like, sometimes I'd be arranging
special session with J J Barnes 'Baby Please Come Home' whereas I was
at the house and the band was at the studio and they were coming to
the house to pick up the track to take to the studio because I was
trying to catch up with this particular session and get it out the way.
It
was very hard because there was a lot of people at that time and
there wasn't a lot of arrangers that was getting hits, I was the only
one getting hits, evidently. They would all come to me and I would
get back there.
That's
why I vaguely remember this and vaguely remember that, because
you're pushing on like a machine to it gets to the point where you're
Just trying to get your experience used, and you just thank God that
you do have all there people coming in And then again it becomes
kinda bad because it is so much after a while, and then twenty,
thirty years go by ! Do you remember, I'd be like dumbfounded If you
said I did I did it. There were Just so many things I was involved
with that people like you are documenting.
BR:
It's very important that people realise the impact that you had on
the music, a tremendous impact. A lot of talented guys who did so
much and people are not aware of how much influence they had. I mean
I know the artists must have learnt a lot from you, and you from the
artists. everybody being together must have been a learning situation.
MT:
That's true.
BR:
That was a very creative period. Even today people are using the
foundations that you people laid down.
MT:
That's true, you listen to the radio and you can hear the
foundation, you hear it all. They act llke they don't want to
recognise it, but it can't be helped. We laid such a good foundation
that you can't get around it. What goes around comes around, and I
believe that it’s just gonna happen all over again because they
have nowhere else to go now.
BR:
I'm going to ask you an impossible question now. Have you got a
particular favorite
over the years that you worked on, that really sticks out in your
mind ?
MT:
That really sticks out in my mind, J J Barnes 'Baby Please Come
Home', I like that song, Garland Green 'Jealous Kinda Fella', stuff I
did with him in Chicago, when I was working with Josie Armstead,
Great great sounds over there, and I remember that very strong
because I was at a turning point.
The
Little Foxes ‘cause that’s when I first started writing
for strings and I remember that because I couldn’t hear strings
at first. Till somebody told me where they were at, then all of a
sudden I heard it, you know. They would be some of the ones that
stick out in my mind
BR:
'Love Made To Order' by The Little Foxes on Okeh was a great track,
it's surprisingly very popular.
MT:
That's good, that's good.
BR:
It' s a testament to the quality of the music when all these years
later people are still saying it' s a fantastic record. Another thing
you worked on was The Esquires 'You've Got The Power'. Did they come
to Detroit to do that or did you go to Chicago ?
MT:
I think we did that In Chicago because if they was from Chicago I
usually had to go to where the artists were. Sometimes Ruby Andrews
would come to Detroit, but The Esquires, I believe I went to Chicago
to do that. Don't quote me as being firm on that though.
BR:
You did some great work with The Precisions on Drew, a great vocal
group. One track in particular that is a favorite
of mine is 'If This Is Love'. One of the co-writers on that is Mike
Delvano who had a group at Motown, Mike And The Modifiers. Can you
remember much about Mike ?
MT:
Well Mike was very gifted, he would, whatever be heard be would turn
into whatever he wanted plus he could take his own things and take it
from salt start from scratch, that's what I'm trying to say, but he
was a gifted person and he had a very good personality and he learned
a lot, a lot from Holland Dozier Holland He really admired Holland
Dozier Holland as you probably can tell from his writing.
BR:
Motown had a group of girls called The Lollipops who did a couple of
recordings over there, were these the same girls who did 'Lovin Good
Feeling' on Impact Records, or do you think it would have been a
different set of girls ?
MT:
I think they wen different girls, but when you mention Impact
Records, by teling me what label they were on there is a possibility,
but I can't give you an answer, but it is a possibility because there
war some sort of connection between Impact and Motown. There's a
possibility that some artists could have gone over from Motown to Impact
BR:
You did a tremendous amount of work with Ollie McCloughlin, a very
talented and influential guy
in Detroit, that must have been a great experience.
MT:
Yeah that's right I think he had his label with Atlantic records, is
that right ?
BR:
Yes that's right.
MT:
I first started working with him playing baritone saxophone, and I
think Dale Warren was doing 100% of the arrangement at that time, and
that was around the time that I wanted to leave Motown, and started
up arranging also That's when he started using me, with The Capitols
'Cool Jerk’, and some other acts, The Pros, and somebody else,
and Barbara Lewis he eventually
let me do some of her stuff in Chicago
BR:
'Baby That's A No No' is one of the all time classic Barbara Lewis
tracks, I love that track.
MT:
Yes we had some good musicians, Phil Upchurch, Donnie Hathaway could
have been on that session, before he passed
BR:
Barbara just recently made her first trip to the UK which was nice.
MT:
I haven't seen her since that session, but she's a terrific artist.
BR:
Now, working with Tony Hestor, he was another influential character
in Detroit. A very creative person.
MT:
Yeah, Tony, he was a genius. He had a way with words, and with
melodies that was like on a Burt Bacharach level. I took some of his
work out to California to Russ Reagan who was the president of Uni
Records at the time. At that time Russ didn’t really hear
Tony’s work that I was trying to get through. But he did
eventually get a break. He deserves all the credit he can get.
BR:
He went on to do a tremendous amount of work with The Dramatics and
people like that.
MT:
That's right. He was great.
BR:
Pied Piper Productions, who was involved in Pied Piper
MT:
That sounds like Jack Ashford, and another fella. That didn't last
too long, I think I got out of that commitment. It didn't last too long.
BR:
The Mikki Farrow track 'Could It Be' on Karate was a great track, I
don't know it you remember anything about that.
MT:
Yeah she was an artist, a singer, she was very talented. I think the
did some things after that with some people In Philadelphia.
BR:
You co-wrote and produced 'Love Made To Order' by the Little Foxes
on Okeh Records, what time period would that have been in, late Sixties
MT:
Yes that was after '65, after '66. Right round then that’s when
they were being produced over there. I think we did them in Chicago
because we had a studio that we could use rather than going to New York
BR:
Did you have a preference for which city you wanted to work in, or
just where they would pay you
MT:
I would have to say it would have to be Detroit, but wherever I
went, if I went to New York I would use Richard Tee, and all the
people up there McDermot on bass. If I went to California I would
have Joe Sample, different things with him, with Kim Weston, and all
the musicians were great, but because I knew the people in Detroit, I
would say it had to be Detroit because that's where it all started,
and thats what led me to other cities
BR:
There's still something special about Detroit, I think anyway, there
are still so many creative people here.
MT:
That's right, I left here in 1973, and came back twenty years later
in '93 because there was something I just had to do to get my work
going again and I just said it had to be Detroit, and I'm glad there
because all my friends are here
BR:
I'm glad you came back because I might not have caught up with you.
So what did you do in the Seventies, were you involved very heavily
in the music business
MT:
In the Seventies I worked with a Dave Crawford, The Mighty
Clouds Of Joy, 'Riding Mighty High', did an album with them. I
did some work with a lady by the name of Sylvia, she did 'Pillow Talk'
BR:
On All Platinum.
MT:
That's right, All Platinum
BR:
Were you on that session, the 'Pillow Talk' one.
MT:
No I wasn't on that session this was after she did that, and I did
some things with Lolleatta Holloway on the CRC label in Atlanta, this
was in ‘73. Basically it was artists in the New Jersey area, and
All Platinum
BR:
The Mighty Clouds Of Joy are very big in the Gospel area, does
Gospel play any part in your music
MT:
Yeah it's just the natural flowing that just comes with you and
stays with you. Gospel is a part of music that is with you and stays
with, even if you don't go to church that much it’s still a part
of you.
BR:
One of the most popular O'Jays records is 'I'll Never Forget You'
which you co-wrote and produced on Imperial Records, was that done in Philly.
MT:
I believe that was done here in Detroit. In fact I remember I got
taken on this session, it was really a disappointment to me, they'd
come all the way from Phllly and I got taken sick on the session.
Nevertheless we did the session anyway and that was the first
time that I had really had a chance to work with The O'Jays, and that
war right at the beginning of their career.
BR:
Did you see the potential in the group at that time
MT:
Yeah they had a certain charisma and professionalism that they knew
they war going to make it. They wanted things to be right.
BR:
That's probably why it sounds as fresh today as it did then . So
what are your plans for the future, I know you've moved back to
Detroit are there any plans on the go. A new record company or something.
MT:
I don't know about a new record company, I would rather go with one
of the majors as far as that's concerned, but I'm working on some
product that I'll have maybe completed in about another two maybe
three months, and then I'm going to present it to a friend of mine
George Clinton.
I
spoke to him about three weeks ago and be wants me come back and do
some work with him, there's a possibility I may be doing some work
with the master funk man.
BR:
Of course you go back a long way with George Clinton
MT:
'I Wanna Testify', I did with him one of his first hits.
BR:
This was before he became a spaceman of course, back when he was a
regular guy
MT:
Yes, but George has always had that, I don't know what the
terminology would be, George has always been George. He's very
creative. Anything you see on him it's because it's something he
thought of. He's a master at that. he's very intelligent. He's always
been like that.
BR:
He has assembled some fantastic musicians in his bands over the years.
MT:
Sure, sure, and that's one of the keys, to have some great people
lined up that am dedicated and innovative.
BR:
So we're going to get some more music from you.
MT:
That’s for sure, everybody's going to be surprised, but you am
going to get some more mush from me.
BR:
When are you going to come over to England
MT:
I would love to, I would have to get things in order first, you
know, put one before two, but I will get there probably.
BR:
I must apologise because I know I've probably missed out a million
things which happened in your career, you just don't know where to
start it's just so long and varied, so rich as well. So I do
apologise if I've missed anything substantial.
MT:
No no I'm just glad that them are people who are concerned, who
document things that happened in all phases of life, whether it be
music or medicine because that is history, and it’s good, and
it's good for me to look back on those days and realise it was
constructive and that my time wasn't wasted because you are the sum
total of your part. It makes me feel proud that people, and I still
want to know where they all at, you know. It's Just amazing.
BR:
So many talented people you've worked with over the years have just
disappeared and nobody knows where they are now, it's terrible isn't it
MT:
That's true, and it's people like me who have to sharpen up their
memory and remember that you have a part in this life and start to
document their things. I must start nit-picking a little bit, but the
future it also important.
BR:
That's right, that's what puts the bread on the table, I'm sure
you're not getting huge amounts of money from this back catalogue. It
needs to be something fresh and new.
MT:
I have no worry about the future became I have such a background, if
it can be done, I should be able to do it because I've been around
such a vast number of talented people in a creative away that
hopefully it stays with me and I know that the future’s worthwhile
BR:
Well all I can say is thank you very much for taking the time to
speak to me.
MT:
The pleasure’s mine and tell everybody hello from me.
BR:
I know there's a million questions, and I know everybody back in
England is going to say why didn't you ask Mike Terry this and why
didn't you ask him that, but there's just so much.
MT:
Just thanks for remembering
BR:
I wish you every success, and I hope that one day you do get across
to England so that you can see how much people do appreciate you.
MT:
The pleasure is mine, Thank you.
Bill
Randle in conversation with Mike Terry , first broadcasted
summer 1994/again in spring
2002
