Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002) on Netflix
PG20021h 56mDocumentaryMusic
In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. picked Detroit's jazz and blues players to cut songs for his new label. As the Funk Brothers, they played on Motown's Detroit-era hits uncredited.
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Plot summary
In 1959 Berry Gordy Jr. gathered Detroit's leading jazz and blues musicians to record for his new company. For fourteen years they were the pulse of Motown's Detroit-era hits, and they called themselves the Funk Brothers. Their playing put them on more number one records than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and the Beatles combined, yet they worked uncredited, behind the Temptations, the Supremes and the Four Tops. A 1989 book about their bassist, James Jamerson, inspired the project. Forty-one years after that first Motown note, the surviving Funk Brothers reunited in Detroit to play the music and tell their story, with archival footage, still photographs, interviews, re-created scenes and live performances.
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Funk Brothers produced more hits than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and Elvis Presley combined, and backed the Temptations, the Supremes, the Miracles, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Mary Wells between 1959 and 1972.
