Free Republic

Joe Messina, one of the original guitarists for Motown Records' in-house backing band the Funk Brothers, died on Monday at the age of 93. Born on Dec. 13, 1928, in Detroit, Messina began playing guitar as a child and dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a jazz musician. He gigged in local clubs and led a band, the Joe Messina Orchestra, before joining the house band for the daily children's television show The Soupy Sales Show, where he played alongside jazz legends such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In 1959, Motown founder Berry...

http://www.standingintheshadowsofmotown.com/ North American Release November 15, 2002 Fourteen years in the making, this film is based upon a book of the same title that won the 1989 Rolling Stone / BMl "Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award", STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN was shot in 35mm film, on location in Detroit and elsewhere. This one hour and forty-eight minute documentary and performance film tells the Funk Brothers' saga through archival footage and still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Funk Brothers backing up Chaka Khan,...