Dennis Coffey: From rockabilly to jazz, with some funk along the way

Guitarist and legendary Motown Funk Brother Dennis Coffey has been playing regularly every Tuesday at the Northern Lights Lounge in Detroit’s Midtown until the shutdown.

His career spans 65 years. In the 1950s when he picked up the guitar it was blues and rockabilly leading to session work in Detroit that got him a regular gig at Hitsville U.S.A.

One Detroit’s Bill Kubota found that’s just a fraction of his story.

Read full transcript

Northern lights	(Just My Imagination at Northern Lights)
	Dennis Coffey Well I’ve been here for eleven years, we pack it, I’m still here, it’s a great room. Back in the day I worked in Motown Studio A it’s about two miles from here and now I’m working here and I still go to the museum and play sometimes, so I’ve traveled two miles in my career.
	(Just My Imagination)
	Yeah, I was there every day so I did Cloud Nine, Just My Imagination, Psychedelic Shack, Someday We’ll Be Together, Nitty Gritty with Gladys, we just went on and on. Norman Whitfield came in with an arrangement of a song on Cloud Nine and I had a wha wha pedal
	(Cloud Nine)
	He said ‘that’s it’ so in two weeks I was backing up the Temptations in the studio in that record and I was there all the time.
Dennis brings out 45s	(Cloud Nine) Dennis Coffey Check it out!
	AT HOME IN FARMINGTON DENNIS COFFEY REVEALS HIS STASH.
	Dennis Coffey Let’s see what we have here.
	EARLY ON DENNIS COFFEY TRIED COLLECTING THE RECORDS HE PLAYED ON LIKE J.J. BARNES. THE SHADES OF BLUE. JAMIE COE. THE VOLUMES. A WHOLE LOT OF NORTHERN SOUL-BACK BEFORE his MOTOWN DAYS.
	Bill Kubota These things are probably worth a lot of money… Dennis Coffey Yeah they are. One time I sold a record for 14-hundred dollars and then I stopped selling ‘em. I just keep ‘em.
	IN THE FIFTIES GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL IN DETROIT THEY CALLED HIM THE ROCK AND ROLL KID.
	Dennis Coffey You know how it worked, we were kids learning how to play rock and roll and everything came under that umbrella, Jimmy Reed and the blues and B.B. King and T-Bone Walker all that stuff and Chuck Berry who was the master at that stuff you know. So all that stuff fell under that top 40 umbrella. I started doing blues and I started doing rockabilly. I was 14 at MacKenzie High School, I had my rockabilly guitar and I’m doing Blue Suede Shoes and singing at that assembly and the kids are going nuts and I gotta tell ya this spinster teacher thought it was too suggestive that she pulled the plug on my amplifier before I could get done. I thought that was kind of you know, that was not good, but hey what are you gonna do?
	(I’m Gone – Vic Gallon)
	Dennis Coffey This is the first record I ever played on. I’m Gone by Vic Gallon.
	(I’m Gone – Vic Gallon)
	Dennis Coffey WEXL was a country station that played country and western and rockabilly and don’t forget Sun Records came out Elvis Presley was rockabilly and you had Johnny Cash and all those guys Roy Orbison all those guys were coming out under Sun Records, rockabilly and that’s when we started to hear it.
	(I’m Gone – Vic Gallon)
	Dennis Coffey If you listen to the Vic Gallon record you’ll hear me doing a rockabilly solo at the age of 15.
	(I’m Gone – Vic Gallon – solo)
	Dennis Coffey Wow you get paid for playing music, this is pretty cool
	(I’m Gone – Vic Gallon – solo)
	Dennis Coffey We did a session called ‘Crazy Little Satellite’ about the satellite.
	(newsreel)
	Dennis Coffey And so we actually recorded that record at United Sound and Berry Gordy was the arranger on that session. The record didn’t come out on the air so we were like about 16 or 17 so I says ‘well obviously this record business isn’t happening’ so I just told him I wanted him I wanted out of my contract and I wasn’t interested in the record business anymore. (Laugh) They gave us back our contract and the record never did come out. I don’t think Berry probably even knows to this day that that’s where I first met him. Once I graduated high school I volunteered for the draft so I was right out of MacKenzie and I volunteered for the Airborne. Being Airborne is crazy anyways they give you combat pay for jumping out of planes. Jimi Hendrix was in the 101^st when I was in there. I didn’t really meet but the guys took his guitar and hid it and wouldn’t give it back and he got real upset and my buddy Bob who played rhythm guitar for me in the 101^st, he cut up a guy in a bar fight so he had to join the Army or go to prison. So people were not too interested in trying to hide our guitars because of him.
	(Our Faded Love –The Royaltones)
	Dennis Coffey I get back, still only 20 years old, so now I’m playing six nights a week and making a good living doing music. Back in those days you could work six nights a week in a club and make a living at it. Then I was a member of the Royaltones and we were assigned to Harry Balk’s label.
	(Little Town Flirt – Del Shannon)
	Dennis Coffey Del Shannon was one of his artists so I played on Handyman with Del Shannon, Little Town Flirt, all that stuff. Del Shannon told me that the Beatles used to open up for him in England.
	(Little Town Flirt – Del Shannon)
	AS THE BRITISH INVADED, COFFEY PLAYED ON, JOINING RECORDING PARTNER MIKE THEODORE, THEY BECAME RECORD PRODUCERS – ALL WHILE COFFEY WORKED IN MOTOWN AS A FREELANCE FUNK BROTHER. COFFEY AND THEODORE PRODUCED RARE EARTH’S FIRST ALBUM. Dennis Coffey see this guy right here? That’s me becaaye they’re guitar player got lost on the way to the picture so, I put on sunglasses and got in there. THEY ALSO PRODUCED RODRIGUEZ – THE SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN RODRIGUEZ. Dennis Coffey We always believed in Rodriguez. I mean he really…that Cold Fact album is still a masterpiece. It really still rings true. Everything that he sings about in that album is still true today which shows you how far we’ve come as a society, zero, we haven’t done anything. If you listen to a Cold Fact Album right now, it still sounds like today. AROUND THAT TIME COFFEY PUT OUT A RECORD OF HIS OWN.
	(It’s Your Thing – Dennis Coffey and the Lyman Woodard Trio) Dennis Coffey This is the very first one. AN LP AND A SINGLE
	Dennis Coffey This is ‘It’s Your Thing’, first instrumental I had out, Dennis Coffey and the Lyman Woodard Trio.
	(It’s Your Thing – Dennis Coffey and the Lyman Woodard Trio)
	IT DIDN’T SELL LIKE THE ISLEY BROTHERS VERSION, COFFEY HAD TO WAIT A COUPLE YEARS. IT WAS 1971.
	Dennis Coffey This is the Evolution album…
	Don Cornelius on Soul Train … for Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band and Scorpio-o-ho.
	(Scorpio – Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band)
	Dennis Coffey That’s me jumping off the building, almost sprained my ankle. Forgot to do a parachute landing fall.
	(Scorpio – Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band)
	Dennis Coffey I said well you know what? What if I write some songs and I’m going to make it like a guitar band and I’m going to have guitars doing horns and strings.
	(Scorpio – Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band)
	Dennis Coffey And I went in the studio and Scorpio was one of the songs and that whole thing just took off. It took a year before that was a hit.
	(Scorpio – Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band)
	ITS BEEN SAID SCORPIO’S BREAKBEAT WOULD HELP LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR THE HIP-HOP SOUND.
	Dennis Coffey Once Motown left there were no sessions here anymore. There was nothing here for me to make extra money doing that. I said maybe this is the time for us to go out to LA because I always wanted to do a movie.
	Movie Trailer Black Belt Jones! I lost three of my best men…
	Dennis Coffey Black Belt Jones, yeah he’s a karate guy… Bill Kubota A combo blacksploitation karate movie? Dennis Coffey It was, it certainly was, yeah.
	Movie Trailer Enter Jim ‘Dragon’ Kelly!
	Dennis Coffey I was in L.A. for three years from 73 to 76 and I got up one day and I got up one day and I says you know what I don’t even like it out here. It’s not fun for me. I’m a Detroit guy. Detroit is just my vibe. BACK IN THE MIDST OF A RECESSION, COFFEY HAD A TOUGH DECISION TO MAKE Dennis Coffey I went to work on the assembly line at General Motors. SOMEONE REALIZED WHO THE NEW HIRE WAS. WORRIED THAT THE GUITARIST HANDS COULD BE RUINED, HE MOVED COFFEY TO A LESS DANGEROUS JOB. COFFEY WENT TO COLLEGE, BECAME AN EXPERT ON THE LEAN MANUFACTORING PROCESS AND HE TRAINED THE PEOPLE RUNNING THE ASSEMBLY LINES. Dennis Coffey I made a good living in it. COFFEY KEPT PLAYING AND RECORDING TOO.
	Dennis Coffey (gets guitar) Can you get the other stuff?
	Dennis Coffey My mom’s family was very musical so I had the talent but I just didn’t, I had to practice, I used to practice eight hours a day, I still practice all the time.
	Sally Bolle, Greater Detroit Jazz Society Dennis can play anything. He is just amazing. So we’ve been down to hear him at Northern Lights and there isn’t anything he can’t do and when he came out with this kind of a new genre that fits into our schedule we thought it would be great to have him.
	(Jazz at Shield’s)
	COFFEY’S PULLED TOGETHER THIS COMBO FOR THE GREATER DETROIT JAZZ SOCIETY AT THE SHIELD’S RESTAURANT IN SOUTHFIELD.
	(Jazz at Shield’s)
	JERRY MCKENZIE PLAYED WITH STAN KENTON, RAY TINI WITH PAUL ANKA. THAT’S DAVE TATROW ON TRUMPET, SCOTT GWINNELL AT THE KEYBOARD.
	Scott Gwinnell These guys know every tune, every style and it’s just a blast to play with every one of them.
	(Jazz at Shield’s)
	Jerry McKenzie We’re playing more contemporary jazz so it’s not far out avant-garde type jazz. it’s just straight ahead American Songbook that we’re doing in there.
	Scott Gwinnell To be able to play with the master, I get to check that off my bucket list and you know hopefully do some more of these gigs because it’s thrilling to play with a legend.
	(Jazz at Shield’s)
	Dennis Coffey For a six string instrument I’m still a student of the instrument, I’m still studying. I saw Segovia play by himself by the age of 92. For six strings there’s a lot of possibilities left yet, you know, on the guitar.
	(Jazz at Shield’s)