Tribute to an Original
THE ‘WONDERFUL LIFE’ OF MULTI-TALENTED HANK COSBY
Motown’s very first bandleader was inspired by Hank Cosby.
Joe Hunter – for it was he – willingly admitted as much in his 1996 memoir, Musicians, Motown, And Myself. The two went to Detroit’s Northern High School in the 1940s, and became good friends. “I played the clarinet beside Henry Cosby, who was very good in the school band. Musicians would often stop at Cosby’s house after school to rehearse jazz tunes.”
Striving to make a viable music career, Hunter began gigging at clubs and dance halls in and around the city. Tenor sax man Cosby was also among the players on the circuit, as were the likes of Kenny Burrell and Yusef Lateef. “But wages were weekly, very weakly,” Hunter joked.
In the Joe Hunter Band, Hank Cosby is second right
Then he met Berry Gordy. The year was 1958, the venue was an east side nightclub, Little Sam’s. Soon, Hunter found himself playing on studio dates for the future Motown founder – who then asked him to make a list of musicians who could be regulars as Gordy’s business got going. “First on the list,” recalled Hunter, “was my high school friend and fellow musician, Hank Cosby.”
And so it was that Cosby became one of the earliest music men of Motown Records, playing first under Hunter, then under his successor as bandleader, Earl Van Dyke. “In the early days, I was hung up on jazz,” Cosby confessed to Goldmine’s Alex Kanakaris in 1980. “I had to feed my family, so I had to find a way of making it work. So that’s how I got involved in the recording of popular music.”
“Involved in the recording of popular music” is a modest way of describing Cosby’s considerable contributions to the magic castle that Motown became. And that legacy is currently highlighted in a “Tribute to an Original Funk Brother” at the Motown Museum in Detroit. The exhibit was co-curated by his widow, Patricia Cosby, and sons William and Henry Jr., with the museum’s Kemuel Benyehudah; it runs to the end of September.
Cosby’s early days form the first part of the display, including his time as a member of Joe Hunter’s band, managed by Berry Gordy. With him in that line-up were James Jamerson, Benny Benjamin, Larry Veeder and Andrew “Mike” Terry. At Motown, Cosby initially worked with Gino Parks, Andre Williams, Herman Griffin, Mable John, Chico Leverett and the Satintones, among others. On hits, his tenor sax can be heard on the likes of Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness,” Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street,” the Supremes’ “Baby Love” and the Miracles’ “Going To A Go-Go.”
But it was Cosby’s work with Stevie Wonder which has become the most-recognised, most-celebrated (and most-rewarded) part of his legacy, beginning with 1963’s “Fingertips – Pt. 2,” which he wrote with Clarence Paul and which became Motown’s second crossover Number One. This was followed by a sparkling songwriting partnership with Sylvia Moy, yielding such Top 10 hits as “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” “I Was Made To Love Her,” “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day” and “My Cherie Amour.” Cosby produced all of those (“Uptight” with Mickey Stevenson) as well as Wonder’s “A Place In The Sun” and “For Once In My Life.”
The Songwriters’ Hall of Fame inducted Cosby posthumously in 2006 (Moy was honoured the same year), and his work has earned a total of seven awards from performing rights society BMI for the millions of plays which those songs have accrued.
“I would say Stevie had two dads, Hank and Clarence,” observes Patricia Cosby today. “They were all just that close. And that writer partnership of Sylvia, Hank and Stevie – as far as getting along and one being able to read the other – they were really awesome. They worked together so well, and I’m sure there was never any discord whatsoever.”
At the Songwriters Hall of Fame (from left): Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder, Patricia Cosby
Then again, Cosby says her husband was also close with a lot of artists who he didn’t work with that frequently, including Diana Ross. “That closeness was pretty much born of how Motown was raised in that house. But as far as writing songs, that was something which could be done in the car – seriously. And Hank was always very domesticated. He could be folding clothes, but his yellow pad and pencil and tape recorder would be within reach. In fact, you could go to any of the writers’ homes, and one of the first things you’d see was a yellow pad and a pencil and a tape recorder. It was so much part of our lives. Also, he was very humble — he never felt like he really had a job. To him, it was like, what a wonderful life.”
One of the songwriters whom Hank Cosby helped to bring into Hitsville was Ivy Jo Hunter. “He was at the Phelps Lounge, and Ivy was just sitting at the bar, having a drink, and he’s singing,” recalls Patricia. “He caught Hank’s ear, and Hank says, ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ Ivy says, ‘Nothing, I just came back from Vietnam. I’m trying to adjust to the fact that I’m still alive.’ And so Hank says, ‘Go down to Hitsville, ask for Mickey Stevenson – and I’ll let him know you’re coming.’ ”
For her part, Patricia met Hank when she joined Motown Records in 1962, working in the tape library with Fran Heard. Asked whether she had much contact with him at that point, she says, “No more than any other producer there. He would stop by and, you know, tease me and say sweet nothings. I was much younger than Hank, it took a number of months before I would actually go out with him.” They dined at La Fontaine in Detroit’s Renaissance Center. “The main dining room had a fountain in the centre and a piano bar. Hazel Scott was usually the pianist – she was an amazing jazz musician.”
And Hank? “He said the right thing the first night,” replies Cosby. “He didn’t have a plan, he was just asking me out. We get in the car, and he says, ‘What would you like to do?’ I said, ‘You’ve been asking me out, you don’t have a plan?’ He said, ‘I would like to make you happy for the rest of your life.’ ” They married in 1967.
Motown’s move to Los Angeles was another milestone in the Cosbys’ life, complicated by a sick child, William, which led Patricia to give up work. The family moved west in 1973, but soon realised how Berry Gordy’s competitors at that point – the major record companies – were, in her words, “trying to disassemble that group of writers and producers who were remaining at Motown.
DEDICATED TO THE FUNKS
“It was not a secret that there was a lot of resentment towards Motown [in California]. I heard from reliable people to the effect of, ‘Berry Gordy is not going to come out here and take over the music business and do what he was thought he was doing in Detroit.’ And one of the crippling things was that the Funk Brothers couldn’t make the move.”
There was, says Cosby, a similar attitude among local players. “It was the same thing in Los Angeles: ‘You guys are not going to come over here and take our jobs.’ And most of the L.A. artists at that time were not willing to bring in a different set of musicians, either – even the Funk Brothers. They were as dedicated to their musicians as the Smokey Robinsons and the Marvin Gayes were dedicated to the Funks.”
Hank Cosby at the Apollo, plus a full-scale model of his tenor sax in the Motown Museum exhibit
The Cosbys moved back east, to New York, and Hank worked in A&R for Columbia Records, where his projects included producing Blood, Sweat & Tears’ 1974 album, Mirror Image. A move to an artists & repertoire post at Polydor followed, where Cosby heard a tape of “this one particular band that he just absolutely fell in love with,” according to Patricia. The act was from Minneapolis with the name of 94 East, and included a young Prince in the line-up. Cosby collaborated with them, writing and co-producing one particular track, “Fortune Teller,” but Polydor appeared uninterested. “I don’t know how we got to the point where the suits were making the decisions,” says Patricia.
Later, at Fantasy Records, Cosby cut another version of the song, “Be My Fortune Teller,” with Softouch. In 1978, he produced albums for the company by Martha Reeves (We Meet Again) and Rance Allen (Straight From The Heart). Patricia remembers Allen being at her husband’s 2002 funeral in Detroit, as were Stevie Wonder and Sylvia Moy. The two were apparently upset with each other at the time, with Moy coming over to Patricia and saying, “ ‘You know, somebody needs to talk to Stevie.’ Then she goes back to her little section of the chapel, and Stevie comes over and says, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with Sylvia.’ I was, like, ‘I don’t want to know that you guys are unhappy with each other. I’m not trying to take Hank’s place. And we’re actually in the middle of my husband’s funeral.’ But Hank wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Then, to the family, friends and mourners gathered at the James H. Cole funeral home next to Hitsville U.S.A., Stevie sang “My Cherie Amour” in honour of one of his two “dads.”
Music notes: Hank Cosby’s presence on Motown’s 1960s output is ubiquitous, whether as sax player, arranger, songwriter or producer – and, sometimes, as all four on certain tracks. This WGB playlist is a selection of material with which he was involved one way or another. It also includes a taste of his post-Motown work, including tracks by Blood, Sweat & Tears (a song which was co-written by Patricia Cosby), Rance Allen and 94 East, including Prince. Martha Reeves’ We Meet Again album for Fantasy, which Hank produced, doesn’t appear to be available for streaming, nor the Originals’ Come Away With Me, which he exec-produced.
Sax notes: a full-scale model of the Bundy tenor saxophone which Hank Cosby owned and played for years at Hitsville was created for the Motown Museum’s current exhibit by tech engineering firm Thingsmiths, based in Ann Arbor. The background about how the sax was 3D modelled, 3D printed and assembled by the company is to be found here.