Rock and Roll; Interview with Beans Bowles [Part 2 of 2]

So yeah well I just developed it was a unique situation because no other record company even went that far. Let's see that's a personal management manager's job to get the artist ready. So since we were using all youngsters most them were under 18. We may have to make sure that they look good and we took them out so when they look so bad we had to create a department that would groom the kids and most US most of the more ghetto kids that came from single homes single parent homes and didn't have all the the cultural tactics this needed. We decided to give it to them. Now that just came out I don't think there was any deductions from their money to support that because we had a rough time getting some money just to do management.

I'm not interested in management. I'm recording I reckon manufacture. Saw him but he said if you don't assist if you want to hélène This is when you go ahead. So Esther was the personal manager and the management company and they set up a thing called Berry Gordy enterprises under Barry Gordy enterprises game artist development. I don't want to forget her story the story about how somebody would sell things you know. OK. On several tours on the first tour. It became evident that we had to drive maybe 500 miles between stops to get before we could sit down and eat or

sleep. So we would sleep on a bus but. It wasn't wasn't enough we didn't have food. So one of the guys that was the valet for other groups or maybe it was his valet for for tough like no temptations ballet for the Temptations. Very enterprising Lee created a business. He bought him a cooler and he would go shopping just before we get ready to leave on the tour and he had he had he had fried chicken. He'd have coal cuts. He had Pop had beer. Yeah it sounds sweet and he made lots of money when he got to the end of the tour. People were buying money from him in order to get home some time and then they also did a little gammon about their city. So he was the banker when the friendly games you know 25 cents a point might get just oh sorry cause you were making that much those days.

The Supremes had split maybe 30 doubtless because the best the money we kept at home so they'd have money at home. They got three hundred dollars a week. They had a chance they had just got pocket change Shorty Long went out and he he got he left all his money at home. He begged them to go. So they just give him a little something. And he got on the tour and quite a blackjack player. At a party a poker player he'd be here had all the money to keep back. But this is this is the way that. And it was all in fun you know. I mean the guys with some timber guys never paid the bills and stuff like that but it was all in fun and no real problems. But you know like oh here's we drive up with the bus and.

We go to drive to a restaurant and it's just a buzz. And then when we come out the buzz they go to pull the shade down the front ones stay close or if we got out of the bus they lock the door won't let us in or if we got to if they did let us say signified it we had to go around to the back. I remember one place in Texas specifically that we went to the back and we had to when I wade through the garbage cans to a little window about the size of I guess about the best man they would put our place through I mean paper plates through through the window and we ate on this garbage cans. I hate to put our food on a garbage can. And when we got through and we were grateful because we were hungry and we had been to several places where you couldn't even get that kind of situation guys pulled guns on us and you know that was also in the days of the Freedom

Riders. And. When they see this but we came to get gas as we stepped out of the bus to go to John's We looked down the street and all the little houses along the street had people standing in the doorway and behind the doors. One of the guys showed a shotgun. And then after a period after that tour they got a chance to find out that we were a viable group and we had to still had the prejudices. But. We didn't have the gun play that we got that first time to Freedom Writers. There was no barriers no they're still you know they're still there.

The biggest thing that helped us was the fact that holiday end came into being. See when Holiday Inn came into being we were able to stay in a room every where there was a Holiday Inn. We were able to look live so we would say we was a book Holiday Inn. And every area that we were performing in we just couldn't swim in the pool. We swim in the pool one time we drained. That's the way that things go as a man but I mean so we're I'm one of the persons that can see that we have come a long way. And there's still a long way to go. So we had Martin Luther King in Motown. He was a Barry had exclusive rights to recording him and everybody talks about the March on Washington. But that march on Detroit was two weeks a week prior to the March on Washington and coming down Woodward Avenue you would be surprise you could see as far

as you could see were people marching and they were shoulder to shoulder I was on the second floor of the Broderick tower looking down Woodward Avenue. And people were shoulder to shoulder sidewalk sidewalk coming down Woodward Avenue as far as the eye could see. Man it was a beautiful sight. A million people. How do you know. My oh yes you know Motown was such a family company that everybody just everybody was in use their first names and as we grew. Mr. Gordy was Berry Gordy's so long that you saw I mean ever you say Barry who said it's going to stop him and

one day I noticed that he was out there in the front and everybody converged on him and he was talking business you know. And Esther and I mentioned it to him. We got to do something about that because Barry was aware that Barry needed to have the prestige of being the owner CEO and you know and so we sent out a memo. I came up and said Well let's start calling him Mr. Gordy and we have to make quit making him so excessive. You know. So they sent around a memo and I think I got the first copy Who are you supposed to say Mr. Gordy and not bear any more and when he's talking to someone don't invade in the in the conversation because everybody would just come up and join the conversation. Regardless you know they were that free. So and then they said by him of course

Barry was wearing stuff just like we were we were pretty poor. So he said look if you've got to buy some clothes. So they took him off it. Well he was the most uncomfortable guy in the world finding he had so he was used to it. And he became the CEO because he was speaking to one of the bank presidents one day going back was read on the street and they had a little relationship to manage a bank manager. And that's when we noticed that we had to have some decor around the office and that's what we did. Let's talk a little bit about your own people who are musicians and executives.

You came from a jazz background you had a lot of those musicians. I mean how did you and you know other people and specifically the Funk Brothers Corps. I relate to this more teen oriented music. Well first of all we laughed at it first. Because when they brought it does It was us men. You can play it. I mean they bring me a piano copy and it would be either or they bring me a baritone copy and be out of range. Motown look at you know what it is I mean the funk brother was a man who does this. But we want to get paid. And so he said and we save a man here do that's a thing do this. And as a result we pulled together and I said yeah that's what I want. Nothing like we've made we made. We took the farm and made the music.

Rebuilt all the music and then as a result over the years they started to learn form and structure and even the musicians start to perform after the letter had learned from the from the musicians in the studio. All of which jazz musicians and we didn't we didn't jazz like Canadian Sunset. That's on the front of Mariel. Well that's my guy. And of course George go hand in number 7 in the studio and that is the mag give me something to bring this thing in. George just placed him in this playlist picked it up. OK let's do that and then we come up with it. So a lot of tunes I derive from the jazz music that we play daily and they just you know with a little money we were getting in supplemented first. Oh my God.

When I got to Earl the Funk Brothers they got paid money to get paid real money. But when we first started it one five seven ten dollars a side. Well Mina Benjamin Papa see that he was probably the premier drummer in the country at that time nobody just didn't know it. And he came to most. He came to Detroit from St. Louis I guess with with Candy Johnson and his plan it was a joint Toronto. And I don't know how they got him but then he was the first drummer that Barry really used not on the first session I don't think I've forgotten who we used on the first session but he was the premier drummer as we developed

and Joe Hunter was the first music pianist and arranger. Get. Johnny Griffin and all those guys came in later. Let me see. Rubber white rubber white and Jamieson came to Motown through any records. Try fi record company which was having a few quid and when a few quid and that was in the whole homestead so Barry bought them out and that's a result he got Jamison and Robert White. Kind of belligerent guys at first but. They knew what they could do. Not Jamison could play around town. He played with the washboard Willy and washboard Willie was developed quite a few musicians around town. But he played on it.

Cajun music all kind of music but he played in the natural keys and during that time most of the music that we played were in the flat keys. So Jamison was developed father than most of the musicians in the city because he played with us and he played with Willie and he learned how to play all the keys. Outside of having a great ear he also got the innovative things from the flash board and slide whistles and all the bells and the thing on meetings and stuff that he had here. They all came into his play and he became a very creative person. And you know also knowing how to read you know knowing how to read and hearing so he didn't have to worry spent a lot of time at the other. No no no.

OK first of all Eddie Holland was in the first session. First couple sessions we did we did. And you know the sound that Helen did Jamie and a couple other tunes to me became I think the second or third release or something. And it was a smash. Anyhow it was perfect. Jackie Wilson. But he couldn't before he couldn't get out and perform on the stage. And they choreographed him and made him and an artist. And after he did the first tour he looked great man he had is his Eisenhower jackets and he really looked good. But he was so nervous when he got through his shaking and everything Lisa met I cannot do this. I just have to retire from this I can't do this. But he found out he could write their IQ's. And that's when he went into writing lyrics and his brother was an engineer. He was studying engineering. They had a group that Bateman

and the dozer brothers were in. So while they were trying to get this stuff together Bryant learned how to run the studio. So when they collaborated with Brandon Anyhow they collaborate and then they didn't have to have a producer they could do their own produce and they did everything. Then I came into the picture and when the three of them got together man it was history. They did they did everything right and they're the one that created the rhythm section out front now they were under Berry Gordy's too late. They watched him so much that of course they picked up his style and Barry was quite dynamic in his rhythmic and at that time the rhythm was usually buried on a record you know and here it is just a small post you feel

it. But when how when those you hollin came on the scene it became rhythm out front. Right under the voices and then they put Barry down the instruments. Oh man. Anything they thought up they had stomp and boards they take a board and put on some two before instead on stuff. They shake chains and scratch on the wall they did all kinds of sounds and rhythm and then they would just create even thing that sound pretty decent. They do if they had a special effect they need like shotgun. When I got reduced shotgun and it Willis kicked his his accidentally kicked is amplified and it did that crash. And when they got through they want to take take it out to say let's do it again. No man this lead that is sound like a shotgun.

And it worked. Don't you just love the greatest competition in the world. Even even playing sports I mean ping pong carts anything. Competition was Barry's middle name and everybody wanted to beat him. And in the end in the game room which was also the restaurant and everything else is they had a ping pong table. They had card games and they had them they did everything for relaxing cause the motel I was a 24 hour studio it worked all night long. And it's time to get ready they thought of something go in the studio and in the tween times they gambled or they played ping pong and the thing they did was competitive. And when they it carried over into the music writing into the performing everything and it was all friendly. You can't have that now because the bottom

line and Motown was love for the music and love for each other family. Today it's love. The bottom line which is money. If you make some verse there you know I noticed people today would never ask how much money we're making. Never to say anything about it but the guys nowadays the first thing they said is how much you are going to get paid. And most of them don't deserve the money they're getting. In my opinion.