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The Funk Brothers

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10 Unsung Heroes Of Motown: The Funk Brothers, The Velvelettes & More

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To celebrate Motown's 60th anniversary ahead of Motown 60: A GRAMMY Celebration airing on CBS on April 21, we're highlighting 10 of the label's secret weapons
Bonnie Stiernberg
GRAMMYs
Apr 16, 2019 - 9:30 am

When we talk about the iconic Motown Records, there are a slew of legendary artists whose names come to mind: Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops. But—in addition to the superstars who helped cement the Detroit label's sound and launched black music into the U.S. mainstream pop landscape—there are plenty of unsung heroes who contributed to its vast legacy, many whom are at the foundation of the Motown sound.

Whether session musicians like The Funk Brothers and The Andantes, who played or sang on many of the best-known Motown hits, or The Velvelettes, who simply put out a few minor hits worthy of revisiting, the lesser-known artists associated with Berry Gordy and company are equally deserving of recognition. So to celebrate Motown's 60th anniversary ahead of Motown 60: A GRAMMY Celebration (which will air on CBS on April 21), we're highlighting 10 of the label's secret weapons.

The Funk Brothers

Motown's house band, hand-picked by Berry Gordy, played on many of the label's most iconic hits—including Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," The Temptations' "My Girl," The Supremes' "Baby Love," Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)," and Smokey Robinson's "The Tears of a Clown"—but the group of 13 session musicians didn't receive their due credit until much later. While at Motown, they would often moonlight for other labels to supplement their income (notably playing on Jackie Wilson's 1967 "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," and when the label moved to Los Angeles in 1972, the Funk Brothers were relieved of their duties. Fortunately, a 2002 documentary, Standing In The Shadows of Motown, shined a light on their legacy and in 2004 they were awarded a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Andantes

Like the Funk Brothers, you can hear The Andantes on many of your favorite Motown hits. The trio—composed of Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow and Louvain Demps—provided back-up vocals on five No. 1 singles for the label ("My Guy" by Mary Wells, "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" and "Reach Out I'll Be There" by the Four Tops, "Love Child" by Diana Ross & The Supremes, and "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye). But their tenure at Motown includes far more than just those tracks; they sang on 16 Four Tops songs, 12 Martha & The Vandellas singles, eight Supremes recordings, 14 Marvelettes songs, five Temptations recordings and 15 Marvin Gaye singles. They released a single of their own, "(Like A) Nightmare," in 1964; though it was credited to The Andantes, it featured lead vocals from Ann Bogan of the Marvelettes.

Mable John

In 1959, Mable John became the first female artist signed to Motown's Tamla subsidiary. The blues vocalist released her first single for the label, "Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That?," the following year, and unfortunately, it flopped around the same time more pop-influenced and radio-friendly Motown groups were beginning to take off. As a result, Berry Gordy decided to drop blues from the label, and he terminated her contract in 1962. She landed on her feet, however; after leaving Motown, she spent years as one of Ray Charles' Raelettes, and in 1966 she released Stay Out of the Kitchen on Stax Records and earned herself a hit with "Your Good Thing Is About To End," which peaked at No. 6 on the R&B chart.

The Originals

Often referred to as "Motown's best-kept secret," The Originals, like the Andantes, spent much of their career singing background vocals for other artists. They can be heard on tracks like Stevie Wonder's "For Once In My Life," Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted," Edwin Starr's "War," and Marvin Gaye's "Just to Keep You Satisfied." In fact, it was Gaye who helped them branch out on their own, co-writing and producing two of their biggest singles, "Baby, I'm For Real" and "The Bells." Later in the '70s, they started experimenting with disco, earning themselves a No. 1 dance chart hit with 1976's "Down to Love Town."

The Velvelettes

The Velvelettes began recording for Motown in 1963, and though they never reached the same levels of success as their fellow girl groups The Supremes or Martha and the Vandellas, they were responsible for a few moderate hits for the label. 1964's "Needle in a Haystack" peaked at No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its follow-up, "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'" topped out at No. 64. The group never released a full-length album, but in 1982 they enjoyed some newfound recognition when Bananarama covered "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'" (renaming it "Really Saying Something").

The Underdogs

Garage rock isn't necessarily what we think of when we think of Motown, but it absolutely is a huge part of Detroit's musical history, and The Underdogs were already hometown heroes by the time they signed to Motown's VIP label in the mid-'60s. The Underdogs were the first white band signed by Motown, and they recorded their own version of Chris Clark's "Love Gone Bad" in 1966 as well as a cover of The Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do." They tapered off in 1967, but their legacy endures, earning them spots on several Nuggets compilations.

Eddie Holland

Eddie Holland had some early success as a solo artist for Motown with hits like "Jamie," but he suffered from terrible stage fright and eventually made the transition to working behind-the-scenes for the label. He became one-third of the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting and production team with his brother Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier. Eddie Holland served as the team's lyricist, writing 10 out of 12 of The Supremes' No. 1 singles as well as hits like "Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A Witness" and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" and the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)." In 1988, the trio was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and two years later, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Syreeta Wright

Syreeta Wright—also known simply as Syreeta—began her career at Motown as a receptionist in 1965. She eventually worked her way up to singing on demos of Supremes songs before singing background for that girl group as well as Martha and the Vandellas. In 1968, she met labelmate Stevie Wonder, and the two co-wrote "It's A Shame" for The Spinners in 1969. Wright also co-wrote and sang background on Wonder's iconic "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)", and in 1970, the two married. They divorced two years later, but remained close collaborators, with Wonder producing her debut album, Syreeta, as well as its follow-up, 1974's Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta. She enjoyed success outside of Stevie Wonder as well, however; she collaborated with Billy Preston on the 1979 hit "With You I'm Born Again" and recorded an album of duets with Preston in 1981. Sadly, she passed away in 2004 after a battle with cancer.

Chris Clark

One of the few white artists to be signed to Motown at the time, Chris Clark earned hits with 1965's "Do Right Baby Do Right" and 1966's "Love's Gone Bad." In the early '70s, she served as an executive in Motown's Los Angeles-based Film and Television Production Division, and in 1972, she co-wrote the screenplay for Lady Sings The Blues, the Billie Holiday biopic starring Diana Ross. She earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay, while Ross received a Best Actress nomination.

The Elgins

The Elgins may have had a secondhand name (Berry Gordy wanted the group to use the moniker, which was the original name for The Temptations), but they were the first ones to record the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit "Heaven Must Have Sent You" in 1966. The song peaked at No. 50 on the US pop charts, but it later enjoyed cult success within the UK's Northern Soul scene, reaching No. 3 on the UK singles chart in 1971. Bonnie Pointer later recorded a version of the song in 1979. The group broke up in 1967, but their status as hidden gems remains.

"Motown 60: A GRAMMY Celebration" Set To Film On Feb. 12 In Los Angeles

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Tulum 2019

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

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Damian Lazarus Discusses Day Zero 2020, Spiritual Awakenings, Meeting Tiesto & '90s London Raves

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The globetrotting house music wizard dives deep into the beginnings of his magical Tulum event, cutting his teeth in the '90s underground U.K. club scene and his biggest hope for the new year
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Nov 26, 2019 - 4:53 pm

British DJ/producer/mystical event wizard Damian Lazarus' well-loved sound is much more of a mood than genre. The music he favors is ethereal, emotive and takes the listener on a journey. His parties often take place in awe-inspiring locations, from the expansive dustiness of Burning Man to the jungles of Tulum, Mexico. His DJ sets tend to last for hours, often until the wee hours of the morning.

With his iconic house and techno label Crosstown Rebels, which he founded in 2003, Lazarus has helped catapult the careers of fellow underground game-changing DJ/producers, including Maceo Plex, Jamie Jones and Francesca Lombardo, to name a few.

In addition to throwing down at major electronic music events (Amsterdam Dance Event, Desert Hearts Fest, Lightning In A Bottle, Art Basel Miami) and legendary clubs around the world (Miami's Club Space, Ibiza's DC10, Berlin's Watergate), Lazarus has been carefully curating his own beloved events, namely the Day Zero and Get Lost series.

The Recording Academy caught up with the globetrotting wizard, who called in during a rare moment of downtime in Mexico City, in between debuting a new party to close out ADE and bringing the spooky vibes to Los Angeles' HARD Day of the Dead. He dove deep into the surreal beachside origin story of Day Zero (which returns to Tulum on Jan. 10, 2020), what makes a great DJ set and more. We also revisited his teen and young adult years in London, where he got a healthy dose of club life during the then-burgeoning rave scene.

You were just at ADE not long ago. How was that experience for you?

It was really good, actually. Funnily enough, I was just at lunch here in Mexico City and saw Tiësto. I had to tell him about what I did at ADE because it was because of him that I started something new there this year. Many years ago, I was in Chicago about to play a show and the promoters said, "Oh, do you want to come see Tiësto play? He's doing an early evening thing." I'd never seen him play before, so I was really intrigued.

So we went and they took me to the green room. When Tiësto arrived, he made a beeline directly to me and was like, "You're Damian Lazarus, right?" I had no idea that I'd be anywhere on his radar. And he said, "I've got to tell you that your name is the best name in dance music. You know what it means, Lazarus, in Dutch?" And I was like, "No, I have no idea." And he says, "Well, when we go out on the weekend and then your friends call you in the week and they're like, 'What did you get up to in the weekend,' you're like, 'I got really lazarus.' It means to get really wasted."

So this year, I decided to create my own event in ADE; of course I just called it "Lazarus." Because people in Amsterdam would totally get it, but anywhere in the rest of the world, it's just my second name. That was on Sunday, so it was an ADE closing party. It started at midnight and I played all night until 7:00 a.m. That was really special. I also played Circoloco as well, which was on a Saturday.

I tend to just go in for a couple of days. I don't really go for the business meetings and stuff. I know it's very worthwhile for promoters and management but I find if I need to talk to someone or have a meeting about something, I can just pick up a phone. I don't need someone to tell me where to go and have a meeting.

I was always curious about that; is it really like the electronic music mecca that it's made out to be, or is it just a cool space to be when everyone's there?

It really is. I mean, first of all, Amsterdam is a really cool city on so many levels. They have more clubs per capita than anywhere else—throughout the year, not just during ADE. While I was there, I was polling quite a few of my friends and people in the industry about how useful it's been for them that week at ADE and everyone loves it as a business opportunity and also as a good chance to go out. It's one of the best places to go and do business but have fun at the same time.

Read More: Damian Lazarus' Day Zero Tulum 2020: &Me, Audiofly, Black Coffee, Dubfire, Ellen Allien & More

Recently, you shared some details for your Day Zero 2020 event, which I think is the seventh iteration of it.

This will be the seventh, yeah, we took one year off.

What are you most looking forward to, especially as we plummet into this new decade?

That's a good point. I just look at it as 2020, I haven't really thought about making a big statement with the new decade. Well, Day Zero began at the end of the Mayan calendar, which I saw as the beginning of a new opportunity as opposed to the end of the world. This time in the world is very difficult, there's a lot of unrest. I think for people in our world to gather together as a community, to celebrate with a backdrop of this beautiful jungle and incredible music—Tulum is a really an incredible place to create a joyful experience for people.

Every year, my mission that I set before my team is to make the next event even more impressive than the last. So we're in the planning stages at the moment and we have a lot of fresh ideas. After every event, we're fine-tuning the minutia of the experience. There's so many things that we plan out at this event. Everywhere you look, everything you smell, everything you touch, everything you do, every place that you go has been well considered by us before you get there, because we want this event to be a full sensory overload. We take pride in it and work very hard on it. So, I'm looking forward to this year.

I would love to hear a little bit more about the origin story of Day Zero and what throwing the party each year means to you, to be able to share it with people.

I had a very spiritual awakening back in 2012 on the beach in Tulum. A medicine man I'd seen earlier that day suggested I stand beneath the moon and stars and raise my arms up towards the moon at a certain hour that night. He wouldn't give me any more information about what I should expect to happen. Fortunately, I remembered to do it later that night and I had the most incredible energy—force field—connection with the universe. It was like a physical being.

You know that feeling when you're young and you try poppers for the first time? Not saying that that's a good thing to do, but imagine that feeling for like 20 minutes; nonstop connecting to the universe. So I had this incredible experience and I took that as a signal to create something that I had rolling around in my head. I'd been going to Tulum for many years; I've been going there for well over 15 years now.

I was playing in Playa del Carmen two years before the BPM festival began there. I'm very connected to that area. But I'd always refrained from DJing in Tulum because it felt like a very beautiful, pristine, secret place that maybe shouldn't open its doors to parties. I knew that the first time I would play music there and bring electronic music to the natural beauty of the area, I wouldn't be able to stop. So I prevented myself from doing it.

And then a couple of people started to come see the area and ask me to play it. But then I had this experience and I could see that I was really fighting against the winds of change. More and more people were discovering Tulum and the hotels, the restaurants and bars were building up. I could feel there was something coming. So, the Armageddon was supposed to be coming on the 21st of Dec., 2012, so I started to plan Day Zero then as a way to reset and recharge, and, like I said, gather people to create a very special experience. 

Sharing the experience means the world to me. This has been by far the most thrilling ride that I've been on in my career creating parties and stuff. And now we just started to open it up outside of Tulum for the first time this year. We just created Day Zero Masada at the Holy Mountain in the Dead Sea area. We had 15,000 people there for an incredible first show, I was very happy with how that went.

So now we're looking up where to go in the future. The idea of Day Zero is to get the best electronic music, forward-thinking, future music with ancient civilization. So we like that juxtaposition of the two things going hand in hand. For seven years now, we've been connecting with the Mayans in the ancient area of the Mayan jungle, complete with the
Cenotes underground. We delve into the Popol Vuh, which is the creation story of the Mayans, and work out performances around these ancient Mayan stories and connect with Mayan spiritual leaders from that come and join us.

We really try to show the new young generation the differences in historical background to how people used to live and the stories and the influence that these people have had on the world. But the thing is to not do too many because each event takes about a year in advance to plan. So yeah, so we have two running now, Masada and Tulum, and we'll see where we go in the future. And the Get Lost events which are really big as well. So yeah, it's a little bit busy.

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Masada

Damian Lazarus at Day Zero Masada | Photo: Karim Tabar

Your sets are known for having a journey element to them. When you're DJing, say at Day Zero or in other special places, do you feel like you're connecting to something?

Oh yeah, 100 percent. Well, at my events, when I start playing there's an extra buzz around the place because it's like, "What's he going to do? What's he going to bring?"

You've set the bar high for yourself.

Yeah, I do. Every year I try to make it better and I spend a lot of time trying to find some music that is really going to make people go bananas. Of course, over seven years, it's difficult to continue to find those records every time, but I work very hard at that. I never plan a set, I never know what I'm doing from one track to the next, whether it be at Day Zero or anywhere else. When I'm DJing, I kind of tell myself I'm playing Sudoku or chess, so I'm always thinking two, three or four moves in advance.

So, I'm telling a story but I'm thinking about them throughout the whole experience. Of course there's some records that work really well together and you want to throw them together a few times. I like to think that I save my best work live at Day Zero or Get Lost. Of course I love to play at sunsets or sunrises. And the beauty of throwing your own event is you get to choose when you play and work everybody else around you. [Laughs.]

What has been one of the most powerful moments from your Day Zero events?

Oh my god. There's so many. But you've got to remember that I'm the kind of person that can't just rock up an hour before my set. I've got these events that I run from beginning to end every year and I generally am playing at the end. So I'm spending 16 hours running around the festival site showing my friends around, having fun, experiencing it for myself and making sure everything's working properly. And then I have to start playing.

It all kind of blurs into one. I could tell you that the magical moments are many. But I actually take more pride and enjoyment in reading other people's comments and what people react after these events, especially after Day Zero events. People do find them quite life changing. I've had people meet on the dance floor there and they're married within 12 months. There's people that write to me and tell me that they literally had their life changed. They were going through some trauma, and the energy that they felt at Day Zero helped them kind of rearrange and reorganize their life and their thoughts.

You never know how much of this is actually true. But if someone's going to take the time to write to me and tell me a story like that, then I want to believe it. So I think that's really the best thing that comes out of it for me, the fact that I get to make so many other people happy and that's the main focus.

I love that. What do you think is essential to a great DJ set?

Well, obviously the ability to read the energy in the crowd. Many times I've walked into a room and I feel that there's no vibe, no energy. And I think to myself, it's not that difficult to change this, you just need to be aware of it. Really focus on what music is going to lift people's spirits in time. I think it's important to be innovative but not too overly technical. Of course, it's important to mix and blend your music perfectly, because no one likes to hear dodgy mixing.

And I think there's a very fine line between showboating and really being into what you're doing. I like to think sometimes I'm a performer, but only realize that afterwards, when I let myself go, because I was really feeling the music in the booth.

Last year, you released Heart of Sky with your Damian Lazarus & The Ancient Moons project. Can you talk a little bit about that album and creative group?

Basically what happened was when I first made the first Ancient Moons album back in 2015, Message From The Other Side, I worked with so many different musicians from all over the world. I'd been touring and finding amazing musicians from Egypt, Pakistan, New York. I somehow managed to record all of these amazing people and I was making the new Damian Lazarus album. But once I realized that I had all these incredible other voices and musicians on this record, and it felt very cinematic and it also felt like I could perform this live, I realized that I should create this fake band name, which was The Ancient Moons.

Once I decided to take the project live, I actually had to put The Ancient Moons together. So when it came around to making the second album, I started to work with the band that I found from the first time. So we actually then did become a band making music together. Whereas the first album, I made it with a producer and some guest musicians.

I think that The Ancient Moons project's some of the best creative work I've ever done. But it's not something that I could just knockout every time I'm in the studio. Right now, I'm not working on any new Ancient Moons material but I'm focusing on doing a little bit more kind of straight ahead Damian Lazarus club music right now.

In fact, I've just made this track with Diplo and the band Jungle, which we're still trying to decide what to do with. I've just done a couple of remixes. I just worked on a remix with Teddy Pendergrass. And I did a remix for Art Department. I just did this really killer remix of this Rosalía track. I'm just waiting for her to listen to it and see what she thinks.

But yeah, so that's where we're at. I mean, maybe next year I'm thinking about some Ancient Moons material probably towards the end of the year. I'm already kind of pretty hectic for 2020. I'm already a bit busy for the first half of the year. And I have family at home as well. I need to prioritize my kids right now. So yeah, quite a lot going on.

And then with Heart Of Sky—

Heart Of Sky is actually from the Popol Vuh story. Did you see the film that we made? It's called "Heart Of Sky," by Jessy Moussallem, an amazing film director from Beirut. It's a 15-minute film that we made in the fields of Lebanon where they make Lebanese hash. So it's all the families of the community of people that are making hash. They've never allowed themselves to be filmed before. Obviously, the soundtrack is music from the album.

That's super cool. Zooming out, when did you first start getting into music?

Music was always kind of around in the house. My mother, in the '60s was involved in the the [Rolling] Stones scene, and hanging out in Carnaby Street and stuff like that. And my dad was more kind of into Motown and soul, Isaac Hayes, James Brown. So I had a really good combination there, but my grandfather really was the most influential person for me because he was proper East Londoner, really into the show tunes and musicals. He and I used to have a lot of fun with music together.

But it wasn't really until I was about 11, 12, that I started to buy music and be obsessed with listening to the radio and finding new music that I liked. By the time I was 14, I'd persuaded my parents to let me buy some turntables and a mixer. And I got myself a Saturday job in a very cool record store called Groove Records in SoHo, Central London and then just went on from there.

I did a gig for Pirate Radio, and then went to college and started making parties there. It wasn't really until around 2001 when I had the City Rocker record label that people really started to take notice of me. I always knew I wanted to be a DJ but I wasn't very good at it. It took me ages to work out how to mix properly, but maybe that was because there were so many different styles of music that I was into. So by 2001, I managed to really hone in on and focus on it.

When we were running City Rockers, we started this party called 21st Century Body Rockers in London. We did it for 10 weeks, every month during 2001 or '02. We had DJs like Soulwax and I was the warmup DJ. It was there that my friends said to me, "You're actually getting quite good at this. You should think about it as a career." It wasn't until I got friends and loved ones telling me that that I really thought I could make a go of it. And within a couple of years, I was playing at Circoloco [at DC10 in Ibiza] for the first time, and the Sónar festival [in Barcelona]. I guess the rest is history. [Chuckles.]

I started Crosstown Rebels in 2003 and it was pretty much seen at the forefront of underground electronic music since then. So that always kept me at the front of people's minds, I think, because I was always working with a lot of cool people and discovering new talent and putting on great parties. I guess my DJing skills improved. Things started to get better and better.

Do you have any photos from these 2001 parties? That would be amazing.

I'm not sure they're really for GRAMMY.com. [Laughs.]

Did you have a favorite club or place that you went to when you were younger in London?

There was one club that was really influential for me and helped shape my wide range of appreciation for music. It was called That's How It Is. It was every Monday night at Bar Rumba in London and was run by James Lavelle and Giles Peterson. They were playing anything from all the early Mo Wax stuff to rare groove or funk to jazz to techno. And then they kind of started to discover the jazziest end of the drum and bass sound. It was just this melting pot of all these amazing new, fresh sounds, like Massive Attack, all that stuff coming out at that time. I was on the dancefloor every Monday for a good few years.

But then, you know, I also went to Rage, which was the primary kind of early jungle party in the U.K. There was a couple of things I went to New York as well when I was young. But yeah, so many places have influenced and inspired me. And they still do. I sometimes think back to various places I've been to and I think how I can create something like that.

"One positive thing is that in times of economic hardship, you tend to find that's a really good time for underground music to really come out of the cracks."

Read & Listen: Jayda G Is The Environmental Scientist & House Music DJ/Producer The Planet Needs Right Now

What is your biggest dream that you hope will come true in 2020?

Impeachment.

Which one?

A few. I don't know. The world's f**ked right now really. It's starting to really get people down. But one positive thing is that in times of economic hardship, you tend to find that's a really good time for underground music to really come out of the cracks. I think it's been getting a little stale, a little safe. I think we've lost that kind of punk and DIY attitude in electronic music right now.

As a label owner, I'm finding it really hard to find really unique, new voices in electronic music. I mean, I do have a few people that I've discovered recently that I'm really excited about, but I think that something needs to happen.

I think that maybe the current state of the world and the climate crisis and everything else hopefully will take music more underground because people are struggling, I think, mentally with figuring out how to deal with all the issues that we face. When keeping your eyes open and not walking around with your eyes closed, you can't escape the fact that the world is f**ked. So I'm looking forward to some exciting new musical trends to come through.

Lee Burridge Hopes His New Album With Lost Desert, 'Melt,' Helps You See Passion & Truth In Yourself

Juliana Hatfield

Juliana Hatfield

Photo: David Doobinin

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Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic: Juliana Hatfield Goes Deep On Her New Police Cover Album

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The alt-rock veteran cleverly balances some of the GRAMMY-winning band's most iconic hits like "Every Breath You Take," "Roxanne" and "Can't Stand Losing You," with some of their deeper album cuts and B-sides on her latest project
Will Hodge
GRAMMYs
Nov 18, 2019 - 4:16 pm

"I'm starting to think I may have finally found my true calling. I think this might be my thing and I'm really enjoying it," Juliana Hatfield mused, with equal parts dry wit and keen self-awareness. This confessional observation comes from the seasoned singer/songwriter/bandleader reflecting on her newest musical endeavor—splitting up her standard album releases with cover albums entirely devoted to a single artist or band.

Following 2018's widely celebrated Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John and this year's Weird, she has once again picked an inspirational muse from her early years around which to craft a lovingly loud collection of guitar-graced tributes.

For the second edition in her newfound cover album project, she revisited her formative years' fascination with British rock trio The Police to create Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police. For this engagingly inventive 12-song set, she cleverly balances some of the GRAMMY-winning band's most iconic hits like "Every Breath You Take," "Roxanne" and "Can't Stand Losing You," with some of their lesser known (yet equally emblematic) album cuts and B-sides.

Hatfield has always shown an enthusiast's flair for reinterpretation over the last three decades with Blake Babies, The Juliana Hatfield Three and as a solo artist. Yet the ability to move beyond the single nod of recognition found in a one-off cover song to the full-on deep dive of a full album dedication has allowed the brilliant guitarist and multi-instrumentalist to dismantle and reassemble a legendary songwriting catalog (or two) through her own creative filters.

Read: Nirvana Manager Danny Goldberg Talks 25 Years of 'MTV Unplugged In New York'

Recently, the Recording Academy spoke with the vibrant artist to find out what it was that so deeply drew her to The Police (both as a young fan and as the focus of this album) and how she picked which songs to cover. She also explained what it was like to step into each of the multi-genre musical shoes of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland—she performed all of the vocals, guitars and keyboards on the album, as well as over half of the bass and drums.          

Juliana Hatfield: Almost immediately after releasing the Olivia Newton-John album, I started thinking about who I should do next. For a while, I was actually thinking of doing Phil Collins, both his solo songs and also his time in Genesis. I had already started to make a list of his songs when one day I was listening to "Long Long Way to Go" from No Jacket Required. Sting sings background vocals on that song and as soon as I heard his voice, I was immediately struck by the thought, "Wait, I should really be doing The Police."

I have much more of a connection to The Police and was a bigger fan of them than I ever was of Phil Collins. Apart from two Genesis albums that I really love, Duke and Abacab, Phil Collins is more of a singles artist to me. But growing up, I was truly fanatical about The Police and had all their albums and knew all the deep cuts. I just switched my brain over to Police mode and that became the new concept.

Once she set her sights on The Police, it might've seemed like the possibilities of whittling down their renowned catalog to just a single LP's worth of cover songs would be a fool's errand. From 1977 to their contentious split in 1986, The Police were regularly atop the singles and albums charts, all five of their studio albums went platinum and they won six GRAMMYs. Their final, 1983 album Synchronicity even knocked Michael Jackson's Thriller out of the top spot on its way to a 17-week stay at No. 1. At the apex of their fame, The Police were often cited as being the biggest band in the world.

However, while Hatfield's song selection process could've been bloated by the riches embodied in The Police's musical successes, she actually had the reverse problem when it came to deciding on the finalized tracklist.

For The Record: The Police 'Synchronicity'

Juliana Hatfield: It was actually a little hard to get the track list up to 12 songs. While there are plenty of great Police songs to choose from, it's kind of intimidating trying to work with most of them. It was hard to get some of those songs to obey me. "It's Alright For You" or "Rehumanize Yourself;" those two were really tricky. The Police versions are so energized and I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to reach the same intensity.

What was created when those three specific guys played together can never be recaptured. With Olivia Newton-John, it was more about highlighting the songwriting and the melodies. With The Police, it's really more about the chemistry between those three guys and that was intimidating to feel like I was never going to capture the right energy.

Since Hatfield played all of the instruments for the majority of the album's tracks, she had a firsthand experience of the interworking of what made The Police's instrumental interplay so unique. Her approach was to sometimes stay true to the eclectic vibrancy of the individual performances and to sometimes completely strip them down to just their essential components.

Other times, as with the case of her punched up, punked out take on the lounge jazz B-side "Murder By Numbers," she reinvented the song completely. It all depended on what the song seemed to be calling for and what performance style rang the truest to her musicianship.

Juliana Hatfield: Sting's basslines are a lot of fun to play. Sometimes they can be very simple, like "Hungry For You," and sometimes they can sound really simple, like "Canary In A Coalmine," but the groove is really tricky to nail. I tried to do that one like a million times but I eventually gave up and asked Ed Valauskas to do it because he's more of a pro bass player than I am. I really love that bassline but it was just too much for me.

Also, some of Andy's guitar parts were challenging because I was playing way out of my comfort zone. Playing the reggae upbeats on "Canary In A Coalmine" or "Rehumanize Yourself"—the rhythm guitar is playing on a syncopated upbeat and that doesn't come naturally to me. Sonically, I also ended up using a cool effect on my guitar that came from a Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier because I was trying to get that signature Andy Summers chorus effect. I'm really into that effect now and I never used to be.

As recognizable as Sting's bass and Summers' guitar work can be, it was Copeland's powerfully distinctive drumming style that imprinted most fully on The Police's overall sound. Dynamic mixed-metered grooves, jazz-infused snare and hi-hat work, punk-fueled fury and syncopated polyrhythms are just a few of the hallmarks of Copeland's wide-ranging skillset that have made him one of the most memorable drummers of the modern rock era—a fact not lost on Hatfield when she was deciding how to approach the drums for each track.

Juliana Hatfield: Starting the whole album off with a drum machine on "Can't Stand Losing You" was my way of saying, "Don't worry. I'm not going to step on your heroes' toes or try to compete with their legacies." It was always weighing on my mind; "How do I interpret Stewart Copeland's beloved, iconoclastic drumming?"

I was worried about pissing off his fans. I knew I was going to have to really strip the drums down and not try to do anything even approaching his style. If you try to mimic him, you'll fail every time.

Along with assessing the notable musical elements of potential songs, she also let the lyrics and subject matter drive the decision for some inclusions. Whether it was the real world, day-to-day themes of systematic oppression and abuses of power or the way that the band dealt with existentialism and romanticism, the longtime alt-rocker picked a few of the songs based on their intense relevancy—both to the current sociopolitical atmosphere and to her individual life.

Juliana Hatfield: I was looking for songs that seemed really relevant and ones that felt current, like "Landlord" and "Murder By Numbers." Those songs spoke to my anger and sense of frustration about how the people with the power and money are totally f***ing everybody over. There are songs about the evils of the ruling elite on here that make me feel murderous and like I just want to punch someone in the face, so I tried to convey that musically.

Also, some of the songs I ended up not doing—"So Lonely' for example—were because I didn't feel like there was enough substance there. "Hole In My Life" is also about being lonely but its way more existential. It's not about missing a specific person, it's about an existential angst. I can still relate to that. The love songs, at this point in my life, I can't relate to them at all. I just don't have those inclinations anymore. I pushed all of those love songs to the side because they weren't speaking to me at this stage in my life.

For the drum and bass duties that she didn't handle herself, she called on Chris Anzalone (Roomful of Blues) and Ed Valauskas (The Gravel Pit) to help her wrangle the right grooves for her reinterpretations. Some of the songs even went through multiple iterations before she achieved exactly what she was looking to accomplish with this musical love letter to her longtime inspirations.

Luckily, after all of the instrumental elements were sorted out, Hatfield was able to focus on the fun of recording the vocal parts that she had been committing to heart-memory since her youth. She even got to whip out some of her high school French for "Hungry For You (J'aurais Toujours Faim De Toi)."

Juliana Hatfield: When I look back at the whole project, it was really fun. However, when I try to analyze the individual tracks, I realize that it was all pretty tricky. A couple of the songs I had to start over after I already had the basic tracks recorded. For "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Next to You," I already had the live drums, bass and guitar recorded and I had to scrap it all and start over with just a drum machine and my own drumming.

I redid all the bass for those as well because something just wasn't working with the original tracks. It was like a puzzle trying to get everything to fit together. Singing them was second nature though. That was the fun part. I have such an affinity for those melodies and know them all by heart. Most of them were even in the range I like singing in.  

With an album concept like Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police, there are immediate "who will be next" questions that naturally follow. While there are always interesting contenders that easily bubble to the surface of conversations with Hatfield, flipping the question inside out—"What band would you like to record a cover album of Juliana Hatfield songs?"—prompted a wonderfully reflective pause and gleefully wishful response.  

Juliana Hatfield: I think it would be R.E.M., yeah definitely them. I would want them to do it. In fact, I dare them to do it. They wouldn't, of course, but that would be an absolute dream come true. I would love to hear that in my lifetime.

Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police is currently available on CD, cassette and multiple vinyl variants from American Laundromat Records.

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GRAMMYs

Sierra Lever

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:NEXT With Sierra Lever: The Rising Music Marketer Talks Artist Storytelling, Kendrick Lamar & More

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The future industry leader and Associate Marketing Director at Columbia Records opens up about how 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City' inspired her to champion artists' stories and pursue a career in music
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Nov 11, 2019 - 1:31 pm

Meet Sierra Lever, a young music professional primed to make waves in the industry. As Associate Marketing Director at Columbia Records, she already has worked on such major releases as Tyga, Polo G, Chloe X Halle, Chase B, and previously at Motown Records on Migos, Stefflon Don, Zaytoven, and more. She's also featured in the latest episode of :NEXT, the Recording Academy’s new digital short-run series featuring the future of the music industry.

Music Marketer Sierra Lever Is :NEXT

Her journey began back home in Portland, where she put on parties to showcase local talent. She began booking more artists, big artists, such as Too $hort and Big Krit on her college campus. Her DIY spirit and interest in the behind-the-scenes workings of the music business led to her joining GRAMMY U and eventually taking an internship in the Recording Academy, where she worked in the Awards department and the Executive Office.

This wide range of experience helped illuminate Sierra's path into marketing, where she could learn how to tell artists' stories in a way that helps spread the word about their music. And while going to a Spice Girls concert as a little girl that lit the initial spark of Sierra's interest in music, it was a seminal hip-hop album that showed her the way to a career in the industry.

"Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D City was the album that really inspired me to enter into the music industry," she said. "[It] really tells his story. And it connected to me, and it connected to so many, It really represented the pressures of our environment that we live in… the minute I listened to it, it was on repeat. There's really no skips for this album. It's very thematic. It has all these different themes from the Bible to street violence to love and lust, all those different elements."

Sierra felt she was part of something when she listened to that album. Not content to be just a fan, she wanted to share that sense of belonging. She drew inspiration from the artists she loved and channeled those storytelling concepts into her own career on the business side of music.

"You have to be a student of the game," she said. "That is what really shows. You see these artists and you see how them studying the game really translates to their evolution over time, and I feel like that's the same for me working as a professional in music, [finding my] individuality [and] really taking risks."

Sierra first heard about :NEXT as an intern at the Academy. As her eligibility for GRAMMY U was coming to a close, Lever thought it'd be the perfect segue into a professional career. She was right.

"The best part about being a 'Nexter' is really being able to connect with your peers and see your peers evolve. That is a big thing for me, to be able to support each other, to know that you do have a support system," she said, adding, "We have panels, we have these industry vets that we get to have that face time with and connection with."

Sierra also talks fondly of her mentor, Recording Academy Washington D.C. Chapter Executive Director Jeriel Johnson. "He is someone who is really connected in the urban [music] space, someone who is a leader within it. I identified with him in the sense of, this is where I want to go and where I want to grow," she said.

"The most valuable lesson I learned from him is to always try," Sierra said. "Always go with your foot forward in the sense of, 'I'm learning and I'm going to be successful.'"

Now, Lever is striving to pursue her dreams in the music industry, and being a part of :NEXT has helped her stay on course. She compares the support she's received—and given to her fellow young music professionals—to that of a family.

"I will say this: The GRAMMYs, they are a family to me. There are so many people who have seen me evolve over time," Sierra says.

Her long-term vision is to continue to tell artists' stories, and she's off to a great start. She puts it best when asked what else she's learned from Johnson,  her :NEXT mentor, about being successful in music:

"When you strive for success, you never fail, you just learn."

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Tei Shi

Tei Shi

Photo courtesy of Downtown Records

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Tei Shi Has Found Her Happy Place

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Ahead of releasing her sophomore effort, 'La Linda,' the "mermaid music"-maker spoke to the Recording Academy about moving to L.A., Spanish representation and continuing to work with her "creative kindred spirit" Blood Orange 
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Nov 11, 2019 - 11:00 am

There’s a certain romantic connection artists share with New York City. As Valerie Teicher Barbosa recalls, for a time the city acted as an effective creative incubator while she made music as Tei Shi. It was where she introduced herself in 2013, anonymously at first, with a series of crystalline vocal loops she called "mermaid music." It was also where she met collaborators, including Blood Orange (Dev Hynes), and where she wrote and recorded her first Tei Shi album, Crawl Space. But after closing what she calls a "chapter with a lot of baggage," she knew it was time to leave. 

Like many artists before her, the Buenos Aires-born Barbosa ventured West, landing in Los Angeles' Elysian Park, a neighborhood known for hiking, Dodger Stadium, and—like most places in Southern California—year-round sun. 

"It was almost like rebirth, I was so much happier immediately," she recalls of her relocation at the top of 2018. "I would do writing in my little studio and then I would go lie outside for a couple of hours and get some ideas and go back in…It was a really different experience for me. I felt like I had stepped into this otherworldly paradise."

That vitamin D-saturated euphoria informed her forthcoming sophomore effort, La Linda, arriving on Nov. 15 via Downtown Records. Barbosa is especially eager to put La Linda out in the world, as it spent most of 2018 lost in, as she diplomatically puts it, "label purgatory." A showcase of her skills as both a musician and executive producer, La Linda features Hynes again on the hushed duet "Even If It Hurts." Describing Hynes as a creative kindred spirit, Barbosa was pleasantly surprised to find a new coterie of collaborators this time around. As she describes, cherry-picking the right person for each job was what she needed to infuse her humanity-forward R&B/pop with a slick sheen. Ahead of the release, Barbosa spoke with the Recording Academy about Spanish representation, refusing to fight fate and a surprisingly influential apartment building.  

What does "La Linda" mean to you?

"La Linda" to me is like a place. It's representative of how I was feeling during the phase when I was first writing the album. I had just moved to L.A. from New York, and felt like for six months after I moved here I was in this oasis. I was so inspired and felt so free. I felt in this really beautiful state of mind. It was sunny and beautiful and nature all around. Every day I would wake up and I felt like, oh open space. I can breathe and take my time with things.

I live in a house now. I would do writing in my little studio and then I would go lie outside for a couple of hours and get some ideas and go back in. It was something that I had never experienced before. I feel like in the past, when I made music it was, "Okay, we have this amount of time in this studio." It was a really different experience for me. I felt like I had stepped into this otherworldly paradise. 

I think what was going on internally and in my life on a personal level was playing into that. I felt like when I was leaving New York I was closing this chapter with a lot of baggage. When I came here it was almost like rebirth. I was so much happier immediately. I think that combined with the sun and the green just made me feel so euphoric. I wanted the album to reflect that. All the songs on the album aren’t happy songs by any means, but I wanted it to feel very beautiful and lush and bright. The title was something I came across; it was an apartment building called La Linda. It had this sign. A really cool sign. I took a photo out in front of it. In Hollywood. In Mid-City. And stuck with me. The name felt right to me. It felt like that vision of that sign stuck in my head. It was a sign for something I was entering into. It was something I wanted the album to feel like and look like. All the visuals to reflect that. 

The album includes the wonderful Spanish track "No Juegues." What inspired the bilingual shift?  

After I released Crawl Space and that song in Spanish, I got a lot of response from my listeners and fans. I realized there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people who listen to my music, which encouraged me to tap into that more. But it was more an organic thing. The past few years I've been more actively reading in Spanish, watching more stuff in Spanish. Revisiting the music that I grew up listening to and loved and influenced by that. 

I lived in Columbia until I was eight years old. And then my family moved to Canada. To Vancouver. And then when I was teenager we moved back to Columbia and then back to Canada. I basically grew up back and forth between Columbia and Canada. It was almost polar opposite places. But the cultures really complimented each other in how I absorbed them. I think once I opened up that, okay—let me actually try to write stuff in Spanish I'll try to release, it was really interesting and really freeing. Like anyone, you hit walls sometimes creatively. Once I was writing more in Spanish, it allowed me to step outside of myself a little bit. 

Is that something you want to tap into more?

I definitely want to tap in more. I want to be an international artist. I've always felt like that's just who I am. I want my artistry and career to reflect that, and to be able to resonate in different places around the world. I think it’s only natural for me to explore both Spanish and English sides of me, for sure. 

"When He's Done" seems to break that R&B pop mold you've created for yourself. 

That's good! I like to hear that. That was my personal favorite for a really long time. That was the first song I wrote for the album. I wrote that song right before I dropped Crawl Space. I thought about putting it on that album but it was too late and I wanted to take my time with it. That one feels special because it was the transition between Crawl Space and La Linda. I think to me, it’s the closest I've gotten to writing a classic song. Anyone who heard it, it's not about genre, it’s a song. It’s the one that I feel like I could sing that with just a guitar and it's still the song. That’s what I was going for. It’s also something a little different. My singing on it, it’s more powerhouse vocals. Which I don’t do a lot of but I love to sing that way. 

What came to mind was a modern take on "I Will Always Love You." My first thought was, "Wow, that girl knows what a broken heart feels like."

Oh, my god! I wrote it in kind of a crazy time. I made my album Crawl Space, I made with my ex-boyfriend. He was the other producer I worked with on it. We broke up halfway through making that album. And then we had to spend six months in the studio, producing it and recording it and finishing it after we broke up. 

I was experiencing being single for the first time in a really long time. Trying to find that companionship, that kind of love I was missing in different people—and being disappointed over and over again. We all go through that at certain points. So, it was kind of like coming from this place of being really jaded about love and falling for someone or opening yourself up to someone, and the inevitability of when you find yourself really into somebody who you know is not good for you and you’re like, "I know it’s going to end up in sh*t." When he's done, he's going to have his way. But it's also resigned in a way—but I'm still kind of going through the motions because I feel lonely. I feel like that’s a very relatable thing, the heartbreak not just of losing a relationship but the heartbreak of putting yourself out there and hoping for something or trying to find something. 

You're pretty upbeat about life in Los Angeles. Do you consider yourself to be an optimistic person? 

No! Absolutely not. I find myself being way more positive now in recent times. I think that's a result of me getting into a better place emotionally. Just being healthier all-around. Mentally and physically. I think it's been a journey to get to a place where I can draw from positivity in my work. For a really long time when I wrote music it was always coming from a place of sadness or despair or anger. It’s really hard when that's your nature to write music or to make any art inspired by just feeling good. I’m trying to make more of an effort. I don't think I'm an overly negative person. But I'm definitely not someone who you'd be like, "My friend Val, she's a very positive person!"

I think we do romanticize the suffering artist while forgetting you have to also live all those hours every day when you're not an artist. 

Totally! I think it’s also a negative thing because a lot of artists feel a weird pressure to self-sabotage. When you start feeling happen, for me, when I was in a really good place. Suddenly it's, "I'm not going to be able to write any music and I need to f**k up my life right now. I'm done!" That’s a horrible thing. I think a lot of people feel that pressure creatively. Sometimes it’s an internalized thing, but a lot of the time it’s what you’ve absorbed from the outside because it is such a glamourized thing. The suffering artist. Pain is art. Yes, that's true, but there's so much amazing music that’s come from people being positive. Redemption. People want to connect with a positive, empowering message. 

What does self-care look like for you?

I think it's surrounding yourself with people that contribute to your self-care. As you get older you realize how important the relationships you have around you are, in terms of your energy and mental health. I think one, it’s having people around me who are contributing to my well-being. And also for me, the number one thing, I need alone time. I'm the kind of person who recharges off being alone. And having space around me. So now that's a lot easier for me, not living in a place where anywhere I go you're in a crowd of people and you’re surrounded and there’s so much stimulus. I think the peace and quiet is really good in that sense.

And then taking care of my physical health too. When my body doesn’t feel good, that's when my mind is not good. Sleep is crucial! When I'm busy and stressed, my body doesn't process hunger. I live with my boyfriend and we were joking about it last night, when goes out of town, I lose weight. I rely on him for 90% of the time to feed me. When you're stressed and overwhelmed and overworked and stuff, something goes out the window. For me, nutrition is that thing. 

Do you feel like you were meant to move to Los Angeles? 

Yeah! I think so. I believe in fate to the extent that I think that every decision and action leads to the next. While I'm here because of every choice I've made before, it’s definitely not like there’s an alternate reality where I’m not a musician and living somewhere else. I do think everything worked in a way where everything felt like it had a purpose. The purpose was my own personal and creative growth. The finished product of the album.

You think about things that at the time felt terrible. How could this happen? I'm so upset about this! And then you realize that if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have ended up here. It's important to think about those things because sometimes you can dwell on negative experiences. When you follow the path and you realize those things lead to good things—I guess I am positive! 

After claiming the genre "mermaid music" during your first alum, how do you feel about mystical beings now?  

I wanted to distance myself from that, but then the album cover of La Linda ended up being literally the most mermaid thing that could have happened. That term—when I first made my Facebook page, there's the genre section and I didn't know what to say, so I said "mermaid music." When I started making music, I was using vocals to make these soundscapes. So, there was a lot of layered and looped vocals. Very ethereal. The siren song thing. That felt cute and kind of funny and natural.

As my sound has evolved and what I want to do musically has changed, I felt like it didn’t really resonate. At the same time, what is mermaid music? It's not anything, really. I like the idea of mermaids. It's always been super appealing to me. The concept of a fantastical creature whose voice can draw in people and cast this spell. There's so much power in the voice and the mystique. That always resonated with me. When I saw that album cover I knew I had to be a mermaid. 

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