E James Paris

Story Behind Motown Hitsville USA
How Did You Do It?

I have been a huge fan of early Motown music for many years. One of the ways I learned that music was by practicing and playing along with the recordings, concentrating on what each of the Funk Brothers was actually playing. I wanted to understand their individual parts—the bass, drums, guitar, piano, percussion, and all the little musical details that made those recordings come alive.

Over time, something unexpected happened. I began developing my own Motown-inspired musical ideas using what I had learned.

Motown Hitsville USA was one of those ideas. It began sometime in the early 2000s with just a few chords and some musical licks. I kept developing it, eventually recording an early version of the song.

At some point, I decided to send the recording to Jack Ashford's website. Jack was one of the legendary Funk Brothers and was famous for his unmistakable tambourine playing on countless Motown recordings. I sent him a message asking if he would consider recording his tambourine part on my song if he liked it.

To my amazement, Jack called me.

He said he would be glad to record on the song.

After the recording session, Jack called me again. Then he asked me a question that I will never forget.

"How did you do it?"

Then he asked again:

"How did you do it?"

He wanted to know how I had been able to write a song in the Motown style—the kind of song that reminded him of what they had written and recorded back in the 1960s.

He told me that no one had ever done that since the Motown days.

I was completely shocked. I honestly didn't know how to respond.

How do you explain something like that to one of the musicians whose music you had spent years studying?

The only answer I could give him was the truth.

I told him that I had spent years practicing by playing the individual parts of the Funk Brothers along with their Motown recordings. I would listen closely and try to play what each musician was playing. By doing that over and over, I began to understand how all of those parts worked together.

Without realizing it, I had absorbed the musical language of Motown.

To have Jack Ashford himself recognize that in my music was one of the greatest honors of my musical life. The man who had actually been there—who had played on those legendary recordings—heard something in my song that connected with the music he had helped create more than forty years earlier.

For me, Motown Hitsville USA became much more than just a song.

It became a musical connection between two generations: a student listening, practicing, and learning from the original Motown recordings, and one of the original Funk Brothers hearing that influence come back to him in a new composition.

And I'll never forget the question Jack Ashford asked me:

"How did you do it?"