Known by the nickname “Chunk of Funk,” Earl Van Dyke functioned as keyboardist and bandleader for Motown’s celebrated house musicians of the 1960s, a collective warmly nicknamed the Funk Brothers. That ensemble supplied the instrumental foundation for twenty-two number-one pop singles and forty-eight number-one R&B singles whose combined sales surpassed three hundred million records. Supported by his parents—his father a classically trained violinist who later worked at Ford Motors—Van Dyke began studying piano at age five and continued his training at the Detroit Conservatory of Music. As a teenager he performed alongside Barry Harris, Yusef Lateef, Tommy Flanagan, Roland Hanna, Kenny Burrell, and Hank Jones, securing occasional local engagements. Between factory shifts, intermittent club dates, and two periods of military service, he contracted tuberculosis and spent two and a half years recovering in a veterans-administration hospital. In 1956 jazz guitarist Emmett Sleigh brought Van Dyke into the lineup of Emmett Sleigh and the Sleighriders; shortly afterward he replaced outgoing organist Jimmy Smith in the band led by drummer Chris Columbo, formerly of Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five whose hits included “Saturday Night Fish Fry” and “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby.”
While on the road with Lloyd Price—whose hits encompassed “Personality” and “Stagger Lee”—Van Dyke encountered fellow Detroiter James Jamerson in Rockville, New York, in 1959. The extraordinary bassist was then accompanying another Detroit native, vocalist Jackie Wilson, on such recordings as “Reet Petite,” “To Be Loved,” “Lonely Teardrops,” and “That’s Why I Love You So.” Jamerson had already begun cutting tracks for the fledgling Motown Records, the label run by songwriter-producer Berry Gordy, who had written or co-written every Wilson hit up to that point. Jamerson urged Van Dyke to return to Detroit and participate in what he predicted would become a major enterprise. Van Dyke postponed the move until 1962, when Motown’s A&R director Mickey Stevenson offered a steady weekly salary of one hundred fifty dollars. Upon arrival, however, his first session payment consisted of a bowl of soup. He also discovered that two other pianists, Joe Hunter and Johnny Griffith, were already on the label’s roster.
After Hunter departed in 1963, Stevenson appointed Van Dyke bandleader of the Funk Brothers. Anchored by Van Dyke on piano, Jamerson on bass, and drummer Benny Benjamin, the core group further included guitarists Robert White, Eddie Willis, and Joe Messina, percussionist Eddie “Bongo” Brown, vibraphonist and percussionist Jack Ashford, and, later, drummers Uriel Jones and Richard “Pistol” Allen. Jones assumed the primary timekeeping duties on Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” while an ailing Benjamin contributed the fills; the resulting track held the top R&B position for six weeks in December 1967 and reached number two on the pop chart. (Marvin Gaye’s subsequent version occupied the summit of the R&B list for seven weeks in December 1968 and climbed to number one pop.) Once Motown’s string of hits commenced, Van Dyke and his colleagues remained on call around the clock. Lengthy daytime sessions left only brief intervals for family life, rest, or sharpening their skills with jazz performances at the Twenty Grand Club, Phelp’s Lounge, and the Chit Chat Club. On occasion a Motown producer would interrupt one of those late-night sets, summoning the musicians back to the studio for an unscheduled date.
Despite the label’s commercial ascent, the Funk Brothers’ compensation remained static, prompting Van Dyke to organize a musicians’ strike during a 1965 European tour when the band was asked to record backing tracks for a British television appearance originally described as lip-synced only. Thereafter his fellow studio players regarded Van Dyke as a trusted advisor and elder figure, a role that proved especially valuable to Jamerson and Benjamin as they confronted mounting substance-related and health difficulties. Although Holland-Dozier-Holland exited amid lawsuits and royalty disagreements in 1967, and despite internal tensions within the Temptations and the Supremes, Van Dyke earned one hundred thousand dollars that year from Motown and outside projects combined. The introduction of eight- and sixteen-track recording equipment at Hitsville also allowed his piano work to emerge more clearly, freed from the sonic compression of earlier three-track mixes.
Even with improved earnings the musicians still received less than union scale, a situation widely recognized in Detroit’s music circles. Consequently several independent producers and labels enticed the band with higher offers, resulting in numerous uncredited sessions. For Ed Wingate’s Golden World and Ric-Tic imprints the Funk Brothers can be heard on Edwin Starr’s “Agent Double-O Soul,” which reached number eight R&B, and on “Stop Her on Sight,” which peaked at number nine R&B; they also backed the Parliaments’ “I Just Wanna Testify,” a number-three R&B hit. On Ollie McLaughlin’s Karen label they played on the Capitols’ “Cool Jerk,” a Top Ten R&B and number-seven pop single. Similar work appeared on other Detroit imprints that arose in Motown’s wake.
Traveling to Chicago, the musicians cut several Jackie Wilson successes for producer Carl Davis, among them “Whispers (Gettin’ Louder),” recorded August 8, 1966, and released the following month, which climbed to number five R&B and number eleven pop; “Just Be Sincere”; “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” Wilson’s second number-one R&B single on October 7, 1967; “Since You Showed Me How to Be Happy”; “I Get the Sweetest Feeling,” later covered by B.J. Thomas and reaching number twelve R&B in June 1968; and “(I Can Feel Those Vibrations) This Love Is Real,” which attained number nine R&B in November 1970. These releases underscored how consistently successful Wilson’s career might have been had he recorded for Motown—an irony sharpened by the fact that Gordy’s earliest major break had come from writing songs for Wilson in the late 1950s. Another notable Funk Brothers appearance came on Dionne Warwick and the Spinners’ “Then Came You,” a Top Ten R&B and number-one pop hit dated October 26, 1974. Warwick regarded the session as an extension of earlier collaborations in which she, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David had worked covertly with the band at Detroit studios. The musicians also recorded in Muscle Shoals and Atlanta, and they supplied the track for the Platters’ “With This Ring.”
By 1969 several long-simmering problems surfaced. Benny Benjamin succumbed to chronic illness and heroin addiction, while James Jamerson’s alcoholism intensified. The musicians pressed Motown for improved pay and proper album credit, which had never appeared on sleeve notes. That same year, after persistent speculation, Berry Gordy relocated the company to Los Angeles to pursue film production; the move yielded two box-office successes, Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, and Richard Pryor, and Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings starring Williams, Pryor, and James Earl Jones. Although Motown clearly preferred that Van Dyke and the remaining Funk Brothers stay in Detroit to continue laying rhythm tracks, the musicians finally realized their desire for an album under their own name with Earl Van Dyke Plays the Motown Sound and The Earl of Funk, both issued on the subsidiary Soul label in September 1970. Neither project matched their wish for a straight-ahead jazz recording; on the first album Van Dyke overdubbed organ parts onto preexisting Motown tracks, and the label replaced the word “funk” in the second title, issuing both under the name Earl Van Dyke and the Soul Brothers.
During 1970 Van Dyke began accompanying visiting lounge acts in the Detroit area and became musical director for Freda Payne. He joined the house band at the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, Michigan, backing Sammy Davis Jr., Vic Damone, Mel Tormé, and other headliners. Motown continued routing tracks back to Detroit for overdubs by the dwindling core of Funk Brothers for several years after the label’s move. Jamerson and Van Dyke eventually relocated to California at separate times during the 1970s. A few years later Van Dyke returned to Detroit, unable to acclimate to West Coast life, and accepted a position with the Detroit Board of Education at Osborne High School. He continued local gigs, advertising-jingle sessions, occasional record dates—including the Four Tops’ Catfish (ABC Records, October 1976) and The Show Must Go (ABC Records, October 1977)—festival appearances, work with the Jimmy Wilkins band, and performances with his own groups. In 1991 carpal tunnel syndrome ended his playing career. The following September, at age sixty-two, he died of prostate cancer at Harper Hospital in Detroit; funeral services were conducted at St. Anthony Catholic Church. With the earlier passing of Benjamin in 1969 and Jamerson in 1983, Van Dyke’s death in 1992 closed a remarkable chapter in popular music.
