Marvin Does Mama’s

“Listen, baby!”

The noise level in the bar drops to a hush. Startled, I look up from my menu.

“Ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough, Baby!”

The couple sitting next to me at the bar on this Friday afternoon might be in their early fifties. I can’t tell what their relationship is; they could be married, dating, or just old friends. But they’ve stopped talking. They’re listening.

Tammi Terrell answers Marvin.

“If you need me, call me. No matter where you are, no matter how far.”

Marvin: “Don’t worry, Baby!”

*****

It’s Springtime in Baltimore. “Mama’s On the Half Shell” is a bar and seafood restaurant located in a wide two-story row house across from O’Donnell Square Park. It’s a few convenient minutes from I-95, and happily removed from the crowds and tourist-traps by the Inner Harbor. For several years, it has been my go-to stop for lunch or dinner on trips through Baltimore.

Tammi and Marvin’s voices join on the chorus.

“Cause Baby there ain’t no mountain high enough / ain’t no valley low enough / ain’t no river wide enough. To keep me from getting to you, Babe.”

The waitress, a young twenty-something, sings along as she walks past the bar. The lady next to me closes her eyes and leans against her gentleman friend. I can hear someone farther down the bar tapping along on the old dark wood. People are responding to the music, and there is a feeling in the Spring air of something…good. Something happy.

*****

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was written by the legendary songwriting team of Ashford and Simpson, and recorded in 1967 on the Motown record label by Marvin and Tammi, backed by the legendary Motown session musicians who called themselves the “Funk Brothers” (including James Jamerson, perhaps the most influential bassist of all time).

“Remember the day, I set you free. I told you, you could always count on me, darling.”

Sitting at the bar, savoring the song and the moment, I wondered: how does this fifty-year-old song, a poignant pledge of loyalty and support between old lovers, still have the power to move people, even people of a younger generation who hadn’t been born yet when it was released?

Why does it still resonate?

While in Detroit one dreary winter afternoon, a day so unlike this beautiful one, I made a pilgrimage to the original Motown studios. Fascinated, I stood in the same studio, and the same ground on which hundreds of Motown hits were born. I was struck by how small and primitive it is. The tour guide mentioned how crowded the studio could get, as Motown recorded basic tracks without overdubs, and sometimes with as many as three drummers. That’s a lot of hot, sweaty people in one studio. They called “the Snakepit.”

*****

The tension is palpable, building in each verse; then gloriously breaks free during the bridge section.

“No wind! No rain! Nor winter storm can stop me, Baby”

“No, no, Baby!”

Drummers Richard Allen and Uriel Jones double their snare beats, pushing the song along. Marvin sings with the intensity that defined him as an all-time great. The urgency and vulnerability in his vocals – he sings as if his life depends on it - give a certain gravity to the lyrics.

“If you’re ever in trouble, I’ll be there on the double. Just send for me! Oh Baby!”

I imagine the Funk Brothers, stuffed in that Little Room the Changed the World, looking up from their charts for just a moment, briefly catching another’s eye, and communicating in that almost telepathic way that musicians do when they know that they are creating something special. Like when a pitcher carries a no-hitter into the later innings, no one says a word. They know that something special is happening, something unique, and maybe even historic.

Throughout Mama’s heads are bobbing, feet are tapping, and for a moment… everything is perfect.

*****

The Funk Brothers – revered among musicians, but unknown to the general public – belatedly got the recognition they deserved in the excellent documentary, “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” (2002). Tragically, Gaye, Jamerson, and Terrell all died young.

Allen and Jones, stuck in Detroit after Motown abandoned Detroit for Los Angeles in 1972, and without credit for their efforts for so many years, passed in 2002 and 2009 respectively – but not before appearing in the film and receiving the acknowledgement and honor that they and their peers so richly deserved.

But why is this song still relevant, still having the power to move people of different races and backgrounds and generations, and making us feel so damn good?

Maybe the answer lies somewhere within those very same Funk Brothers. Though anonymous, they were still talented musicians, choosing a career (more likely, it chose them) that would never bring them the material rewards and recognition of the stars they backed. Nevertheless, they stuck to it, and made their living and their marks doing what they loved, what they were born to do – making music. You can hear it and feel it in their work, right through those speakers in the bar in Baltimore, five hundred miles away and fifty years later. That’s their undying legacy.

I raise my glass and toast their memories before I take my leave of Mama’s and continue home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC5PL0XImjw

More on James Jamerson here:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/motown-amp/

* “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson