Following his graduation from the Institute of Music Arts in 1965, Terry began to focus on arranging music as well as playing. He was still an integral part of the Motown studio band and was used extensively on their recording sessions, but only as a musician.

If Motown didn’t want to use his arranging skills, there were plenty of other companies who did, and as his abilities developed, his name appeared on more and more records.

One of his most regular ‘gigs’ was at the Golden World studios on Davison, where Ed Wingate used him on many of the recordings made there. National hits by artists that featured his arrangements, like Shades of Blue, Reflections, Capitols, Darrell Banks, Edwin Starr, Fantastic Four plus many others, elevated his profile to a national prominence and brought him to the attention of major labels and prospective employers.

The Pied Piper debacle was soon forgotten as he teamed up with New Yorker Sidney Barnes and New Jersey’s George Clinton, at Golden World, to form Geo-Si-Mik productions. Memories of those days are still very clear “George ran a barber’s shop in New Jersey back then – he would fly into Detroit on Monday, work with us during the week and then fly back on Friday. It wasn’t until the start of 1967, when ‘I (wanna testify)’ hit, that he moved here permanently. We did some good tunes together too.”

Darrell Banks

Those ‘good tunes’ included ‘Our love (is in the pocket)’, ‘I’ll bet you’, ex Reflections lead singer Tony (Micale) Michaels’ ‘Picture me and you’, ‘Can’t shake it loose’ and ‘Heart trouble’ for Clinton’s own Parliaments.

“George and Sidney used to write with Rosie McCoy back then. By 1966 I had began to arrange a lot more things. They got ‘Our love’, ‘I’m into something, can’t shake it loose’ and ‘I’ll bet you’ together. The ideas for the last two came from a famous Detroit radio DJ of the time, Martha ‘The Queen’ Steinberg, who would get excited about a tune she liked and would say things like ‘ …ooh wee I’m into something now and I can’t shake it loose.’ And she would always say ‘I’ll bet ya’ at the end too. Everyone was using things we heard on the street to get ideas for songs.”

music: "I Can't Shake It Loose" - Pat Lewis (Golden World 42a)

Continued