Mike Terry’s involvement and influence on American music in the 1960s and 1970s was immense. He was undoubtedly on a par with people like Steve Cropper at Stax, Willie Mitchell at Hi, Curtis Mayfield in Chicago, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff in Philadelphia and Jerry Wexler in New York who all, in their own distinct way, made significant contributions to the form, style and delivery of black music during this incredibly creative period.

Terry performed on, literally, thousands of records, and produced, arranged or wrote hundreds more, yet still remains, to everyone but the focused few, an unknown and unheralded hero.

His activities were not restricted solely to Detroit either. “I did sessions in Chicago for Gene Chandler, Jackie Wilson, Fred Hughes, Holly Maxwell, The Valentinos and many others who I can’t remember.

We (Funk Brothers) all played on ‘Higher and higher’. And I did sessions in Philadelphia too. That’s me on ‘The Horse’ and I remember ‘Nothing but a house party’ which became a big hit, plus lots of others.” 

His memories of the 1960s are clouded by the sheer quantity of work with which he was involved. Expecting him to specifically remember each and every session (as many of us would hope) is like asking a sportsman to recall every individual competition he ever took part in or a judge to recall every case he ever heard. Nigh on impossible. “ I remember the hits but I was doing so many sessions it was difficult to keep up. I would usually be there for the track with my bari., but would then go to another session. I rarely met the performers because they were added to the track later. J.J. Barnes was different because we used to hang together. I spent more time with the producers of the session. And, although I knew all the other session guys from around town, you never knew who was going to be on the session. Sometimes I would be there for the whole time and other times I would overdub my bari. on to the track. If it was one of my songs, or my session, then, obviously, I would be there to run the show. That’s when it got more difficult to play too, so that’s when I finally decided to stop, and moved into arranging.”

Local label owner and record producer Ollie McLaughlin assisted him with the move to his new career. “I first started working with him playing baritone saxophone, and I think Dale Warren was doing 100% of the arrangements at that time. That was around the time that I wanted to leave Motown. He started using me with The Capitols ‘Cool Jerk’ and some other acts, The Four Pros, somebody else and Barbara Lewis. He eventually let me do some of her stuff in Chicago.”

music: "Why Girl" - The Precisions (Drew 1002b)

Continued