Groups Behind The Groups

[Dave Thorley]

I was reading back through my interview that I did with McKinley Jackson a few years ago in Detroit and it struck me that often we know little about the backing groups of many the artists we love.

In the interview he said that he was with the Peps along with Danny Moore. Now I had always thought of The Peps as Tommy "Storm" Hester, "Little Joe" Harris, and Ronnie Abner. But when ever they where out on the road they needed more than the three vocalists and some guys that knew there music intimatley and these guys concidered themselves very much part of the Peps.

Often when groups like this went into the studio the producer would have his musicians, that knew his music, gave his type of sound. So not all of the road group would be involved in the recording. But that doesn't take anything away from the fact that often they were very much part of the group. I would suggest that while at Motown, not all of the Isley Brothers appeared on their Motown recording. As records show most of the the sessions here were with The Funk Brothers.

A year or two ago I was down south of Atlanta and talking with a bunch of old guys about back in the day and one of them said I was in Otis Reading group, now this just proves my point, I can't remember his name. Otis made his name as much with his live performances as his recording, we probably know more about the guys on the sessions than we do about his day to day group.

But what I do know from this interview is that the Peps where Tommy "Storm" Hester, "Little Joe" Harris, and Ronnie Abner, along with McKinley Jackson, Danny Woods, Stanley Cleveland, Melvin Griffin, Chuck Boyd, Zak Slater, much of the time.