Pop Music

The Motown saxophonist died Oct. 30 and was 68:

For a while in the mid-1960s, the baritone saxophone was the lead guitar of soul music. More precisely, it was the instrument identified by certain producers at the Motown studios in Detroit as the one ideally suited to provide a momentary contrast to the voices of Martha and the Vandellas, Mary Wells, the Four Tops, Kim Weston and the Isley Brothers on such hits as Heatwave, You Lost the Sweetest Boy, I Can't Help Myself, Helpless and This Old Heart of Mine. The man who played the solos that formed part of the warp and weft of those classic records was Andrew "Mike" Terry, who has died aged 68.

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The death of Terry, following those of the organist Earl Van Dyke, the drummers Benny Benjamin and Richard "Pistol" Allen, the bassist James Jamerson, the guitarist Robert White, the pianists Johnny Griffiths and Joe Hunter and the tenor saxophonist Hank Cosby, reduces still further the surviving brotherhood of the Snake Pit, as Motown's Studio A was known during its glorious heyday as the fount of so many imperishable hits.

"This Old Heart of Mine," The Isley Brothers

 Tags  Isley Brothers Mike Terry Song of the Day

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