Coffey is back in the spotlight at 70 – Times of Oman
At 70, after 56 years in the music business, Dennis Coffey wants to drop the prefix from his unsung-hero status.
The Detroit-born guitarist is best known to aficionados who have dug deep enough to learn that he’s the man behind the wah-wah introduction to the Temptations’ Cloud Nine (1969) and the pure, sweet guitar figure at the start of Just My Imagination (1971) — only two of his hundreds of credits in a session career at Motown, Invictus and other iconic labels playing for such artistes as Quincy Jones, Tom Jones, Ringo Starr and Barbra Streisand. Or they may know him from Scorpio (1971), the Top 10 gold record that made Coffey the first white artiste to perform on Soul Train.
These days, however, Coffey — who published an autobiography, Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars, in 2004 — would rather be known for his new album, Dennis Coffey, released by the London-based Strut Records and featuring Coffey’s trademark fleet-fingered and expressive six-string work.
Guest singers such as Lisa Kekaula of the Bellrays, Paolo Nutini and fellow Michiganders Mick Collins, Mayer Hawthorne and the Detroit Cobras’ Rachel Nagy will help bring some people to the party, but it’s Coffey who will keep them there for 11 tracks’ worth of originals and new versions of songs from his storied past.
“Believe it or not, this was always my goal,” Coffey says. “It’s pretty popular knowledge that Motown didn’t put the names of the musicians on their albums. What I had was Scorpio, so I had a year of touring and getting out there and doing The Mike Douglas Show and American Bandstand and Soul Train twice.
I had at least gotten out of the crowd and gotten some recognition through my own albums. What people keep saying to me, when they read my book or find out another way, is, ‘We had no idea you played on all these hits. We knew you played on some stuff at Motown, but not all this!’
“Hopefully we can make that more common knowledge.”Since returning to music full-time in 2006, after nearly 20 years in the auto industry, the thrice-married Coffey — a grandfather of six who lives in suburban Detroit — has been making up for lost time, playing regular gigs, collecting awards and, in addition to his album, also playing on upcoming releases by Hawthorne and by Booker T. Jones.
The Detroit native started playing guitar at 13, when he visited cousins in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who played the instrument.
“They were playing acoustic guitars and singing country-western songs,” he recalls. “They showed me a few chords and got me started. And when I came back I took some lessons, but at the end of the day rock ‘n’ roll was just beginning and none of the teachers knew how to play that stuff, so you really had to just buy the records and spend time learning them, which could be tedious.”
Tedious it may have been, but also productive: Coffey learned enough to cut his first record, backing singer Vic Gallon on I’m Gone (1955), while still only a high-school sophomore. Soon he had built enough of a reputation in Detroit to reach the right ears at Motown.
Dennis Coffey has put the guitarist back on the road, with a lineup of dates that includes New York and Los Angeles as well as the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. It’s a new start at a late juncture, but Coffey is nothing but invigorated.
“I think it keeps you alive,” he says. “When I played with Les Paul he was 93, and I saw (Andres) Segovia do a concert at Music Hall or something, and he was 92 and playing by himself on stage for the whole concert.
“I’ll tell you what, my mom played piano and stuff — into her 80s,” Coffey says. “And I had an aunt, her sister, who passed away at 97, and at 96 she would sit down at the piano and play these classical pieces with no mistakes at all.
“So I think for me, as long as I’m able, I’m going to keep at it and stay out there, playing.”