Robert White (November 19, 1936 – October 27, 1994) – Young Train (1973)

Motown's Funk Brother guitarist who composed the signature riff on "My Girl" arranged this powerful anthem that helped elect Coleman Young mayor of Detroit.

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The great guitarist Robert White was one of the core members of the Funk Brothers, Motown’s in-house backing band who played on hundreds of hit records. White is best known for composing and playing the main guitar riff on the Temptations’ iconic song “My Girl.”

Born in small town Pennsylvania, White’s uncle taught him to play the guitar. He served in the Air Force and was stationed in Korea in the late fifties. One of his friends in the service, Bill Gray, later recalled those days:

“Probably one of my closest friends in Korea was an African-American named Bob White. It always struck me funny – I am a Caucasian named Gray; and he was a Black man named White. One of life’s little idiosyncrasies. Bob was an extremely talented guitarist who taught me to appreciate and love all forms of jazz music. He formed a jazz trio and played on the base radio station. Often, I would go with him and the trio to the back room of the Enlisted Men’s Service Club where they would practice. Talk about a taste of heaven – this very talented jazz trio, three black musicians, jamming – and their audience of one tall, skinny, white guy sitting there for hours, loving it. Bob seldom went out partying and drinking; he stayed on the base and played his guitar. That was his total pleasure.”

After returning to the States, he played bass with the Moonglows (featuring Marvin Gaye and Chuck Barksdale, the latter who joined while his own vocal group the Dells were on hiatus). White then moved to Detroit in 1960 when he was 23. There he became a session guitarist for Anna and Gwen Gordy’s short-lived label Anna Records, and joined Motown’s house band that would come to be known as the Funk Brothers.

White composed and played the main guitar riff on the Temptations’ classic “My Girl,” heard in both its opening and underneath the verses. Recorded in the fall of 1964 and released that December, it went to #1 on both the R&B charts and Billboard Hot 100 and became the Tempts’ signature song.

In the award-winning 2002 documentary Standing In The Shadows Of Motown about the Funk Brothers, footage was used from an interview with White taped a year before his death from complications of open heart surgery in 1994. The film’s producer Allan Slutsky recalled a time when he was in a restaurant with White in 1992 and “My Girl” came on the speakers. White got excited and was about to tell the waiter it was him playing guitar, when he stopped himself in embarrassment and instead just ordered his food. For Slutsky, who wrote the 1987 biography of Jamerson that the documentary was inspired by and named for, the moment crystallized the Funk Brothers’ collective anonymity despite having helped create some of the twentieth century’s most well-known and beloved music.

In 1973, White arranged a rare pair of overtly political Motown tracks that were written to boost Coleman Young’s campaign to become the first Black mayor of Detroit. Available as a promo 45 single only, the funky anthem “Young Train” (b/w “Young Ideas”) received heavy airplay in the city. That November, Young was victorious and would go on to serve as mayor for the next twenty years.

Berry Gordy moved Motown’s operations to Los Angeles in the early seventies, a process that was officially announced as complete in June, 1972 but in reality took longer to fully shut down everything in Detroit. White, bassist James Jamerson, and percussionist Jack Ashford (who as of 2023 is the last surviving Funk Brother) were among the band members who chose to also relocate to the West Coast.

White played guitar on Ashford’s debut solo album Hotel Sheet in 1977, recorded at Marvin Gaye Studios in Hollywood. One of its funkiest tracks was “This Ain’t Just Another Dance Song,” co-written by Ashford and his songwriting partner Lorraine Chandler. The track’s instrumental version (simply titled “Dance Song”) spotlighted White’s signature sound.

In 1978, White and Ashford composed and arranged the soundtrack to the low budget Blaxploitation crime drama film Blackjack (aka The Name Of The Game Is…Blackjack) which was distributed by S.E.S. Releasing.

The ultra-rare soundtrack was released on S.E.S. Records, and included funky instrumental jams like “Freemont Street” and the album’s masterpiece track, “Las Vegas Strut.” An original vinyl copy sold for more than $3000 on Discogs in late 2019.

Rest in Power, Robert White.

Further info:

“The Players Behind The Motown Sound Recognized At Last,” The New York Times, November 10, 2002.

“Funk Brothers Come Out Of Motown's Shadows at Last,” Washington Post, November 15, 2002.

“The Glue of Robert's Gibson,” by Adam White, AdamPWhite.com, July 9, 2021.

#soul #funk #Motown #FunkBrothers #RobertWhite