Dennis Coffey was a regular on the Detroit session scene and played guitar on countless soul and R&B classics throughout the 60s and 70s, also producing and arranging with Mike Theodore, before graduating to Motown’s legendary Funk Brothers studio band. Dennis introduced the wah-wah to producer Norman Whitfield’s Temptations recordings on the classic ‘Cloud Nine’, played on Edwin Starr’s ‘S.O.S. (Stop Her on Sight)’ The Isley Brothers’ ‘It’s Your Thing’, and Freda Payne’s ‘Band of Gold’, and scored the blaxploitation film, Black Belt Jones.
As a solo artist, Dennis scored in 1971 with the million-selling instrumental ‘Scorpio’. He features in the 2002 film Standing In The Shadows Of Motown and in 2004 he published his memoir Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars.
Here are just five of the classics that Dennis played on:
DARRELL BANKS Open The Door To Your Heart
AL KENT You’ve Got To Pay The Price
DUKE BROWNER Crying Over You
EDWIN STARR SOS (Stop Her On Sight)
J.J. BARNES Real Humdinger
For details of Dennis’s gigs and new recordings visit www.denniscoffeysite.com