The cause was complications of a recent heart attack, his sister-in- law Leslie Coleman said.
Drawn from the ranks of Detroit jazz players by Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown, the Funk Brothers were the label’s regular studio backup band from 1959 to 1972, when Motown moved to Los Angeles and left most of them behind.
The players appeared on songs by Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas and many others, and “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” a 2002 documentary, opens with the claim that they “played on more No. 1 records than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined.” Yet the group remained largely unknown until that film’s release.
The band’s main drummer was the formidable Benny Benjamin, but as he became sidelined by drug addiction, Mr. Jones and another player, Richard Allen, known as Pistol, gradually took over drumming duties. Mr. Benjamin died of a stroke in 1969, and Mr. Allen died in 2002, shortly before the release of the film.
Mr. Jones joined the Funk Brothers around 1963 after touring with Marvin Gaye, and plays on Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” the Miracles’ “Tracks of My Tears,” Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” and Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” among many other songs.
