Earl Van Dyke was never a household name but he was one of the key figures in the success of Motown in the Sixties.

As bandleader and keyboard player of the label’s legendary studio band The Funk Brothers, the “Chunk of Funk” played on 22 chart-topping singles, and record sales of more than 300 million.

This one, which would surely have made the perfect theme tune for a TV show of the era, was the biggest of the instrumentals released under his own name, and went on to become a Northern Soul classic.

The son of a classical violinist turned Ford Motors factory worker in Detroit, Van Dyke started playing piano when he was five, taking lessons at the Detroit Conservatory of Music.

By his teens he was began playing professionally in between factory work and two stints in the Armed Services, followed by two and a half years in hospital with TB.

The move to Motown came after he met legendary bass guitarist James Jamerson in New York when he was backing Jackie Wilson in 1959.

Jamerson urged Van Dyke to join him for a new label in their hometown called Motown Records, headed by a young songwriter/producer named Berry Gordy who had written all of Wilson’s hits.

Three years later he did. His first payday was a bowl of soup in return for a recording session. Before long he was earning 150 dollars a week in Motown’s A&R department – and soon he became the bandleader for The Funk Brothers.

Based around pianist Van Dyke, bassist Jamerson and drummer Benny Benjamin, other key members were guitarists Robert White, Eddie Willis, and Joe Messina; percussionist Eddie “Bongo” Brown; vibist/percussionist Jack Ashford; and later, “replacement” drummers Uriel Jones and Richard “Pistol” Allen.

Once the march of the Motown hits began, Van Dyke and the rest of the band were on call 24 hours a day, every day of the week. All-day recording sessions became common with a few scant hours left to maintain family and personal relationships, relax, or keep their chops up by playing jazz in Detroit clubs.

Even then, their set would sometimes be interrupted by a Motown producer arriving to say they were needed for a impromptu recording session and they’d reluctantly go to the recording studio to lay down tracks in the pre-dawn hours.

The band became so tight that the label would have them record rhythm tracks (no singers, not even an actual song) and would later add vocals to them after a song had been written to fit the tracks. In some instances, a band member would have a part that he created replaced and recreated by a vocal line or riff.