Music
Uriel Jones
1934–2009 · drummer
Funk Brothers drummer who played on "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "The Tracks of My Tears".
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Dearborn, Michigan
aged 74- Detroit years
- 1934–2009
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Jones started at Motown as a fill-in for Benny Benjamin and, with Richard "Pistol" Allen, moved up to first-call drummer as the workload grew and Benjamin's health failed. His playing is on both versions of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Ain't That Peculiar", the Temptations' "Cloud Nine" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" and the Miracles' "The Tracks of My Tears". Art Blakey was his model. After the 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown he toured with the surviving Funk Brothers, and in 2008 he recorded with fellow Detroit veterans at a studio in Dearborn Heights. He died after a heart attack at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn in 2009.
Highlights
- Funk Brothers drummer in the 1960s and early 1970s
- Drums on "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
- Played on the Miracles' "The Tracks of My Tears"
- Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 2004 with the Funk Brothers
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Recorded here · 1960s–1972
Motown Museum
Played on Motown sessions in Studio A, the basement room the musicians nicknamed the "Snake Pit".
Buried here · 2009
Woodlawn Cemetery
His grave (per Wikidata).