Ten or so years ago songwriter / producer / drummer DREW SCHULTZ released an intriguing album, ‘Back To Class’. We learned that Drew, despite his youth, had worked with plenty of “ names” including the Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Dramatics, The Contours, The Chairmen Of The Board and – most importantly – The Four Tops. Drew played drums in the veteran group’s road band for over five years!
Drew also had his own band – the Drew Schultz Funk Machine and they were the core band on ‘Back To Class’ but the collection also featured contributions from the 4 Tops and other soul veterans like Dennis Coffey, Spyder Turner, Melvin Davis and Pat Lewis. Little wonder the music had a 60s throwback sound. More importantly a portion of the royalties from the sales went to worthy music projects in Detroit schools.
Drew then went on to record an alum in tribute to Motown’s Funk Brothers (which featured original Funk Brothers Eddie Willis and Dennis Coffey) . That Motown celebration was followed by a Schultz collaboration with the Impressions’ Reggie Torian with (again) royalties going to musical charities.
The good news is that next month Drew will be releasing a second volume of ‘Back To Class’ . Once again the album will feature a plethora of soul and music biz vets like the Four Tops, existing members of The Funk Brothers, Wayne Kramer of MC5, Melvin Davis, Tommy Good, Ronnie McNeir, Pat Lewis, Sypder Turner, Al Kent and Carloyn Crawford. The tracks (including the aforementioned 2014 Reggie Torian collaboration) have been recorded over a number of years but so good to have ‘em all collected to together in one place and good too that 50% of profits will once again benefit the music programmes of the Detroit Public Schools.
Learn more @: https://drew-music.com/
