Dennis Coffey (born November 1940, Detroit, Michigan) is an American guitarist. He was a studio musician for many soul and R&B recordings.
Coffey learned to play guitar at the age of thirteen, in the Michigan Upper Peninsula town of Copper City. In 1955, as a fifteen year-old sophomore at Detroit's Mackenzie High School, Dennis played his first record session - backing Vic Gallon in "I'm Gone", on the Gondola record label. In the early 1960s he joined The Royaltones who had had hits with "Poor Boy" in 1958 and "Flamingo Express" in 1961. The Royaltones played sessions with other artists including Del Shannon.
By the late sixties as a member of the Funk Brothers studio band, Coffey played on dozens of recordings for Motown Records, and introduced a hard rock guitar sound to Motown record producer Norman Whitfield's recordings, including distortion, Echoplex tape-loop delay, and wah-wah; most notably heard on "Cloud Nine", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)" and "Psychedelic Shack" by The Temptations. He played on numerous other hit records of the era including #1 singles like Edwin Starr's "War" and Diana Ross & The Supremes "Someday We'll Be Together" and Freda Payne's #3 hit "Band of Gold". In addition, Coffey scored the blaxploitation film, Black Belt Jones.
Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. The film was featured as number 38 on the documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.
The Mafia learns that a new civic center will be built, and they buy all of the land for the site of the building—all except for one place: a karate school owned by Pop Byrd, Black Belt Jones' old friend.
Pop Byrd had borrowed money from a local drug dealer, Pinky, in order to open his school. Pinky had been stealing money from the mafia and was forced to pay them $250,000 or get Pop's building for them. Pinky inflated the debt, with the intent of offering Pop the deal of trading his building in exchange for the debt being cleared. However, things do not go as planned, as Pop is accidentally killed by Pinky's men during an intimidation attempt. Before he dies, he states that he couldn't give them the building to settle his debt, because it did not belong to him, but to someone named Sydney.
Andrew Mayer Cohen (born February 2, 1979), better known by the stage name Mayer Hawthorne, is an American singer, producer, songwriter, arranger, audio engineer, DJ, rapper and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles, California, USA. The stage name "Mayer Hawthorne" is a combination of Cohen's real middle name (Mayer) and the name of the street he grew up on in Michigan (Hawthorne Rd). "Mayer Hawthorne and The County" is a name Cohen often uses when performing or recording as Mayer Hawthorne with other artists. In Cohen's words, "The County" is basically anyone who plays an instrument or sings on his album. It is also his band when he performs live. Cohen also performs and records hip hop under the stage name Haircut, sometimes as part of the groups Now On and Athletic Mic League.
Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Hawthorne moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and was eventually signed to Stones Throw Records by label head Peanut Butter Wolf. Originally the Mayer Hawthorne tracks were meant to be just side projects for pleasure, but upon hearing them Peanut Butter Wolf insisted they be made into an album. Hawthorne has had no previous vocal training.