#524: I Believe In Music by Gallery

Peak Month: November 1972
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
YouTube: “I Believe In Music”
Lyrics: “I Believe In Music”

Gallery was formed in Detroit in 1971 by Jim Gold, who was born in ‘the Motor City’ in 1947. In 1971, while he and a friend were playing at a Detroit club called the Poison Apple, he was discovered by Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore. 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 a Detroit 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 played sessions with other recording artists including Del Shannon and Bobby Rydell. By the late 1960s 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 including distortion, Echoplex tape-loop delay, and wah-wah: most notably heard on “Cloud Nine”, “Ball of Confusion”, and “Psychedelic Shack” by The Temptations. He played on numerous other hit records of the era: Edwin Starr’s “War”, Diana Ross & The Supremes’ “Someday We’ll Be Together”, and Freda Payne’s, “Band of Gold”.

In 1971, Coffey recorded “Scorpio” which was a million selling instrumental single that peaked in the US at #9 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart and at #6 on the Hot 100. On January 8, 1972 Coffey became the first white artist to perform on the TV show Soul Train, playing “Scorpio”.

Group member Mike Theodore had earlier collaborated with Dennis Coffey in The Theo-Coff Invasion. They released a minot local hit in Detroit in 1966 titled “Lucky Day”. As producers, in 1970 they worked with local eccentric musician Sixto Rodriguez on his album Cold Fact. Although Rodriguez remained relatively unknown in America, by the mid-1970s his albums were starting to gain significant airplay in Australia, Botswana, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and South Africa. This led to two concert tours for Rodriguez to Australia in 1979 and 1981. In South Africa, there were rumors that Rodriguez had died by his own hand during a concert in the mid-70s. When his daughter discovered the chatter on the Internet in 1997, this led to Rodriguez touring South Africa in 1998. The 2012 film, Searching for Sugarcane, tells the story of Rodriguez international fame for decades and his belated success in North America and Europe in the 2010s.

Other members of Gallery, also from Detroit, were Danny Brucato, Dennis Kovarik, and Fred DiCenso.

In 1972, the group released a single titled “Nice To Be With You”. It reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 in Hamilton (ON), Kingston (ON), Regina (SK), and Vancouver (BC), and #2 in Calgary, Ottawa, and Toronto. A followup single from the album, Nice To Be With You, was “I Believe In Music”.

“I Believe In Music” is a song written by Mac Davis, who was born in Lubbock, TX, in 1942. He formed a rock band in Atlanta called The Tots, and later worked at Okeh Records with Gene Chandler, Jerry Butler, and Dee Clark. He wrote several hits for Elvis Presley, including “In The Ghetto” and “Don’t Cry Daddy”. He also wrote “Watching Scotty Grow”, a hit for Bobby Goldsboro. His 1970 recording of “I Believe In Music” stalled at #117 beneath the Billboard Hot 100. But in 1972, he had a number-one hit with “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me”. Two years later, “Stop and Smell the Roses” was a Top Ten pop hit and #1 Adult Contemporary hit record. Starting in 1980, with “It’s Hard to be Humble”, Davis had a half dozen Top Ten hits on the country charts. Between 1970 and 1994, Mac Davis released 19 studio albums. He died in 2020 at the age of 78.

“I Believe In Music” is a song about music being a catalyst for love and harmony in the world. People can clap their hands, stomp their feet, and lift their voices to the sky.

“I Believe In Music” reached #1 in Little Rock (AR), Dayton (OH), Oklahoma City, and Sioux Falls (SD), #2 in Birmingham (AL), #3 in Honolulu, and Whitehorse (YT), #4 in Cedar Rapids (IA), Columbus (OH), La Crosse (WI), and Vancouver (BC), #5 in Seattle, Bowling Green (KY), Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Burbank (CA), and Calgary, #6 in Los Angeles, Erie (PA), Port Huron (MI), St. Louis, San Bernardino (CA), #7 in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, and Charleston (SC), #8 in Fresno (CA), Kansas City (MO), Easton (PA), and Regina (SK), #9 in Houston, Tampa, Nashville, and Sault Ste. Marie (ON).

Gallery released another track from their debut album as a single. It was titled “Big City Miss Ruth Ann”. Though it climbed to #23 on the Billboard Hot 100, it didn’t crack the RPM Top 100 Pop Singles chart in Canada. A second album, Gallery featuring Jim Gold, was released in 1973. However, it met with little commercial success. By 1974, the group parted ways to pursue other interests.

In 1977, Mike Theodore’s Mike Theodore Orchestra released the first of two albums, and a half dozen singles. As well, in 1977, Theodore and Coffey formed C.J. & Co., releasing two studio albums in the late ’70s, and also a half a dozen singles. Dennis Kovarik worked as a studio musician subsequently, including on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 1976 album Sweet America.

Dennis Coffey was in the studio on numbers of hit songs including Eddie Kendrick’s “Boogie Down”, Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You”, The Floaters’ “Float On”, and recordings by Jimmy Ruffin, Wilson Pickett, Ringo Starr, the Undisputed Truth, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and many others.

In 2002, Dennis Coffey was interviewed in the retrospective film, Standing in the Shadows of Motown. In 2004, he published his memoir, Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars. Coffey was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame as a member of the Funk Brothers in 2010 and as a solo artist in 2018. Between 1969 and 2018, Coffey recorded 18 studio albums.

Jim Gold released a few solo albums in the mid-70s. He took a break from the music industry for decades, but reformed Jim Gold & Gallery in 2022.

November 2, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
Eric Harabadian, “Q&A with Guitarist Dennis Coffey: Still Burnin’,” Downbeat, January 5, 2017.
“Jim Gold & Gallery bio,” jimgoldandgallery.com, 2022.
David Malitz, “‘Searching for Sugar Man’ documentary rediscovers musician Sixto Rodriguez,” Washington Post, July 26, 2012.
Alex Petridis, “The Singer who came back from the dead,” Guardian, October 7, 2005.
“Dennis Coffey Bio,” denniscoffeysite.com.
Kristin M. Hall, “Country star and hit Elvis songwriter Mac Davis dies at 78,” AP, September 30, 2020.
“CKLG ‘Thirty’,” CKLG 730 AM, Vancouver, BC, November 24, 1972.