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Jack
Marchbanks is the "big brother" in the Enteje
writing collective.Born near Muscle Shoals, Alabama and raised
in Dayton during the boom of the southwestern Ohio funk explosion
of the 1970s, he was known as the "smart one" or
"the egghead" by his high school classmates who
formed Lakeside and by his University of Dayton Kappa frat
brother, Clarence "Chet" Willis, guitarist for the
Ohio Players.
After
gaining access to the Los Angeles music scene through his
friends in Lakeside and Whispers' tunesmith Dana Myers, Marchbanks
briefly worked as a songwriter for Solar Records in the early
1980s. By the early 1990s, he found his calling as a historian
and "keeper of the flame" for African American popular
culture and music.
He
founded the African American Musical Heritage Group, an Ohio-based
non-profit organization dedicated to educating the world and
celebrating the underrecognized influence of black creativity
on popular culture. Marchbanks has produced several blues
and jazz concerts. He has staged successful shows featuring
Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame legends, B.B. King and Buddy Guy, as
well as other concerts headlining the late Albert King and
KokoTaylor. He has written, produced and acted in "Jazzy
Broadway," an original musical revue chronicling
African American's contributions to the evolution of the Broadway
musical.
He
has ten years of experience and accomplishments in writing
and producing works for National Public Radio, particularly
its Ohio affiliate stations. Among his notable works are award
winning scripts for "Kids Sundae," a weekly
live theatre children's radio hour that aired on on WCBE 90.5-FM(
Columbus) from 1994-1996.
He
has also penned and had broadcast nationally his original
commentaries on Morning Edition with Bob Edwards (2000)and
on the Tavis Smiley Show (2002). Marchbanks has been
such a consistent champion of Ohio's African American musical
greats that he was given a special honor by the O'Jays management
team.
They
invited him to New York City and granted him an exclusive
interview with the Canton, Ohio - born group prior to their
2005 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
SIDney
Howard is by default the little brother in the Enteje
writing collective
and with what we suspect of Big Brother, perhaps it is a great
placement.
Raised one hundred or so miles out of Memphis, Tennessee in
the Mississippi
Delta, his native musical influences would be Blues and Memphis
Soul.
But SIDney Howard's awakening into music as a musician was
more widely
varied and cosmopolitan.
He
grew up in Mississippi on the campus Mississippi Valley State
University--a
pioneering Black college that his parents helped pioneer.
In his
former life, SIDz father (Dr. CW Howard) a former associate
VP of MVSU
was a big band Jazz reed man. SIDz mother (Dr. Zelma Howard)
was the World
Literature professor. As such the appreciation of both music
and were developed
from the beginning.
In
college, SID played keys for the Chi-lites and opened for
Rufus featuring Chaka
Chan. 1980, SIDney Howard graduated from MVSU's Jazz and Commercial
Music
program and moved to Detroit to join Thang, Inc. Records George
Clinton's
short-lived CBS imprint label. The old Motown base put him
in contact
as a composer/producer/keyboardist with not only the P-Funkmaster
himself,
but with Stevie Wonder's golden ages coloaborator Sylvia Moy
(My Cherie
Amour, Sign Sealed, Delivered, etc.), Barrett Strong, Stax's
and United
Sound Systems' Don Davis, The Dells, Johnny Bristol--whom
SID had the priviledge
of co-producing before his sudden passing in 2004.
SIDney
Howard started his writing career with his graphic novel The
Amazing Adventures
of Power Puppy illustrated by the author himself...graphic
art having
been his earliest gift manifested. That was followed by two
volumes of
short stories [Cranial Crumbs & Residue and Brainflush
Protocol], and a current
novel just ready for release. CCR and BP are currently being
produced
by the author for Enteje as audio books, featuring the exceptionally
talented Tiren Jhames. The former (Cranial Crumbs...) was
the inspiration
for "Please Don't Harmonica". Songs from it "Eyerise"
and "Carboverture"
have been utlilized as background tracks for Enteje audio
articles
heard on ohiofunk.org.
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