Gil Askey

Personal life

Askey was born in Austin, Texas, on March 9, 1925, but left at the age of 17. He completed two years of university on a medical scholarship.

In 1980, he married an Australian woman whom he had first met in 1973 and the pair moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1988.

Career

Askey was considered to be "one of the architects of the legendary Motown sound". Berry Gordy often called Askey "The glue that kept everything together".

Askey studied music at the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Harnett School of Music in New York.

He performed with many famous musicians, some of the biggest jazz legends, including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and even did a duet with Billie Holiday. He worked as a musical director for many well-known acts, including Diana Ross, both with and without The Supremes, the Four Tops, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight, Keni Burke and Linda Clifford.

Askey played as a jazz trumpeter for almost 25 years before arriving at Motown Records to work as a musical director, producer, songwriter and musical arranger for such artists as Billy Eckstine, Gladys Knight, The Temptations, The Supremes, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and The Funk Brothers. Askey was also part of Motown's Artists Development crew that included Maxine Powell, Maurice King, Cholly Atkins and Harvey Fuqua.

When Diana Ross became a solo performer, she hired Askey to be her Musical Director. He worked with her for 10 years and wrote the score for her first motion picture Lady Sings the Blues that earned him an Academy Awards nomination in 1972. Askey, in the mid and late 1970s, worked with Curtis Mayfield, writing and arranging for his Curtom Record Company on recordings by Linda Clifford, The Jones Girls and Mayfield himself.

He was a good entertainer as well. When things got out hand during a show in Antwerp, Belgium, that starred the Four Tops, Askey leaped on the stage and played trumpet amazingly until the audience calmed down. Askey was the arranger and conductor for The Supremes during their successful runs at the Copa nightclub in New York. He pretty much put the whole show together.

After moving to Australia in 1988, Askey returned to performing in 1993 and continued to perform right up to his death from lymphoma in Melbourne on April 9, 2014.

In Melbourne, Askey taught and mentored young aspiring musicians. He also toured and played many regular gigs and jazz spots around the country right up until his death.

Discography

With Freddie McCoy