New Motown Museum exhibit honors the life and career of musician-songwriter Hank Cosby
This time was strikingly different.
It didn't take long for the tears to start flowing last week as she made her way to the Motown Museum's second floor to take in a new exhibit devoted to her late husband, Hank Cosby.
'Henry 'Hank' Cosby: Tribute to an Original Funk Brother' opened May 22 at the West Grand Boulevard museum, documenting one of Motown's most significant and multifaceted behind-the-scenes talents.
As a saxophonist, the Detroit native was there from the label's earliest days in the late '50s, helping establish the studio band that would famously become known as the Funk Brothers. As a horn arranger, his fingerprints are all over a slew of Motown hits, including classics such as 'Dancing in the Street' (Martha and the Vandellas) and 'Baby Love' (the Supremes).
And as a composer, Cosby was a vital collaborator with a young Stevie Wonder, helping pen such hits as 'Fingertips,' 'Uptight (Everything's Alright),' 'I Was Made to Love Her' and 'My Cherie Amour' — a body of work that earned him induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame four years after his 2002 death.
'Fingertips' happened to pop up in the Motown Museum lobby's song rotation as Pat Cosby and family made their entrance May 22, arriving early for a VIP party that evening to welcome the exhibit.
The Cosbys had been closely involved with the project since last fall, working with the museum's associate curator, Kemuel Benyehudah, to gather artifacts and relay their stories.
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But this was their first glimpse at the finished product — an emotional moment as they took in the gleaming memorialization of a man they remembered as a loving husband, devoted father and musical master.
As she wiped away tears, Pat Cosby thought back to 2002, following her husband's death, when she approached a previous regime of Motown Museum officials.
'I'm thinking about when he passed away and we came to the museum hoping to get pictures — and nobody knew who he was. They didn't recognize his name,' Cosby said. 'Those days are over.'
The spacious, two-wall exhibit documents Hank Cosby's life from his early childhood in Detroit's Black Bottom and teen years at Northern High School, where he began sharpening his tenor sax skills — musicianship he would finesse under the mentorship of jazz great Julian (Cannonball) Adderly while serving in the U.S. Army.
It was during his stint playing Paradise Valley nightspots as part of the Joe Hunter Band that Cosby made his way into the fledgling Motown universe.
For all the musical achievements, it was family life that mattered most to Cosby, who lived out his life in Detroit following Motown's departure for the West Coast in 1972.
'That's the ring, right there!' Pat Cosby exclaimed when spotting a youthful photo of herself with her husband. She raised her left hand. 'Same ring!'
Pat Cosby worked in Motown's tape library in 1962 when she at last gave in to the musician's romantic overtures.
'Hank would come by, lean over the Dutch door, and say sweet stuff,' she recalled. As they plotted an early date, Pat Cosby asked him what he'd like to do. 'I'd like to make you happy the rest of your life,' he said.
'He kept his promise,' Cosby said.
For Benyehudah, who joined the museum's curatorial team in 2023, the Hank Cosby exhibit serves a key purpose.
'We wanted to broaden people's perspectives on just who the original Funk Brothers were,' he said.
The project unfolded over months of Zoom meetings, phone calls and early morning texts with the Cosby family as they zeroed in on the finished exhibit, which is supported by Sony Music Publishing and the Michigan Arts & Culture Council.
'I just don't have words for the appreciation,' Pat Cosby said as she browsed the Motown Museum display. 'If anyone had told me in 1962 that I would see this day … I mean, this is just awesome.'
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
2648 W. Grand Boulevard, Detroit
Open Wednesday-Sunday
www.motownmuseum.org
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Motown Museum unveils exhibit honoring musician-songwriter Hank Cosby
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