In Search of Brian Marshall

If you grew up with Brian Marshall, you might marvel at the contrast between who he was and Kamal Ali. You would know that the sober, serious and sometimes even solemn Kamal Ali is far from what one would have expected the brash and sassy Brian to mature into. The Marshalls moved to Jamaica Street but, by his teen years, Kamal spent his leisure time in the “hood” where he and his brother, George Marshall, carried music to new heights. Brian had the advantage of a high-pitched, tenor voice reminiscent of Smokey Robinson of the Miracles. But, whereas Robinson lived in Detroit and grew up under the Motown banner, Brian lived in Springfield. I recall when he and his brother started the Pyramids, a singing group made up of Brian and George Marshall, Jimmy Hurst, Montenia Shider (“Tina”) and Earl Caulton. They should have made it big but, in those days, breaking out of Springfield into the big times was very difficult. Brian went on to sing in many more local groups, none, however, as full of raw talent as the Pyramids. He didn’t come by his talent lightly. Every male in his immediate family was a musician, his father, his older brother Junior, a successful drummer who played with Dionne Warwick, his brother, George, and his younger brother, Ricky, who is also making a name for himself as a drummer. The entertainment business is no place for shrinking violates and Kamal was not that. He was popular with the ladies, a leader of the pack and a trendsetter such that he could invent words that Webster had not discovered that would immediately become everybody’s new slang words. He also did some of those things that his Muslim religion might frown on. And the wine was not always fine wine and the girls were not always who one might expect them to be (Ask him about the Pittsfield connection, for example). In other words, Brian Marshall was your typical, popular teenager from a modest background who never forgot who he was as he very willingly left his entertainment career behind and matured into Dr. Kamal Ali, the devout Muslim who is giving back, on both sides of the Atlantic, some of what life gave to him.