Joe Messina Cause of Death Revealed: Motown Funk Guitarist Died at 93

Sources confirm that esteemed jazz guitarist Joe Messina passed away recently at 93 years old.

Joe Messina was a prolific guitarist of Motown's The Funk Brothers in the 1950s.

Joe Messina Cause of Death Revealed

Per the Detroit Free Press, Joe Messina died last Monday, Apr. 4, at his son Joel Messina's home in Northville, Michigan.

Joe Messina's cause of death was attributed to his twelve-year battle with an unspecified kidney disease.

Messina lived by himself until last month, in which he had then invited jazz artists and musicians into their home for "jam sessions."

Who is Joe Messina?

Described by his peers as a "white brother with soul," Joe Messina was considered someone who helped build the bedrock of the Motown sound.

In his mid-twenties, he played at the ABC Television studio band, playing alongside other Jazz giants like Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Charlie Parker, Jack Teagarden, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others.

While at the station, Messina played at ABC's "The Soupy Sales Show," where he performed with jazz giant Miles Davis.

Around the time while he was in the show, Messina became one of the few white members of a predominantly African-American music group, "The Funk Brothers."

Joe Messina and The Funk Brothers

The Funk Brothers at the time were providing backing music to most, if not all, Motown recordings in the late 1950s until the early 1970s when the company relocated to sunny Los Angeles.

Although they were not primarily credited during those times, Messina and the Funk Brothers performed and created what now seemed to be "one of the 20th century's most formidable bodies of work" in Jazz in a downstairs studio they called the "Snakepit."

From the 50s until the 70s, Joe was a mainstay in the band as he had played on the band's iconic hits.

Messina has performed with the Funk Brothers for a vast group of iconic artists in the music industry. These include hits from The Supremes, The Temptations, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder, among many more artists.

Before Messina succumbed to his Kidney disease, he was one of the last surviving members of the Funk Brothers' core early ensembled.

Dubbing himself as the "cream in the Oreo cookie" for being one of the few whites in the band, Messina was part of the thirteen formal members of The Funk Brothers who the Recording Academy acknowledged in 2004 for a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.