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OTHER ALBUM WEBSITE REVIEWS: Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews
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The Motown Anthology contains the original (undubbed)
mix of Lovin', Livin' And Givin' from the test, and first-run commercial, pressings of the 'Thank God It's Friday' soundtrack - however that first-run featured an edited
version; the Anthology will have the unedited version from the original Motown master reel.
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Donald Bogle "Blacks in American Films and Television" "Better than any other black screen actress, Ross has captured this indefinable ghetto-girl thrust for attention and a place in the scheme of things. She understands it. And in a sense, parts of Lady Sings the Blues (and Mahogany) are movies within movies: snippets of document about the struggles and tenacity of Diana Ross herself."
Variety "Individual opinion about Lady Sings the Blues may vary markedly, depending on a person's age, knowledge of jazz tradition and feeling for it, and how one wishes to regard Billie Holiday as both a force and victim of her times. However for the bulk of today's general audiences, the film serves as a very good screen debut vehicle for Diana Ross..."
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RECORD COLLECTOR, 1983 A few months earlier, Diana had issued a new studio album, "Last Time I Saw Him." This also appeared in quadraphonic sound in Japan, containing different recordings of three tracks: the title cut has a change of lyrics, and "You" has a revised ending, while "Behind Closed Doors" is virtually unrecognizable. Also look out for a four-track promo EP, containing "Sleepin'", "Love Me", "No One's Gonna Be A Fool Forever" and "Stone Liberty", which was circulated in the States.
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Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by Adam White and Fred Bronson A dram of brandy, a splash of vodka, and--presto!--Hal Davis mixed Diana Ross's most successful R&B cocktail since "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Motown producer Hal Davis was thirsting for a hit as 1975 drew to a close. "I needed a smash right away," he recalls, "because the Jackson's had left and everybody said, Well, it's over, Hal doesn't have the group, what's he going to do?" Hearing a demo of "Love Hangover" in a colleague's office, Davis learned that Marilyn McLeod was its co-author. "I called Marilyn and said, 'Hey, I like the tune, I want to cut it tonight.'" Davis recorded the track at the Paramount studios in Los Angeles. "I went in, two o'clock in the morning, and bought everyone a shot of Remy Martin," he says. Shaking (not stirring) the twin-tempo groove were Joe Sample on keyboards, James Gadson on drums, and Henry Davis on bass. Dave Blumberg and Clay Drayton handled the arrangement. Even so, some of the musicians didn't taste the spirit. "They didn't want to up-tempo it, I had to fight," Davis contends. "Joe didn't like the idea when I broke it up with the vamp there and went into the disco thing." The distinctive guitar run that pumped the tune's up-tempo segment was overdubbed later by Art Wright, who would perform similar services on a later Hal Davis project...Don't Leave Me This Way". It was Motown capo Berry Gordy who thought "Love Hangover" was suitable for Diana Ross, but she was cool. "She said she didn't want to do it, she didn't like disco," remembers Davis. "She had just had her baby, she came in moody, and didn't really want to get into anything. So we got her a little taste of vodka--she's a vodka drinker, and she sat back, kicked her shoes off, and said, "Well, I'll go out and give it a try.'" Earlier, Davis had instructed engineer Russ Terrana to set up a strobe light in the studio. "You see, I play with the mind, set the mood. Diana got in there, started singing. She said, "It sounds pretty good.' She got into it: Her eyes were flashing, the strobe was flashing, the vodka was tasting better, the engineer was popping. There were only three of us sitting there but you would have sworn there was a party going on! That's why it was a smash. But only after the discos--and a cover version by the 5th Dimension--forced Motown's hand. The label was promoting another track from the singer's DIANA ROSS album, and Berry Gordy wanted to stay the course. Then the 5th Dimension single hit the market. Gordy capitulated, his staff scrambled--one executive remembers the hastily called Saturday promotion meeting--and the Ross single was rush-released, quickly drowning the competition.
Rolling Stone "..."But a lot of credit must go to Suzanne de Passe, our creative head,' said Hal Davis, "I heard the tune totally disco, but she said, why not give them two records? Begin slow and sultry--where Diana comes form the majority of the time--and then make the last half disco. My way would have been big, but not it will be a classic..." But Motown higher-ups evidently did not share Davis's enthusiasm. While his single-edited version of the song sat in the vaults, "I Thought It Took A Little Time" was released. Enter Fifth Dimension producer Marc Gordon, a former general manager at Motown. "It was obvious that 'Love Hangover' was the best choice for a single," Gordon says, So when he saw "It Took A Little Time" moving up the charts, he thought it "advantageous" to record "Hangover" himself and beat Motown to the disco punch. One week after informing Davis he would record the song, ABC Records released the song as a single. Two days later, Motown released "Love Hangover." The race was on. Both versions debuted on Billboard's April 3rd Hot 100--but while there was little difference between the productions (Gordon: "I admired Hal's track so much I didn't want to change it. I definitely capitalized on his creativity"), Diana's hustled up the chart to Number One in nine weeks, while the Fifth Dimension's did a slow bump to 80 (though it still sold 200,000). "Mark's is a very good record," says Davis. "They just fell in the category of being seconds, because her thing is so much superior. She has personality in the song." Davis says Ross had felt no reticence in recording a disco tune and, in fact, "had a ball in the studio. You can hear her start laughing. She's quite a dancer too...." Production notes: Davis refused to use string synthesizers on the ballad part, explaining, "Her look is sophistication, man...when she walks in I hear nothing but strings...." Davis on the congas propelling the transition into disco: "Diana loves congas. When she did that Afro dance on her TV special a few years back, there was nothing but congas. I never did forget it."
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LOVE IS HERE AND NOW YOU'RE GONE
Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by Adam White and Fred Bronson Credits Long before transplanting its heart to Los Angeles from Detroit, Motown was active in California. Producers Hal Davis and Marc Gordon had opened a West Coast office for the company in the early '60s, recruiting and recording a number of acts there. One of them was Brenda Holloway; another would have been the 5th Dimension (then known as the Versatiles), but for Berry Gordy's turndown. The Supremes went Hollywood in 1966, going on '67. The trio recorded the title song of an Anthony Quinn movie called "The Happening," which put Holland/Dozier/Holland into collaboration with composer Frank DeVol. The crack Motown writing/production team worked on the track in Los Angeles, according to Dozier. "We did it at the Columbia studios, the big room on Sunset (Boulevard) where they used to do film scores," he recalls. Dozier believes the session also yielded "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone." He says, "We had about 60 musicians, so we made sure we had four songs. The whole thing was a totally different sound for us." The orchestrations were handled by arranger Gene Page, who frequently worked on the West Coast. Shipped as a single on January 11, 1967, "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" certainly sounded like Diana Ross in Hollywood. It featured dramatic, semi-spoken segments which could have been torn from the soundtrack of a Hepburn or Bacall movie. That same month, by coincidence, Ross and the Supremes recorded material for a never-released album of songs associated with Walt Disney films. As producers verging on directors, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland helped make Diana Ross resemble the actress she would become. "I liked to cut her beneath her key," Dozier says, "because she got more of a sultry thing than nasal." They also recorded Ross's lead vocals fast, to keep an edge to her sound before she knew the song too well. "You can call it 'edge'," advised the late Earl Van Dyke, leader of the Motown studio crew known as the Funk Brothers, "but she never liked to do a lot of takes. She had that prima donna shit going then. You know how that is." Comments Dozier, "Diana was always a thorough professional. If she heard something (wrong), you wouldn't have to stop her, she'd stop herself and say, 'I'll do that again.' Once she was into it, she like to go from beginning to end without stopping. She may have felt it wasn't necessary to do it over. She would do it if you pressed the issue, but we found out that it was - like Earl said - best to get it over with, rather than cause yourself a lot of headaches."
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Donald Bogle "Blacks in American Films and Television" "...with Ross and Williams, though, both of whom were born to be black movie stars, high-powered gloss and glow are on proud display. Because the script, lacking the wit and cohesiveness of lady Sings the Blues, failed to provide them with characters to play, the two rely on their images instead--as the archetypal narcissistic dream queen and king from who nothing is demanded except their extraordinary presence. To their credit, they are charming enough to pull the picture off. But more importantly, in its celebration of stardom, Mahogany clearly touched on the mood of the period and now stands as a quintessential film of the mid-1970's."
Molly Haskell "Village Voice" "...What Mahogany does so fascinatingly and sometimes hilariously is to pilfer certain stock clichés of '50s Hollywood and adapt them to a black milieu....and if you think Ross and Williams don't have audiences eating out of their hands, then you saw the movie with the wrong audience."
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(1985)
Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by Adam White and Fred Bronson The late Jay Lasker, only weeks after his November 1980 appointment as president of Motown Records, was called into a meeting with Berry Gordy and Diana Ross. The subject was her Motown contract, which was about to expire. "Berry tried to orchestrate it like a movie," Lasker recalled of the discussions. "But Diana was no slouch. She curled up in Berry's chair and played her recording of 'It's My Turn' - prophetic, I thought." Then Gordy took Ross's hand, according to Lasker, "and lured her into a slow, slow dance - smack in the middle of this meeting - to the chagrin of Diana's adviser, who paled at the idea of her blowing his whole big deal for sentimental reasons." Diana's head evidently overruled her heart, because she quit Gordy's company for RCA Records in 1981. Yet in her music, the past was often present: for instance, the singer's only Number One for RCA, 'Missing You,' involved three legends of Motown - MARVIN GAYE, SMOKEY ROBINSON and LIONEL RICHIE - not long after Gaye's death in April 1984. "It actually came out of a conversation that Smokey Robinson and I had one evening about how we were missing Marvin," Ross later explained, "and what he meant to us, as well as to music. Then Lionel and I got to talking about how we need to tell people that we love them while they're still alive. Lionel used all this to write that beautiful and special song." Richie and Ross had collaborated before, of course (Endless Love) and the result was the biggest-selling single in Motown's history. Lionel had also gained insights into Diana's work through observing Berry Gordy, who let him into the studio while he oversaw the 'Diana & Marvin' album. (Later, Richie confirmed that the two stars didn't cut their vocals together.) Diana recorded "Missing You" in mid-1984 for her fourth RCA album, 'Swept Away,' released that September. Richie played keyboards on the session, arranging and producing the song with James Carmichael, his longtime Commodores collaborator. The promotional video clip for 'Missing You' maintained Ross's links with her past. It not only featured footage of Marvin Gaye, but also images of other fallen stars of Motown, including the Supreme's Florence Ballard and the Temptations' Paul Williams. The death of Marvin Gaye affected many musicians and performers. Lionel Richie's former colleague in the COMMODORES , Walter Orange, was moved to song (Nightshift). So was STEVIE WONDER, who sang "Lighting Up the Candles" at Gaye's funeral on April 5 1984, and later included it in his 'Jungle Fever' album....
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(1998)
(EXCERPTS) When Berry Gordy started Motown, all TV's were black & white, and so were all water fountains in the South. When Berry Gordy started Motown, Detroit was an economic lynch pin of America and there was no devil's night celebration of looting in that struggling mid-western metropolis. When Berry Gordy started Motown, the concepts of crossover and muti-culturalism hadn't been created. America was still working fitfully to integrate. When Berry Gordy started Motown, rhythm & blues was Pop by accident, black music was as segregated as our schools, and African-American ownership of its own culture was discouraged when it wasn't ridiculed. When Berry Gordy started Motown (and Tamla and Jobete) 40 years ago, the biggest black businesses tended to be insurance companies, newspapers and funeral parlors, and none of them had any white customers. When Berry Gordy started Motown, state of the art technology was the 45 rpm seven inch single, not 8 track, audio cassette, CD or DAT. Yet in all these formats, and in those yet to come, Motown represents the highest standards in Pop music. When Berry Gordy started Motown, America was a very different place than it is at the beginning of a new century and, in some important ways, that change can be attributed to the beautiful music in your hands... ...This anthology pays tribute to the enduring music Motown has made in its march down through time and those musicians, writers, producers and performers who dreamed their way onto History's pages.... ...As the music of Motown rushes headlong into the 21st century, it is still fueled by the visions of music makers. Some hopefuls come to stand on the street in front of the tiny studio-turned-museum in Detroit and marvel. What dreams stand with them? Something to do with music, magic and memories, no doubt.
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(1985)
... The Motown Story, a five record, 58 cut set of that company's big hits from the beginning, may not be that definitive collection, but it does contain a rather stunning series of jukebox spirituals, scripture to dance to, expressions of the emotional life black music has always been most concerned with. Usually this means expressions of love and the problems of love, an aesthetic shared most closely with love comic books ("I make one little mistake--and I lose the only man I ever loved!") simply because they represent one of the last stands of high romantic ideals. But it's love carried beyond its own absurdities into a pure, spiritual realm so that the best of these songs are not just about emotion, they ARE emotion, ARE life. Listened to closely enough, "You've Really Got A Hold On Me" is a revelation. That's what black music is about: life, love, and transcending the content through the form. This sort of total expression is the heart of Motown Records. Over the years they have been interested in nothing so much as success (Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" was an early clue)--and their formula for achieving that success became increasingly more slick and predictable--but Motown never lost touch with the real lives of people who bought records. Berry Gordy knew the psychology of the car radio and the transistor and the jukebox; his records slipped through these media and into people's heads and daily lives so quickly they were almost subliminal. The Motown Sound had an insistence that went right past being irresistible. Early on, Gordy realized that production was the subliminal factor. Motown created a Sound that mixed with your bloodstream and heartbeat before you even listened to it. The Sound had infinite variations, it evolved, it changed, it retained the ability to surprise, but it was always the same and the fact that it remained instantly recognizable was another key to its success. All of Motown's energies were concentrated in the production of flawless 45s--they didn't learn until recently the finely-balanced craft of album production--but the formula, once established, worked so beautifully that there is a touch of genius even on the lowliest B-side. In fact, Motown flip sides are almost always worthwhile; many of my most treasured Motown songs were B-sides: the Miracles' "Fork in the Road," "Whatever Makes You Happy" and "Such Is Love, Such Is Life"; Martha and the Vandellas' "Motoring"; Stevie Wonder's "I'm More Than Happy (I'm Satisfied)"; Mary Wells' "Operator." In the full-color booklet which accompanies this boxed set of records, Motown describes itself this way: "Now entering its second decade, after ten years of phenomenal growth and corporate development, Motown continues to reflect the cultural complexities and social changes of an era in which its music has gained international repute as a stylized reflection of Afro-American tradition." Whew. They key words there are "corporate development" and "stylized reflection." A brief history: Motown Records (incorporating the labels Tamla, Motown, Gordy and later Soul, V.I.P. and Rare Earth) began officially in 1959 with Berry Gordy and $800. In the early years, Gordy's products hadn't yet achieved the stylistic identity that later became know as the Motown Sound. But they didn't merely blend in with the already popular music of the Shirelles, the Drifters, Little Eva or the Chiffons. Both The Marvelettes and Martha and the Vandellas had a toughness and energy which set them apart and quickly established Motown as THE dance sound; if the company was every funky, it was because of these girls. The Marvelettes are represented on the Story album by their first two releases, the wonderfully raucous "Please Mr. Postman" and "Playboy." Unforgivably, subsequent releases are ignored and their part in the official history ends there; after a long period of inactivity, the group has now apparently disbanded. "Come And Get These Memories," "Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" (all included here) are early high marks for Martha and the Vandellas and Motown. "Heat Wave," produced and written by the team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland (who also provided near-identical follow-ups in "Quicksand" and "Live Wire"), was the first step toward a "Sound" with which the whole company could be identified. Anyone who didn't hear "Heat Wave" in the summer of 1963 had to be buried underground; the super-charged sound--maintained at an energy peak by a frantic, repetitive chorus and drums, often with handclaps, on every beat--jumped from the airways like sparks from a wire. William (Smokey) Robinson, songwriter, producer and lead singer for the Miracles (Miracles! Stop for a moment and absorb these names and their aspirations), was perhaps the most important force which set Motown apart from the mainstream of rhythm & blues. Producing his own group as well as Mary Wells, the early Temptations and later Marvelettes, ' records sounded only slightly softer than the work done by the Marvelettes. A whole album (Meet the Supremes, which is probably now regarded as an unfortunate part of the past, like once being a whore) and several singles in this smooth, nasty style were released before H-D-H hit on The Formula with "Where Did Our Love Go" (1964); breathy, sexy, sweet, repetitive, using a blended background characterized by a constant, unavoidable BEAT. "Baby Love" followed and "Come See About Me," "Stop in the Name of Love," "Back in my Arms Again,' etc. etc.--they continued to perfect the Formula for years. And in the process built the Motown Sound, defining a break with the music of their early years. Just compare "Playboy" (1962) with "Baby Love" (1964)--the rawness and grit of the early vocals, especially the stridency of the backing chorus, have disappeared; the sparseness and simplicity of the instrumentation gives way to a layered, denser sound which makes increasing use of studio effects. A certain height was reached with "You Keep Me Hanging On" (1966) adding incessant electronic bleeps to the drum beat and letting Diana step out for a quick, striking spoken phrase (this last used to even greater effect in the follow-up, "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone")--an over stylized song whose brilliance lies in its precise, restrained production--they knew just exactly how far to push it. Holland-Dozier-Holland accomplished the popularization of the Supremes with such subtlety and assurance that you hardly noticed the energy draining off. In her introduction to one of the group's last H-D-H hits, "Reflections" (1967), Diana Ross tells us (it was actually Mary Wilson, he (the reviewer) made a mistake here), "This is when Holland-Dozier-Holland decided to go more mechanical"--right on, Diana. She meant "electronic" but "mechanical" is more appropriate to this vapid melange. The team was losing its touch. The Tops also declined: "Bernadette" and "Seven Rooms of Gloom" only seemed more mediocre when set against the perfection of "Reach Out I'll Be There." The concept of "stylized reflection" had become more closely identified with "corporate development" and the Supremes with Holland-Dozier-Holland were the ideal catalysts, although they hardly came out of the process unscathed. Whatever rough edges they had were polished off as the girls were carefully molded into America's Number One Female Group. Somewhere along the line Gordy & Co. decided the Motown Sound was The Sound of Young America and that was another clue: mere success was not enough. No longer satisfied with breaking across the established rhythm & blues charts--they had done that with awesome consistency--they now wanted the very hearts and minds of The People (including the white market) by any means necessary. The Supremes were sacrificed without much trouble; everyone learned to do minstrel shows at the Copa. When Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown, things seemed to fall apart for a while. Without the support of their compositions and arrangements, the Supremes suddenly sounded weak and shallow; artistically, they never quite recovered. Until very recently, the Four Tops seemed to have disappeared into one nightclub or another. End of another Motown era. The new Motown period is more diversified, but the key producer here is Norman Whitfield whose work with both the Temptations and Gladys Knight and the Pips set the dominant sound in recent years. Again, the important figure is the songwriter-producer. Neither Robinson, H-D-H nor Whitfield could succeed without genuinely brilliant artists, but the producer's guiding hand is all-powerful at Motown, notorious for its tight control over performers. As Smokey Robinson put it elsewhere, "The artists--they don't really have anything to do with it. The producer is doing the tune so they just go and they sing it and fortunately for us, we have artists who do not bitch about their songs." But some performers are more malleable than others. Whitfield made his first breakthrough with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," written and produced for Gladys Knight and her group in 1967. (We now also know this is incorrect!) One of the all-time great singles, certainly one of Motown's own top ten, "Grapevine" signaled the return of high-energy to Motown, a revival of sweet grittiness, in carefully controlled doses. But like Martha Reeves, Gladys Knight will constantly shoot beyond the material she performs and it's her artistic free-flight that makes her great. So Whitfield had to wait for a group who would yield more readily to his restyling and work with him toward the development of the next installment of the on-going Motown Sound. The Temptations were perfect. After their strongest vocalist, David Ruffin, left in a flurry of accusations and counter-accusations, the group found itself in need of a production sound that would make the very most of what remained. With a little borrowing, some synthesis and a good deal of genius, Whitfield whipped up a post-Sly Stone sound that broke out with maximum effect in "Cloud Nine" (1968)--the start of the Temp's boom boom period. Whitfield added layers of electronic business, wah-wah shit, gave emphasis to the separate voices, broke the old ground sound wide open. Although a lot of us had reservations about this move, the novelty and excitement of the new style were hard to resist. The content of these new songs, the majority of them written by Whitfield and Barrett Strong, represented another shift in direction--The Greening of Motown, perhaps. Never exactly the social conscience of the music industry, Motown had confined itself to a few isolated "current affairs" songs. Among them: "Dancing in the Streets" which Martha Reeves acknowledges was related to the black ghetto rebellions ("We were just starting to have different confusions in different cities--the riots and what have you," she says; the intention of the song was to "get people to dance and be happy in the streets instead of rioting," although many saw it as a metaphor for more direct action); Stevie Wonder's "Blowing in the Wind"; the Miracles' far from inspired "Abraham Martin and John" and the Supremes' two rather dreary attempt at relevance, "Love Child" (included here) and "Living in Shame". But "Cloud Nine" and the songs that followed it reflected a more serious concern with "conditions"--a little late in coming but important nevertheless. "Ball of Confusion" may be of questionable value, but "War" and the powerful "Message from a Black Man" (both album cuts are not included in the collection) are giant steps for the Temptations and Motown. How "committed" the company is remains to be seen: one of their strongest anti-war songs, Martha and the Vandellas' "I Should Be Proud," was reportedly withdrawn in embarrassment before it could catch on, but if relevance sells, Motown will market it--yes, The Greening of Motown. If my history leaves out two of Motown's finest artists, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and another favorite, Junior Walker, it's only because they don't fit into the major producer scheme--which is to their credit. Their independence of the producer-originated trends has caused them to flounder at times, but more often freed them to be constantly surprising and inventive, as evidenced more recently by the totally new direction Gaye had taken with his current, self produced single, "What's Going On." Both Gaye and Wonder are well-represented in this collection, although, for purely sentimental reasons, I would have appreciated another one of the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell love songs (the obvious choice, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is here) and I can't understand the exclusion of both "My Cherie Amour" and "Signed, Sealed and Delivered." OK, THE MOTOWN STORY, one of the most ambitious, slick promotion packages ever marketed, is an attempt to document this history in 58 cuts, each with its own short introduction by the artist. Motown has always had a certain genius for re-packaging its hits, making a collection of this sort inevitable. To take it point by point: 1. It's clearly a collector's item, not for the casual listener, and priced that way: about $25 (which means that even with a discount, it's not something you can rush out and buy with your pocket change). 2. The "24 page illustrated book" enclosed is of minimal interest except for a few tasty pictures from the early years (Martha and the Vandellas in the classic hands-on-hips pose, Smokey holding up the "HI" sign from the cover of the Miracles' first album, the Temptations in jive grins and processes). I mean, I don't mind seeing another pin-up of the Jackson 5, but I would appreciate a more serious effort to provide historical information. At the least we could have been given the release date of each song. as usual, no credit is given to Motown's excellent musicians--always the unsung heroes. 3. There is a narrator with one of those raceless, radio announcer voices which constantly comes as a shock. He usually confines himself to a few words by way of introduction to the performers ("from the neighborhoods of Detroit to Superstardom--Miss Diana Ross") and, like TV commercials, manages to sound one or two levels louder than everything else. Most of the artist's intros are to the point and reasonably articulate. I could listen to Smokey Robinson talk for hours. Michael Jackson really sounds like a little kid. Otis Williams of the Temptations stumbles around a lot and tries to convince us that "Cloud Nine" had nothing to do with "getting high"--the allusion is merely to "a state of being." C'mon Otis. Diana Ross talks about enjoying music in a dentist's office and I believe it. Actually, Diana does a lot of talking here. In one segment, she describes her early job at Motown as secretary to Berry Gordy--"I only worked the summer and I think he paid me about $20"; later she says something about "trying to find where my head is." Far out. My favorite stories are the confessional ones, especially if they involve the performer's feelings about a particular song. Before "My Baby Loves Me," Martha reveals she was on the verge of breaking up with her boyfriend but the song brought them back together: "In the studio I had a chance to express a feeling inside." Jimmy Ruffin did "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" at a low point in his career--"I was hungry, in a depressed mood"--and pulled another Motown classic out of his despair. Glimpses of the private lives of the stars. But no matter how revealing or funny or instructive, after the first one or two hearings, the prefaces become annoying commercial interruptions. Also, inexcusably, the commentaries frequently overlap the instrumental lead-in to a song or lop off the end of the previous cut, in the worst AM radio tradition. 4. As is often the case, Motown album cuts have a tendency to sound slightly different from the 45 versions. In a number of instances, the sound is markedly thinner than you will remember from the radio, the result of inferior stereo mixing or merely a new mix. "I Want You Back" suffers most from this practice, and why f**k with a work of art? In some cases, there are other minor discrepancies as well (e.g. a noticeably longer sax break in "Heat Wave", which also fades out about 20 seconds too soon.) One cut, "Someday We'll Be Together," is a live version taken from the Supremes' Farewell album (Diana Ross urges "bringing our boys home from Vietnam" in a conveniently open-ended way: "today, tomorrow or in the coming year"). 5. On Motown's first re-packaging effort, the volumes of 16 Original Hits, the company managed to squeeze eight songs to a side for a tight little collection. Here, due to the intros, we have at the most seven cuts to a side, more often, five or six. Obviously, this limitation on the number of selections makes each cut carry more weight as a piece of Motown's history. A breakdown of the selections by performer will give you an idea of where the emphasis lies: The Supremes, 17 cuts; Marvin Gaye, 7; Temptations, 6; Four Tops, Smokey and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, 5 each; Stevie Wonder, 4. Marvelettes, Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, 2 each; Gladys Knight, the Originals, Jimmy Ruffin, Mary Wells, Barrett Strong, and my boys the Jackson 5, only one each. (I bet he regrets that "my boys" line now!!!) As far as I'm concerned, Mary Wells did some of the finest stuff Motown will ever know and the fact that she's represented by ONE SONG ("My Guy") is ridiculous. But Miss Wells did leave the company, and at Motown defectors from the ranks can't expect much. The Isley Brothers, who did some great things while they were with Motown--"This Old Heart of Mine", for one -- are ignored completely. For both Smokey and the Miracles and the Temptations the selection is much too spotty. What about "Ooo Baby Baby," "More Love," "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage," "Who's Loving You," and "Way Over There"? The early Temps are held down to just one song, the very beautiful "My Girl," but why not "Since I Lost My Baby" as well? And how can they ignore one of my personal favorites, "You're My Everything"? Thing is, everyone will approach this with their own list of vital songs and find the official selection lacking. I would gladly do without four or five of those Supremes numbers in order to have "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game," "Shake Me, Wake Me," "Two Lovers," "Road Runner," "ABC," and "You Met Your Match." But then that half-dozen wouldn't be very typical of Motown (remember "corporate development"). For better or for worse, the Supremes epitomize Motown, and their musical history, such as it is, is perhaps the best indication of where Motown has been. Just as, right, now, the Temptations seem to be most into where the company is going. So the history is, of course, on Motown's terms. There are things included here that could easily be dropped to make room for better or more significant cuts. I wouldn't miss "Bernadette," "Jimmy Mack," "Reflections," "Mickey's Monkey," "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," "Love Child," "Baby I'm For Real," or "Psychedelic Shack." But how can you argue with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (in both Gladys' and Marvin Gaye's versions), "The Tracks of my Tears," "Dancing in the Streets," "I Want You Back," "My Girl," "Baby Love," "Reach Out I'll Be There," "Fingertips," (STILL unbelievable), "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," oh shit, it would fill the next page--beautiful, splendid, metaphysical 45s. I used to feel that if I could only have one record album, it would have to be The Miracles Greatest Hits From The Beginning, their two record set. Now, although I might complain a lot, I'd choose The Motown Story and expect to get by just fine, thank you. All this aside, The Motown Story is an extraordinary collection to me because it's not just the history of a record company but a collection of pieces from my life. More than any other influence (more than Robbe-Grillet, Warhol, Aretha Franklin, Genet, Godard or Susan Sontag), Motown has changed the way I live. I must have dropped out mentally for a few years before I heard Mary Wells and "You Beat Me To The Punch" (summer '62) but the song astonished me. The absolute perfection and completeness of such a simple thing knocked me out; and Mary Wells' voice was endlessly pleasing. Then I discovered Smokey Robinson whose "You Really Got A Hold On Me" was a sort of on-going religious experience. Smokey is still my man. His songs were poetic suggestions as to how to conduct your emotional life. They wouldn't tell you exactly what to do, but, like the I Ching, they could be referred to as sources of guidance, confirmations or merely indications of a direction for the future. For instance, there is the obviously instructive "Fork in the Road"--"Although I may be just a stranger/Lovers, let me warn you there's the danger/Of a fork in love's road." The songs were experiences I could learn from, expressions of someone's life that became very much entangled with my own. But Smokey's singing has a way of cutting through the bullshit and getting to pure expression--an overwhelming emotional content that I began to discover in other black music but continued to enjoy most in Motown's particular stylization of urban R & B. The Marvelettes and Temptations and Martha and the Vandellas and Mary Wells and Stevie Wonder and the Supremes--all of them--taught me the same way Smokey did. And hey, it's not just about love, being in love, getting hurt, you know, it's ABOUT BEING ALIVE. Because Motown is so prolific and such a consistent hitmaker its sound is everywhere; impossible not be become somehow intimate with it. Sometimes in spite of itself, Motown remains vital and REAL. After all, it is dance music, body music, express yourself music--communicating through the beat, through your body, as surely as through words. I can't help myself. The music is playing and you're involved before you realize it. Before you KNOW it. You don't need to know it.
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From Blues and Soul 9/21/1999
There are no stipulations either. Nor are their any reservations. The tune is a good one and the D-Influence mix sits nicely alongside the quietest Diana Ross I have ever heard. . .and that from a lady never renowned for her power of delivery. The interesting factor here is that, if one was to listen blindfolded to this, one would swear that the ‘original’ was, in fact, the D- Influence version, such is its dexterity, sharpness and all-round effectiveness in portraying the ageing voice of Ms Ross in a contemporary street soul setting. Thus, I am moved to recommend Mr. ‘Zavy Kid (Malik Pendleton) as a producer of potential and one to check out. As for Ms Ross? Dare I say, the last good record in an exalted career? (Out: now) (Rating: 7)
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ONE WOMAN: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION In October 1993, Motown released to coincide with the autobiography 'Secrets Of A Sparrow', the 4 CD boxed set, 'Forever Diana'. Motown (or Diana Ross) seem to have push this release. In Diana's book there was a promotional card for 'Forever Diana', Diana Ross promoted the book on Oprah and also on Regis and Kathie Lee, Billboard Magazine. BET even had commercails playing advertising 'Forever Diana' in December with also video play of "The Best Years Of My Life" and also "Your Love" (On BETS Midnight Love).
The boxed set hit #38 on Billboards Boxed Set Top 50. Also around this time EMI released a single CD retrospective (from 'Forever Diana'), 'One Woman:
The Utlimate Collection' which in January 1994 would hit #1 on UK Billboards Top 75 Albums Chart and sell 1.3 million
RECORD COLLECTOR, dt: Feb 1994, No 174
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