If ever a better Motown compilation came out on record, I
never discovered one. It's rare that a second volume surpasses a first, but
this one just managed it – and knocked the spokes off The Big Wheels of Motown and all those worthy single-volume Motown Chartbusters in the process.
The packaging was
fairly horrible – a big circular Union Jack design was supposed to conjure up
the so-called Mod revival – but it didn't matter a jot, because it was the
stuff in the microgrooves that counted. And my, what stuff! Twenty original
mono recordings that still leap out of the speakers and demand that you slide
all over the floor like those baggy-trousered Northern soul types you see on
documentary clips. Forget all the fancy drops and back-flips, those guys'n'gals
knew how to move, as David Bowie put it, 'like tigers on Vaseline'.
It was as seemingly
effortless as the marvellous music on this album. I've never quite got the hang
of it, but there are moments during these two sides when you find that your
limbs are doing exactly what the music demands. This is exactly what 'dance
music' means.
And this LP is so
good because these 20 tracks are all about dancing, pure and simple. As a
youth, I was far too cool to appreciate the endless stream of hits from the
factory in Detroit. They all seemed to be churned out for teeny-boppers and
performed by groups whose choreographed steps appeared as ludicrous as those of
The Shadows. In the mid 60s, I took the side of the scooter and mohair brigade
in the great Mods v Rockers debate, but mainly for the look. I had little idea
that they were dancing to this kind of music.
But then I turned
into a student at a time when disco ruled the world and I discovered that music
was as much about dancing as it was about listening. How wrong could one
teenager be? Perhaps if Berry Gordy had promoted Martha Reeves & the
Vandellas over The Supremes, I might have seen the error of my ways sooner – because
Martha and her backing singers were the best 'girl group' bar none. They
knocked Diana and the girls into a cocked hat and then stomped all over them in
their stiletto heels.
The proof of the
pudding is here on side 1. Even if they weren't in the Class A 'Quicksand',
'Dancing In The Street' or 'Heatwave' category (all there on Vol 1, and that's
not to mention 'Jimmy Mack'), the three cuts here are irresistible. Three gems
from the no-frills team of Holland, Dozier and Holland: 'Come And Get These
Memories', 'Nowhere To Run' and the glorious 'In My Lonely Room'.
In fact, Holland,
Dozier and Holland contribute nine out of the 20 belters assembled – including,
'Mickey's Monkey', which is somewhat surprising since the Miracles usually
performed Smokey Robinson's songs. But it seems tailor-made for them and right
up there with 'Going To A Go-Go' as their most urgent of dance-floor anthems.
The 20 classics
cover perhaps the three most intense years of Motown creativity, from 1963 to
1965. Only Kim Weston's fantastic 'Helpless' from 1966 – another Holland, Dozier,
Holland floor-stomper (and covered rather dexterously by Manhattan Transfer of
all groups) – sits just outside the period in question.
We kick off with
'Little Stevie' Wonder's rousing 'Fingertips (Part 2)', which never fails to
make me wonder what happened to Part 1 and which suggests young Steveland's
brilliance to come. Only two years later, on the second side, 'Uptight
(Everything's Alright)' is possibly the finest flowering of the period before
talent became genius, before Music Of My Mind and all those other
platinum self-productions.
Apart from the
three Martha Reeves numbers, Side 1 also offers Mickey's simian dance-craze and
Smokey's 'I Like it like That', as well as the Temptations' perfect rendition
of one of Smokey's most perfect combinations of melody and memorable rhyming
couplets, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do' (' The way you smell so sweet/You
should have been a per-fume/The way you knock me off my feet/You know you
should have been a broom/' and so on).
And if that weren't
enough, there's Jr. Walker's evergreen 'Shotgun' (written by a certain Autry
DeWalt, who must have had a room at the back of the back room at Hitsville,
USA), Marvin Gaye's 'I'll Be Doggone' and a little-known Smokey-penned gem from
Brenda Holloway, 'When I'm Gone'.
Smokey Robinson has
a hand in two more production-line hits on the second side, which takes his
personal contribution – as singer, songwriter and/or producer – to seven in
all: the much underrated Contours' 'First I Look At The Purse' and one of
Marvin Gaye's finest moments, 'Ain't That Peculiar'.
Lest original and
revived Mods should for one second feel short-changed on flipping the disc over
to Side 2, we get right back into the groove with another pair of Holland,
Dozier, Holland productions: Diana Ross & The Supremes' 'Back In My Arms
Again' and the Four Tops' 'I Can't Help Myself', which Lamont Dozier, who
co-wrote of zipping up his boots and going back to his roots for
Odyssey, would re-visit on Reflections Of..., a marvellous and
surprising collection of personal interpretations of his best-loved Motown
classics.
If that's not
enough for your 'pedal extremities', the same song-writing trio give us two
crackers by Kim Weston and leave us with one of the greatest ever Motown
smashes, Jr. Walker & The All Stars' '(I'm A) Road Runner' with its
indelible honking tenor sax refrain by the younger Mr. Walker himself.
That just leaves
enough room for the Velvelettes' splendid 'Lonely Lonely Girl Am I' and the Mk1
Detroit Spinners' 'I'll Always Love You', which is no 'It's A Shame' but quite
acceptable nevertheless. For once, it would take a move away from Motown – to
Atlantic – and a new song-writing partnership, of Linda Creed and Thom Bell, to
bring the band fortune and fame.
At the time I
bought this long player – in an HMV Shop sale – it was all about the singers
and the songs. Gradually, with repeated listening and dancing over the years,
I've come to focus more and more on the house band that propelled these
incredible songs. In particular, of course, that stellar rhythm section of Earl
van Dyke on piano, Bennie Benjamin on drums and the sublime James Jamerson on
bass.
It took a book by
Allan Slutsky (who should have been on their roster of musicians with a name
like that) and the 2002 documentary by Paul Justman, Standing In The Shadows
Of Motown, to give them their full due. But 20-so years before, this compilation
revealed and still reveals everything you wanted to know about an astonishing
team of writers, singers, musicians and producers at the height of their
collective powers.
Mono was never more glorious. Let go of your head and let your feet guide you on a journey across your living room dance floor.
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