UK specialist label Ace/Kent continue their remarkable stewardship of the seemingly bottomless Motown vault with this splendid new 25 track compilation which, as the title explains, focuses on the male side of the Gordy roster.
The included tracks span the years 1961 – 1968 which most Motown buffs agree was the label’s Golden Age and those buffs will find plenty of remarkable music here – and what is more remarkable, is that there are 15 tracks here that have never seen the light of day before! Of the remaining 10 cuts, nine have previously been available as download specials while one- J J Barnes’ ‘Show Me The Way’ was released in 2016 in vinyl in one of those special Motown box sets. And that inclusion gives you the flavour of what’s on offer here – it’s rare quality all the way!
Amongst the artists , there’s plenty of big names – people like Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marv Johnson, the Temptations and Four Tops. And it goes to show that being a “name” didn’t mean your recordings automatically won a release. Case in point is the offering from the Temptations’ – ‘Since I Don’t Have You’. It’s not the old Skyliners’ song ; rather a 1967 Debbie Dean/Dennis Lussier song with David Ruffin on typically gritty lead, it’s as good as anything from the Tempts around that time, Maybe it was shelved because Ruffin was on the point of being ousted from the group?
However, as with many compilation like this one, it’s the tracks from the lesser known or even the totally unknowns that deliver the treasures for collectors. Unknowns? Well even the compilers don’t know too much about people like Michael Thomas and Johnny Earl while maybe only real Motown aficionados will be aware of people like the Hit Pack, the Serenaders, Gino Parks and Sammy Ward. I’m guessing too that even the aficionados might not know that ‘Hey Baby’ hitmaker, Bruce Channel was once pacted to Motown. He recorded two singles for the Mel-O-Dy subsidiary and his inclusion here is a previously unreleased and very un-Motown cover of Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love?’. And there’s plenty more cuts on offer that we might describe as “not classic Motown” – try Mike Valvano and R Dean Taylor’s ‘Hamtramck Mama’, their take on a C&W classic or The Hit Pack’s ‘We Call It Fun’ a hybrid of Merseybeat and the Four Seasons! But it’s these oddities that make this compilation so rewarding!
(BB) 4/5
