When my Motown obsession was really catching fire around the early 80's, I started getting interested in the albums. At the time, I was big on The Marvelettes' "Don't Mess With Bill" and I thought the album that had that hit had to have been a great one! There was a local record store that would order things for me and I asked the lady if she could get the album that had "Don't Mess With Bill." "Oh I think I saw that one before! Sure I'll have it for you," she said. What I got was "THE MARVELETTES GREATEST HITS."

I was disappointed because I already had this album! I thought, it was my fault for not specifying I wanted the studio album- I was thinking there had to be a main album with this hit and a lot of songs I hadn't heard before. Well, it was a few years before I found out GREATEST HITS WAS the album! I couldn't understand why Motown wouldn't put such a hit song on an album of it's own. Then, I started noticing that current artists of the 80's would sometimes build a greatest hits package around a new, big hit song, so I thought, O.K. it wasn't so strange.

Over the years as I got to learn more about the Marvelettes and how they had hit a sales slump starting around '64, I began to think that it was actually a very good move for the group and for Motown to build an album around that hit. "Don't Mess With Bill" seems to be the song that really provided a "rebirth" for the group [[even getting them a dynamic photo that occupied the entire back page of a Motown concert program.)
So to make that song the cornerstone of a greatest hits package was a great way to get some exposure for some of those lesser hits that came before and shore them up with the hit. It would get the Marvelettes an album that would be a good seller and take advantage of in the best way. Still, I wish there had been an album with other material from that time frame, but all in all, I guess it was a pretty good move on Motown's part to garner a good success for the group.