Valerie on the Tammi vocals question----At last!!!!!!!

[thisoldheart]

well, i have spent the last two days listening to the complete tammi solo and duet recordings along with both of valerie simpson's records. i don't have any trouble telling the two apart! i wish people here could separate emotion from intellect but seeing how many divide into the pro and anti diana ross camps based on everything but miss ross's singing, i have decided that the tammi/valerie battle will continue ... i suggest listening instead of spouting! [[if you listen to everything it is very "easy" to tell who stepped into whose shoes and did a very good job at keeping tammi's legend alive.)

but while doing my studying i want to know how tammi's "can't stop now [[love is calling)" was never released as a single?! what a hit!! it is constant rotation here in my house. what a great arrangement. i hear what i suppose are the andants? but, who are those great guys backing tammi up?

[phil]

but while doing my studying i want to know how tammi's "can't stop now [[love is calling)" was never released as a single?! what a hit!! it is constant rotation here in my house. what a great arrangement. i hear what i suppose are the andants? but, who are those great guys backing tammi up?

Thisoldheart, while listening to the song they reminded me of the Spinners, though not being 100% sure about this.

Wikipedia says the same, but everybody knows they sometimes [[often?) may be wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresis...rrell_album%29

[radionixon]

The Gracenote CD Database - as used by iTunes, Winamp etc - is compiled from data entered by the first fan who ever put the CD into their computer. This is the same database that used to claim the Pirates' "Mind Over Matter" from TCMS 2 was actually British rockers Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, rather than [[say) the Temptations under a different name. It's often a useful tool, but it's about as authoritative as saying something must be true because you overheard it in a bar one time. So let's put that to one side.

I'm a lawyer, and it's an instinctive reaction, when faced with two sides to a story, to start weighing and evaluating the evidence. I was going to go through all of this on Motown Junkies when we get up to Easy, but this seems as good a time as any.

THE CASE FOR TAMMI

• Valerie Simpson - who has to be considered the Alpha and Omega of this question, given that [[a) she's the only person left alive who was definitely there, and [[b) in her version of the story she was with Tammi recording when nobody else was around, and therefore impossible to prove or disprove beyond what she says - has consistently and clearly denied subbing for Tammi, not only in the quote at the head of this thread [[which I can't believe some people are taking as an admission?!):
  
  
  There were a couple things that were tweaked, but not a lot. I couldn't just sing like Tammi. People give me the credit of thinking I could be Tammi Terrell, but it's just not true. We did some production edits to fix things, but that's about it.
  
  ...but also in the liner notes to TCMS 9:
  
  
  I’ve heard that so many times, but it’s not really true. To the extent that yes, when she was sick, I would stand in for her initially. But after we got Marvin’s part down, we would painstakingly bring her in and do her in a different kind of way because, at that juncture, she really wasn’t well. I’ve heard this all along, but I’m just not that good. I’m good, but I’m not that good.
  
  ...to the point that Valerie's story is easy [[!) enough to summarise: she says she sang some guide vocals on the tracks, as Marvin needed, but later brought Tammi in to the studio to sing "line by line". [[That, incidentally, is a description everyone who claims it was Tammi has used with surprising consistency.)
  
• Johnny Bristol and Louvain Demps both give accounts - albeit perhaps not necessarily first-hand accounts - which jibe with Val's version. Of course, they could just be following the party line, or remembering things other people said.
  
• Tammi's sister says she clearly recognises Tammi's voice on the disputed tracks. Loath as I am to dispute RossHolloway's ears, and without wanting to cause offence, if we're talking about the subjective quality of what other people say they can hear, I believe her claim carries more weight than Ross'.
  
  
• Quite frankly, and this is subjective, I don't hear the vast differences others have claimed. Sure, you play Easy right after United, the voices don't sound quite the same. But similarly, you play Easy right after Exposed, they don't really sound the same either. And I personally hear a lot of that Easy "Tammi" voice in some of Terrell's undisputed "throatier" vocals, e.g. Hold Me Oh My Darling. But as I say, it's all subjective. I certainly don't think it's as much of a night and day difference as some posters have made out.
  

THE CASE AGAINST TAMMI

• Marvin Gaye's direct testimony, as quoted in Divided Soul. Just as with Valerie above, this is the most important piece of evidence, and pretty damn difficult to overlook. A lot of court cases boil down to a "he said/she said" clash of stories, and so they hinge on the credibility of the witnesses and the way they give their testimony. I don't see why this should be so very different.
  
  In this kind of analysis, any competent barrister would take Marvin's credibility and shatter it over his knee. Firstly, as has been pointed out upthread, Marvin not only made his claims ten years after the event, but ten rather eventful years - years full of personal triumph, turmoil, upheaval, and Olympic quantities of substance abuse. Easy to say he simply remembered wrong. Secondly, Marvin was also prone to giving interviews throughout the Seventies on any number of topics where he'd provide questionable information that's since been proven to be bollocks [[usually well-meaning bollocks, but still bollocks all the same - does anyone have that interview where he claimed the forthcoming Trouble Man LP would change the history of music? Or, more pertinently, do people remember when he also said there was a lot more to the story of Tammi's death than the public knew, but it would all come out?) Thirdly, Marvin had no reason to lie, but even if Marvin was telling the absolute, perfectly-remembered, cast-iron crystal-clear truth, Valerie already has an answer for that: Marvin, according to her, was simply remembering the guide vocals Valerie laid down. He didn't remember Tammi being there because, according to her, Tammi indeed wasn't there, she was brought in later, so of course Marvin doesn't remember watching Tammi record The Onion Song. Impossible to prove either way. Which brings us to the fourth big problem with Marvin's testimony versus Valerie's: Marvin isn't around to ask further questions.
  
  In the game of "she said / he said", Valerie makes a far more persuasive witness than Marvin.
  
• Tammi was really, really sick, such that it seems to stretch credibility she would head to the studio and sing. This is an interesting one, but as far as I understand it, and as far as the famous Ebony article linked upthread makes out, she had good days and bad days for the last three years of her life. By many accounts she at least visited Hitsville a few times in 1969 - and that Ebony article details her taking a long flight to get there - so it's not as though she was a bedridden invalid during the period the "Easy" vocal tracks were laid down. I've read she supposedly even appeared on stage in March 1969 at Seton Hall for a [[brief) interlude at a James Brown show - I'd love to know more about that. [[Is it in Ludie's book?)
  
• The woman singing on "Easy" sounds different. I've dealt with this above, but there's still no denying there's a difference in voices. But I don't understand why some people are so quick to deny Tammi could possibly have been well enough to go to Studio A in 1969 [[despite first-hand accounts of her doing that) or even get up and move around [[despite photographic evidence to the contrary accompanying that Ebony piece), because so many bouts of brain surgery would render that impossible, but then fail to accept that same logic to explain why someone's voice might sound a bit different.
  
• Nick Ashford's enigmatic "no comment" responses when directly asked. I've read that he supposedly admitted it was Valerie on those records all along, but I've never been able to actually pinpoint anything resembling such a quote - which would have been massive news, surely? Rather, he seems to have brushed off the question whenever it came up [[bearing in mind this only really started happening in the mid-80s following the publication of Divided Soul). This seems to have been construed as an admission of guilt, but it's clearly no such thing - it's easy to impute *any* motivation to someone's keeping silent, but none of them count for anything in the eyes of the law.
  
• Valerie Simpson's testimony should be disregarded because she has a vested interest in keeping the lie going, in order to [[protect Tammi's legacy / keep to a contractual agreement / make Motown look better / DELETE AS APPROPRIATE). This one I've never really got. Motown were never known for their scrupulous contractual dealings. Plenty of tell-all "warts and all" books about the company's dark secrets have emerged in the last 20 years. In the 80s, Motown was beseiged by lawsuits from disgruntled former artists, songwriters and producers. I don't understand why we're meant to believe that Motown screwed over almost everyone they ever came into contact with in one way or another, but that they stuck loyally to some shady deal they struck with Valerie to keep quiet forever, and that Valerie was happy to go along with it, even after moving to Warners and Capitol. [[I certainly can't imagine the financial rewards from such a pact being enough to outweigh the royalties she'd be due for 40 years of airplay.) The only plausible reason she'd stick to a lie would be to protect Tammi, but I don't understand why that would be the case; nobody's denied the Andantes stood in for any number of other Motown acts, for instance, or continued to claim that it was really Martha Reeves and not Syreeta who sang on "I Can't Dance...". Why should Tammi have been treated any differently?

We'll never know for sure. I think the case for Tammi is much stronger than the case against, and ultimately if the only reliable source says it was Tammi, that's good enough for me. [[Similarly if Val had come out and said "Yeah, it was me all along, sorry everyone", that would convince me too - presumably it would have been taken more seriously here...?) It's also tempting to go with Terry Wilson's theory, that Val recorded the guide tracks, Tammi came in to record a few lines here and there, and Motown went with the best take from either vocalist. But ultimately, when there's only one remaining credible first-hand witness and her story is impossible to disprove [[or prove, short of some studio documentation and photographic evidence of Tammi recording the songs in question, and even then that wouldn't silence all doubts), there's absolutely no way for us to ever know for sure.

[kenneth]

Besides my own ears, which even as a 13 year old I wondered why she sounded so different and strange [[I remember thinking it was almost a Mae West impersonation, I found it so exaggerated), there are a few things not addressed in the above attorney's analysis. It's very difficult to believe that Tammi would have the stamina to record 10 new original recordings when even "You're All I Need" had to be put together with a great deal of Tammi solo recordings augmented by Marvin vocals to turn them into duets. That she could suddenly record a whole album with a little "tweaking" by Simpson...I just don't buy it, Counselor.

But as I've said repeatedly, it does nothing to diminish Valerie Simpson in my eyes. If anything, it elevates her further. I don't believe she's saying anything out of a contractual obligation. I believe it's to protect Tammi's legacy. Maybe I should shut up and do the same, but I have my ears to tell me it's just not the same girl.