A hypothetical Marvin and Tammi scenario

[rovereab]

With the recent thread about Val subbing for Tammi I got round to thinking about what would have happened if Marvin had not been available for a third album. Clearly Marvin and Tammi were very popular and the drive to release another album would have been the same. Perhaps it would have been impossible for someone to sub for Marvin or it might have been down to Tammi to duetise some Marvin tracks. Or perhaps Motown would have just abandoned the duet idea altogether.

Perhaps songs like the canned Dark Side Of The World would have overdubbed by Tammi.

What do you think would have happened?

Can you come up with a potential track list of an album with Tammi overdubs?

[smark21]

I suspect that the third Marvin/Tammi album ended up being called "Diana and Marvin".

[carlo]

If Marvin had been unavailable to record "Easy", then I think the entire project would have been scrapped altogether. By that time, Marvin was much more well known than Tammi IMO and it would have been much more obvious if they ended up subbing in a different male vocal. The reason why Valerie was able to sub in for Tammi was because no one would really know the difference. Some fans say that the difference is quite obvious to them, but my guess is that most record buyers back in the 1960's did not know any different, until the truth became known years later.

I think male artists were treated differently at Motown. If you look at Stevie and Marvin, they were both given total creative control in terms of what they recorded. The males were treated more as artists and the females were treated more like singers. If you look at The Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas and The Marvelettes, many of the background vocals were subbed with the Andantes. However, this rarely happened with the males. As far as I know, The Four Tops, The Temptations and even the Pips were never subbed with other studio singers [[there are a couple of exceptions, but it was far less common).

[bradsupremes]

Here's a far out speculation......If Marvin was unavailable and Motown was truly persistent about recording the "Easy" album, it wouldn't have surprised me if Motown tried to bring J.J. Barnes back and record the "Easy" album with Valerie. I'm sure this would have never happened, but Motown has pulled some crazy things...

And it's true about the male artists/groups being treated differently at Motown. I found the "flying-the-lead-singer-is-far-cheaper-than-flying-in-the-whole-group" theory is be not all that believable. Why did they only do that with the female groups? Why not the male groups? If it was cheaper then Motown should have had the Originals do all of the Temptations, Four Tops, the Pips' background vocals. It must have been far more cheaper to fly in Mary & Cindy, Gladys & Katherine, or Roz & Lois than it would be to fly in Eddie, Paul, Dennis, Otis, and Melvin.

[motony]

bradsupremes I think you are a younger man & it was still mainly a "mans world " in the 60's.Most of those male singers had wifes & kids at home & they put their foot down that they had to be back in Detroit a certain amount of time.If the young women got married &/or had kids & husbands then their careers were basically over.Its hard to explain, it was the mindset, that unless you lived through it, it is hard to explain. You know that Easy LP was not a big seller...none of the singles were real big....my fave was "Onion Song" which I feel if that was Tammi & if she was able to go out & promote that would have been a big hit.

[motony]

Andantes are on just about every Four Tops Motown record. I will hand it to the Temptations cause after Smokey put Andantes on "Its Growing" they as a group told him & Mr. Gordy that better never happen again...I guess they knew they meant it.

[bradsupremes]

Andantes are on just about every Four Tops Motown record. I will hand it to the Temptations cause after Smokey put Andantes on "Its Growing" they as a group told him & Mr. Gordy that better never happen again...I guess they knew they meant it.

I find it funny they didn't want the Andantes on their recordings because the three songs [["It's Growing", "That'll Be The Day", and "Just Another Lonely Night") on which the Andantes were added are some of their best songs!

[motony]

come to think of it, Andantes are on "All I Need"produced by Frank Wilson & thats one I really love..but I did hear Eddie & David say they told em they only wanted Temptations on their records.They would tell those artists anything to get a great performance out of em.

[Roger Polhill]

The Supremes are on "Not Now I`ll Tell You Later" from "Gettin` Ready"

[jboy88]

I actually read where Katherine Anderson of the Marvellettes, didn't mind having the andantes appear on their recordings! She said that one of them sounded enough like her. As far as the Marvellettes and the Vandellas are concerned, I don't really mind the Andantes presence as the actual group harmonies weren't that great.

As far as them subbing for the actual group all the way, I think that was more of a thing that had to do with tensions within the actual group itself, especially with the Supremes recordings. If someone started acting up, the producer would just send 'em home and call in the Andantes!

[jboy88]

come to think of it, Andantes are on "All I Need"produced by Frank Wilson & thats one I really love..but I did hear Eddie & David say they told em they only wanted Temptations on their records.They would tell those artists anything to get a great performance out of em.

I think that was Eddie and Otis on that one! I don't hear any andantes.

[mannyc]

Somebody has a mix online with Diana and Marvin doing "Dark Side Of The Would" I think it's on youtube, Check it out.