motown follow up hits

[thisoldheart]

seems like the beatles and rolling stones managed from early on to make cohesive albums. they didn't throw in fiiler material. that wasn't motown's method. the singles were their bread and butter. some complain about the repetition. i don't see it that way. each single compliments the prior release and create mini suites or symphonies with complimentary movements. think of this almost 20 minute sound suite: reach out, standing in the shadows, bernadette, & 7 rooms. or going to a-go-go, whole lotta shakin', & come round here. so, although motown is frequently weak in the album department - what in the heck is "these boots are made for walking" doing on the otherwise very passable "supremes a go-go" lp? Motown more than makes up for it with their bread and butter singles. i just charted out all od h/d/h's singles by recording date. what a perfectly sublime set of singles without hardly a miss. that is the motown magic in a nutshell for me. i get so frustrated with the album that will throw in a song by different producer, sound, and usually a from a few years earlier. it is so dang jarring to my testy ears! it's all in the singles!

[mysterysinger]

Regarding the albums, we're looking at the situation with the benefit of hindsight and with the "bias" of being Motown fans, but I would suggest that far from being album fillers, the Motown artists recordings of contemporary hits of the time were part of a marketing strategy to attract undecided or casual buyers who would recognise the hit song titles and be persuaded to buy that Supremes, Four Tops or Miracles album. I would say that is why you got "These Boots Are Made For Walking", "I'm A Believer", "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" etc.

[thisoldheart]

that is certainly true mysterysinger. but we didn't have to get such feeble versions! there is a world of difference between "these boots are made for walking" that i can hardly believe h/d/h were even in the studio for, and the tops "if i were a carpenter" and "walk away renée" that almost feel as if the songwriting trio wrote them!

[mysterysinger]

I would agree with all of that.

Many of the covers were not my faves [[just my taste) whereas, "Walk Away Renee" is up there amongst my favourite Four Tops songs. Could be that HDH delegated some of the production at times. R Dean Taylor who sometimes contributes to the Motown Forum could have more info on that perhaps?

[thisoldheart]

r. dean taylor of "there's a ghost in my house" fame posts here!?! jeez, he wrote that with h/d/h! i would love to talk with him for about a week straight! someone needs to get these stories written down. we aren't getting any younger! and yes, both of those tops cover 45's are among my top faves. along with "there's a ghost in my house" hint, hint!

[roger]

I'm a big admirer of the Tops versions of "If I Were A Carpenter" and "Walk Away Renee", but to me both of those songs were arranged to sound very different from previous versions, and I would say a lot of thought was put into them.

In contrast "These Boots", "I'm A Believer", "Last Train To Clarksville" and a few other of the less successful remakes just seemed to be thrown together with similar arrangements and tempos to the well known hit versions.

Roger

[thisoldheart]

yup, you are absolutely right, roger. and they are an anomouly. motown rarely releases a 45 cover unless it was their own, and when they did they changed up the version with an entire new sound. oh, one other thing about that "supremes a go-go" l.p. - not only did they put "boots" but "hang on sloopy" is on it to add insult to injury!

h/d/h had to be taking a cigarette break during those two fiascos, cuz the rest of the record still plays well. for some reason i think both of those cuts are at the end of each side. they must have been embarrassed and hoped we would take the needle off the last track and turn it over, quick! HA!

[144man]

But H/D/H had nothing to do with "Boots". The track was cut in LA and completed in at Hitsville in May 1966. The producers are now known to have been Frank Wilson and Hal Davis. "Hang on Sloopy" was also produced by Wilson & Davis.

[thisoldheart]

oops! thought the actual album said it was an h/d/h production. none the less, why put two duds by other producers on an otherwise good album. certainly h/d/h could have whipped up two more motown covers and kept the album consistent!

[roger]

oops! thought the actual album said it was an h/d/h production. none the less, why put two duds by other producers on an otherwise good album. certainly h/d/h could have whipped up two more motown covers and kept the album consistent!

Well .. we now know there was something waiting in the vaults that would have been perfect for "Supremes-A-Go-Go" .. their wonderful version of "In My Lonely Room" ..

Here it is ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbewSLtehmw

Maybe H-D-H were a bit miffed by the sub-standard remakes from other producers and complained to Mr Gordy .. as a few months later America got the "Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland" L.P. [[known in Britain as "The Supremes Sing Motown").

Roger

[144man]

oops! thought the actual album said it was an h/d/h production. none the less, why put two duds by other producers on an otherwise good album. certainly h/d/h could have whipped up two more motown covers and kept the album consistent!

The album might well have just credited Holland and Dozier as producers. I can't check at the moment. However it was common practice at Motown at the time to only credit on the album sleeves and labels the producer with the majority of tracks. The real producers of the minority tracks only became known when they appeared on singles or as a result of Motown's reissue program.

Incidentally, I can't think of any Motown record where production was attributed to HDH, only to H&D. I don't believe Eddie ever got a credit.

[huntergettingcaptured]

This Old Miner-

I can see I did jump the tracks! [[I need to get back to work- too much time off makes me a grouch)

You make a great point about the singles being released in a way that created a unified and cohesive body.

I'm humbly eating my Humble Pie!

[thisoldheart]

by 1967 the beatles, stones, kinks, even dusty had put important cohesive albums together. it took until 1971 for marvin gaye and stevie wonder to do so.

my main point was not to belabor motown's uneven work with albums, but to say their real talent was in releasing groups of cohesive sounding singles [[and not repetitive ones as often a complaint about motown) check out my original post at the top of this thread.

[soulster]

seems like the beatles and rolling stones managed from early on to make cohesive albums. they didn't throw in fiiler material. that wasn't motown's method. the singles were their bread and butter. some complain about the repetition. i don't see it that way. each single compliments the prior release and create mini suites or symphonies with complimentary movements. think of this almost 20 minute sound suite: reach out, standing in the shadows, bernadette, & 7 rooms. or going to a-go-go, whole lotta shakin', & come round here. so, although motown is frequently weak in the album department - what in the heck is "these boots are made for walking" doing on the otherwise very passable "supremes a go-go" lp? Motown more than makes up for it with their bread and butter singles. i just charted out all od h/d/h's singles by recording date. what a perfectly sublime set of singles without hardly a miss. that is the motown magic in a nutshell for me. i get so frustrated with the album that will throw in a song by different producer, sound, and usually a from a few years earlier. it is so dang jarring to my testy ears! it's all in the singles!

Albums just weren't part of Motown's grand scheme of things until they got a clue in the 70s. And back in the 60s, it was very, very common for artists to do hits made famous by other artists. IMO, the first cohesive Motown album was "The Supremes-A-Go-Go", followed by The Temptations' "With A Lot Of Soul", The Four Tops' "To Top", and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "Make It Happen".

The soul music market was all about the 45 RPM single up until the early 70s, a few years after the rock market had turned on to albums, by The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beatles, notwithstanding hit soul artists like Aretha Franklin, The Isley Brothers, Jerry Butler, and Sly & The Family Stone. Soul moving into album territory was partly due to the emergence of FM radio and increased economic power. Hard rock had a powerful influence on Black artists like George Clinton and the Isley Brothers. Jimi Hendrix showed that Blacks could be accepted into the rock world. Motown held the line against that for as long as they could, and that singles mentality even took out bands like Rare Earth. Too bad they didn't have Marvin Gaye's or Stevie Wonder's clout.

Oh, this thread was about followup hits. What annoyed me about Motown were the hits that were rewrites, like "I Can't Help Myself"/"It's the Same Old Song" or "I'll be There"/"Standing In the Shadow Of Love". The one thing The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones never did was duplicate a song for the sake of trying to get a hit.

[psychedelic jacques]

From a slightly different angle, I'm often intrigued about soundalikes that were never released, which were perhaps recorded on a premise that there was a ready-made follow up if the previous single hit big. For example, I always think of Marvin Gaye's wonderful 'Baby I'm Glad That Things Worked Out So Well' as the single that would have followed up 'Take This Heart Of Mine' if that single had been top 5 pop, say. In practise, it was an average sized hit and 'Baby i'm Glad' was vaulted for 30-odd years as a result.

Similarly, I wonder whether Martha's 'Spellbound' would have got a 45 release if 'Livewire' and 'In My Lonely Room' had also hit top 10, or whether 4 soundalikes in a row [[after 'Heatwave' and 'Quicksand') was mining that vein as far as it would go in any case.

[144man]

by 1967 the beatles, stones, kinks, even dusty had put important cohesive albums together. it took until 1971 for marvin gaye and stevie wonder to do so.

Don't forget the Four Tops "Still Waters Run Deep" in 1970, which I consider to be Motown's first "concept album".

Also I should have mentioned in post #11 above that many Motown albums don't mention a producer at all.

[144man]

Similarly, I wonder whether Martha's 'Spellbound' would have got a 45 release if 'Livewire' and 'In My Lonely Room' had also hit top 10, or whether 4 soundalikes in a row [[after 'Heatwave' and 'Quicksand') was mining that vein as far as it would go in any case.

"Spellbound" is a weird one. My ears tell me that it's Holland-Dozier-Holland, but the records show that it was written and produced by Smokey Robinson. If the "Heatwave" soundalikes had been more successful, Motown would have stayed with HDH, so "Spellbound" was destined not to be a single whatever happened.

[144man]

Oh, this thread was about followup hits. What annoyed me about Motown were the hits that were rewrites, like "I Can't Help Myself"/"It's the Same Old Song" or "I'll be There"/"Standing In the Shadow Of Love". The one thing The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones never did was duplicate a song for the sake of trying to get a hit.

We all hear things differently. They may have been rewrites, but to my ears "It's the Same Old Song " is a stronger melody than "I Can't Help Myself". "Standing In the Shadows of Love" contains a change in tempo which makes it completely different to "Reach Out".

If anything, "I Can't Help Myself" is a rewrite...of "Where Did Our Love Go".

[smark21]

I prefer It's the same old song to I Can't Help Myself. The sugar pie honey bunch lyric is very annoying.

[soulster]

We all hear things differently. They may have been rewrites, but to my ears "It's the Same Old Song " is a stronger melody than "I Can't Help Myself". "Standing In the Shadows of Love" contains a change in tempo which makes it completely different to "Reach Out".

If anything, "I Can't Help Myself" is a rewrite...of "Where Did Our Love Go".


I prefer the former because it has a more soulful vocal performance.

[platters81]

I prefer It's the same old song to I Can't Help Myself. The sugar pie honey bunch lyric is very annoying.i love it.....i used to sing it to my ex.....oops that explains;);)

[mysterysinger]

Seems it was quite some time ago that R Dean Taylor was on the Forum..........
http://faac.us/adf/messages/109997/114055.html?1158641216

I must have a better memory than I thought.

[psychedelic jacques]

Whilst not actually a motown follow-up, I've ben YouTube-ing some of the Isley Bros t-neck singles tonight that i'd never heard before, and came across 'Bless Your Heart' - I think it is the most blatant and closest "carbon copy" follow-up [to It's Your Thing] that i've ever heard - although it was actually issued four singles after its parent song!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey6CdDwh9g8

[Constantin]

seems like the beatles and rolling stones managed from early on to make cohesive albums. [...]*motown is frequently weak in the album department [...]. i get so frustrated with the album that will throw in a song by different producer, sound, and usually a from a few years earlier.

Many US companies have released old material previously recorded on their singer new lp's, and not only during the 60's: check Aretha Franklin's recordings on Columbia and Atlantic for instance. If I recall it correctly, the entire*Young, gifted & black, released in 1972, was a collection of 1970-1971 leftovers. Casablanca did the same for Donna Summer: "Last dance" and "Je t'aime [[moi non plus)" were released more than a year after they have been recorded.

[Constantin]

seems like the beatles and rolling stones managed from early on to make cohesive albums.*[...]*motown is frequently weak in the album department*[...]*i get so frustrated with the album that will throw in a song by different producer, sound, and usually a from a few years earlier. it is so dang jarring to my testy ears! it's all in the singles!


Motown wasn't the only one and another example is Scepter with the Dionne Warwick albums. Since the average buyer didn't seem to care, full credits seldom appear on the lp sleeve. Worst, sometimes a producer is listed as producer of the entire album when it wasn't. I'm thinking of five songs on Anyone who had a heart produced by unknown producers and not by Bacharach and David [[«Shall I tell her», «Getting ready for the heartbreak», «Oh Lord, what are you doing to me», «Mr heartbreak» and «Put yourself in my place»). Besides, «Shall I tell her» wasn't recorded during theoses sessions but one year before.

Generally, there isn't any information: for instance, who produced her gospel album? Since all those information were considered "kitchen secrets", record companies had all the freedom to sell lp's that were merely assemblages.

For the listener, at the time, it did not seem to be very important; is it for us now, but we are collectors.