The Underdogs "If You Don't Want My Love"

My favourite Motown earworm right now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=h_Aacm6rWv0

I always thought Motown should have persevered a bit more with the Underdogs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 144man

I always thought Motown should have persevered a bit more with the Underdogs.

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I don't think the company had much planned for the group. As they'd done with quite a few acts,they signed them to keep them quiet. As Motown was the biggest game in town, Berry Gordy hated when his well established acts had to compete with local talent that had a great following, but with small hits or none at all. The great majority of the eighteen or so tracks they recorded are cover songs,so I think that explains it. We have all, but three: a cover of "Shake And Fingerpop", a cover of "Function At The Junction", and one other one that I have the title for, but won't say because I don't want to post rumors as opposed to facts.

I seem to remember someone at Motown saying that they were very young and that great things were expected of them. My favourite of their covers is their version of "The Way You Do the Things You Do".

What about "Just Walk In My Shoes" ?

The only thing that bugged me about groups like the Underdogs was how Motown would basically supplant the actual group and use the Funk Brothers to supply the music and then use no one but the lead singer backed by The Originals. Don't get me wrong, the music sounded great, but you didn't get a sense of what the actual group's identity was.

Motown did the same thing with Jr. Walker. The early things were the actual All-Stars, but increasingly, The Funk Brothers were brought in to do the backing tracks. Bobby Taylor's Vancouvers also faced the same fate. Yes, it produced fantastic results, but again, the group lost a bit of its identity.

Motown wasn't the only company to do this. If I'm correct, the same thing was done with Gary Lewis's Playboys on albums and Brian Wilson turned more and more to the Wrecking Crew to fully realize his musical vision with the Beach Boys' albums.