Originally Posted by
Sotosound
PS I do believe that the vast bulk of the female vocals on the new tracks on Easy are Valerie's, but I also believe Valerie when she says that Tammi is singing on the album.
Tammi has a rawness and nasality to her voice whereas Valerie's voice is smoother-sounding, and the nasality sounds largely 'put-on'.
Valerie's voice and singing style can, therefore, be distinguished from Tammi's.
Also, there might be only a few lines sung by Tammi, but that would be enough to avoid any legal stuff and to make what Valerie said essentially true.
[Let's be honest, Syreeta was sometimes almost consigned to the role of guest vocalist on her early albums but no-one batted an eyelid.]
Also, I do hear what you're saying about the limitations of 8-track, but Motown did manage to get Marvin onto two Tammi solo tracks, and they also managed to re-use all sorts of backing tracks for all sorts of artists, so dropping [punching] in the best bits that Tammi could manage - and these would have been few - onto the new tracks on Easy was technically 'Easy', even back in 1969-70. Weaving together two female vocal tracks would have been rather harder, however, and would have sounded really weird.
[I must admit, however, that I suspect that these recordings were made using a 16-track machine as Motown went 16-track in 1968, and the new tracks on Easy just don't have the old 8-track sound, which I associate more closely with Classic Motown.]