https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbWRrcn4Tio
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It would have been a HUGE hit with just a little promotion from Motown.
Love it. Martha = gorgeous. And - the voice.
It may have been a hit anywhere else but Motown.Quote:
Originally Posted by motony
Martha looks nice here. She doesn’t sound good. I had no idea she started singing like that, at least as far back as 1970.
I dislike the song but adore the flip, Love, Guess Who, by an unusual writer-production team of Clarence Paul [[surely his last hoorah at Motown) and Ernie Shelby, later a key figure at Solar Records
https://youtu.be/5I9VyX5aolQ
What a great find, I remember seeing them on the Saturday morning tv show Cass Elliot hosted and they did this song there.
No, this was not single material. But just watching those Vandellas and that great Cholly Atkins choreography is worth it.
Saturday morning? Was this song appropriate for children? I think the message is a bit heavy for breakfast.
Excellent perfoprmance and a great message. Thank you for this gem Reese.
Fondly,
Roberta
Two Great sides, "Love Guess Who" stunning!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKF24Ju5iQc
I think this was a case where the idea was a little better than the execution. Other artists [[Motown and non) were getting big hits with protest and socially-conscious songs, and this could have been one of those hits. Not quite sure what was missing and why it didn't hit bigger, but nice effort.
An earlier song Forget Me Not had a similar message and was a much better song, yet it was only a B side here in the US. These things are just hard to figure sometimes.
A song about a woman whose boyfriend gets KIA in Vietnam didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell as far as becoming a major hit. Several stations wouldn’t even play it because of the subject matter. It’s a miracle Motown even released it, never mind modestly chart.
Seems live , and yet there's an odd edit at 2:04, the whole town to came to praise him...
The randomness of the street clothes ....not good, when you're doing tight choreography [of which seem out of step with the lyrics here] matching outfits help to unify the group effect.
Martha is singing live to the track. At 2:04, she meant to sing "The whole town came to praise him," but added an extra "to".Quote:
Originally Posted by Boogiedown
I'm not familiar with the show but it seems rather casual, hence them wearing street clothes. They did another performance at I assume was the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3loco0vxQZg
I like this one, sort of a protest song in itself...a good one from the vandellas.
Great performance!
I never thought this song sounded like it had a chance. The flip, on the other hand, should have been the A side. I play "Love Guess Who" regularly.
I agree with you on that David. While "I Should Be Proud" has a great performance from Martha Reeves [as always], the song itself is not that memorable. And yes, anti war protest songs were big in the early '70s but they had to have memorable song hooks as well as great lyrics [such examples of this are Edwin Starr's "War" or Freda Payne's "Bring The Boys Home"].Quote:
Originally Posted by daviddesper
PS: I also think that Martha & Co.'s "Forget My Not" is a much better song than "I Should Be Proud" and should've been the A side of "I Promise To Wait My Love".
Quote:
Originally Posted by reese
that's hilarious ...what's the name of the show, COME AS YOU ARE .....now ladies and gentlemen, here they are .... fresh off the streets of Milwaukee, The Spinners!!
So everyone seems to be up in arms over the street clothes the group is wearing. I'm not sure how many were teenagers back when this was shot, but look at the audience; these are teenagers, probably college students. I'm not speaking with any kind of certainty, but my guess is many of the kids around this time were NOT into high-end fashion, not into glitz and glam. These kids are of the age that were rebelling against what they saw as ANY kind of phony appearances and stances. These kids were into much hipper fashions than sparkly evening gowns and matching dresses. I'm a strange bird who reads a lot of the fan mags and more mainstream magazines like LIFE and EBONY from that era and you'll find teenagers and college kids wanted nothing of the plastic world of their parents and were being very vocal about it. Again, I'm just speculating, but I'm looking at the kids' dress and I'm thinking maybe Martha and Co. were trying to appeal to this new generation by wearing the funkier, "hipper", non-matching fashions.
well I was a teen back then & Martha & the Vandellas were always real cool.....they were NOT the Supremes especially LIVE.
LOL if you really want to hear a good Martha blooper, watch she and the Vandellas on the Mike Douglas Show on YouTube. They open with Feeling Good, then Martha solos on Didn't We, after an interview they did Les Bicyclettes De Belsize. This is the infamous performance where Martha forgets the lyrics to the latter song. In her book she blamed her fights with Betty Kelly, but Kelly had been gone for over 2 years before this performance.
The real chuckle is when Martha begins Didn't We. She says "Didn't we almost make the PISSES fit?" She then hurries and corrects her error to say pieces. Oh well Martha, we all enjoy making a piss fit.
Yeah, that is a tough performance to watch. You could tell Martha was embarrassed.Quote:
Originally Posted by BayouMotownMan
As far as this performance, I like the street clothes, which seem a little more "hip" than some of The Supremes' matching outfits around this time. Tight choreography too. I've always been a fan of Lois and Sandra. Glad me have such a clear copy of this lineup performing together.
And finally, "Forget Me Not" and "Love, Guess Who" most certainly should have been A-side singles.
"Forget Me Not" WAS the intended "A " side as the follow=up to "Honey Chile"[[same writer/producer) I never understood how it got flipped to "I Promise To Wait My Love"...
No matter what the lyrical quality, no matter personal appearances, no matter how heavy the promotion, a song of this quality was never going to be a hit - no hooks, just plodding along
This wouldn't have been a hit even with promotion. There's no hook or anything that grabs you. This was part of the stream of poor choices for singles Motown selected for the group. I sometimes wonder if it was on purpose. I would have easily swapped "Earthquake" in its place as the A-side. It's a far better song that ended up in the can for reasons unknown.
It's also more than a bit crass to commercially hawk a single using this fake first-person account about a very real and painful issue for many at the time .
The casual clothes are OK .....but even casual clothes could be worn more thoughtfully without this random appearing combination. It's the contrived body motions that don't work with the clothing or suit the seriousness of the song imo.
Maybe they should've dimmed the studio for this one ...and just put Martha up front with the other two in the shadows.
I lived at the time with 2 very close cousins in the army in Viet Nam & they & their buddies LOVED the record & Martha Reeves. My family in Florida & Montgomery, Al. LOVED their performance.Even Marthas' "I Gotta Let You Go" was a hit in Montgomery, Al.
Ah.....now someone else has matched a thought which has indeed crossed my own mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradsupremes
A funkier band track, to more appropriately underscore Martha's biting vocal might have proved more effective. And also wipe or recut those spoken words because, for me, Martha uses an awkward, 'uppity' tone with her voice, rather than sounding genuinely angry and/or heartbroken.
But whoever at Motown really did think that a protest song involving a death in service would ever work, let alone sell, when it features overblown, soaring strings, topped and overpowered by a heavenly, romantic female chorus.....?
Unless, possibly it was thought "Well, the idea worked before, with 'I'm Living In Shame..." - ?
Whatever the reason, the final result is so clumsy and bizarre, it does come uncomfortably close to outright parody...
Perhaps if there were a purpose to it and a sticker on each label that said, "all proceeds from the money generated off this record will go to funding veteran's hospitals".... I'd share their enthusiasm .... uh, but then watching it again, no.
The upbeat tempo and the prancing and dancing to it are way off base imo, sorry.
added: just read westgrandboulevards post above and I concur, it could be parody, and since it isn't, I'd also file this under 'bizarre'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradsupremes
Totally agree, Earthquake could have been a hit
Just some more thoughts:
I like that piano at the beginning.... even though it is a tad too prominently heard over Martha's vocal....and so I tend to listen for it, and not Martha....
I like the socking drum beat....
And the mono version does not feature what sounds like a bad edit around 2.34 ....'oh'..oh'....on the most often available stereo version. And, of course, my ear just listens out for it....:rolleyes:
There are elements in there which could have made for a much more distinctive production, and for all the right reasons.
As it is, it does seem many would consider this as one of their least favourite of Martha's singles.....
.
Forget Me Not was an A side in the UK... and reached No. 11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZpI8e30-To
I'm starting to get it ....there ain't nothing these girls won't dance to. War, natural disasters, global warming ....
a lot of Honey Cone to them ....grand larceny , terrorism ....:eek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pivSCYb1kBc
its all good!!
Lois and Sandy really make these performances pop. While I understand these are "statement songs", they're just too depressing, and honestly, boring. When you think of the Vandellas, you think of upbeat songs. The lyrics are deep, and while I can appreciate the sentiment, it's hard to sell a product that you can't dance to. Can you imagine how this would have went over on SOUL TRAIN? I guess I'm also not a fan of "street clothes". When you see Motown, you expect glamour, sequins, sparkle.
Well, AMEN! to every word said right there....Quote:
Originally Posted by marybrewster
But still.... that said...and in thinking about it even more.....
If Martha had been asked to give 'I Should Be Proud' a try, taken very much slower, no histrionics, intimate and introspectively, the way that Nina Simone might have done, with just a piano, bass and drum.....IMO it could have made its mark far more effectively. Less would have been more.
Still in no way suitable for a single, but just maybe a distinctive album track, as a showcase for Martha's solo voice....