Stevie Wonder - Early Classics

Working on the next version of DFTMC, I'm trying to reduce the number of CDs listed, or Ritchie's gonna take a year to format it all.

I decided that the Spectrum [[UK) Early Classics series was disposable. Interesting though the volumes were at the time, they've mostly been superceded now, and they're not all still in print. And they didn't include any songs, or versions of songs, that hadn't been previously released ... or so I thought.

Then I started looking at the Stevie Wonder volume. To my surprise, it contains four tracks - "Ain't That Love", "Frankie And Johnny", "Mary Ann", and "My Baby's Gone" - from Tribute To Uncle Ray ... in stereo! Although a stereo version of this album was prepared in 1965, it was never released, and the stereo masters have remained vaulted since then. The stereo album finally "appeared" on the iTunes "Complete Stevie Wonder" project in 2005 [[see http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the...der/id81078306 ), but that's never had a CD release.

Does anyone know of anywhere else where these tracks have appeared in stereo?

Does anyone know of any other tracks [[by any artist) that appeared first on the Early Classics series?

Keith

I can't comment on Stevie's Early Classics, but the edition for Martha Reeves & the Vandellas is the only one to feature the as released version of Never Leave Your Baby's Side. Cary Mansfield who produced Live Wire: Deliver the Singles was caught by surprise on this one. If anybody ever listens to me, please issue a stereo version of the song.

These releases still retain a bit of significance.

Gordon Frewin [[the Motown Label manager for gawd knows how many years) put that set together. He's meticulous about details on recordings. Your question about other artists is not clear. Do you mean as in putting the song out for the first time on CD? I'd have to remind myself what was on them but I can recall talking to Gordon about first time CD tracks and the one that that springs to mind immediately is Gladys Knight's The Lonely Heart and the Lonely Eyes Of Lonely Me.

Nabob, you'll have to hope a stereo version exists otherwise you'll only get it if it is newly mixed. It always struck me as strange that the song was not called "Watch Out" which would have tied in very nicely with the Vandellas album of that title.

Keith,

Tribute To Uncle Ray was first released in stereo in France in 1978. The three cd edtions for this album use the stereo master [[French Lucky Sounds 530 449-2 and subsequent US Master Series with alternative art, both in 2005, and the 2008 SHM Japanese paper sleeve)

In fact, the original mono mix of the album doesn't exist on cd

Early Classics contains "Beyond the Sea" and "Ebb Tide" from Stevie At The Beach which were unreleased on cd before, but the album appeared in 2008 in Japan as a SHM stereo cd.
Once again, the album was first released in stereo in France in 1978 and all its tracks that made it to cd later made it in stereo [["Hey Harmonica Man", "Castles In The Sand" and "Sad Boy" on the European Greatest Hits and "Happy Street" on Essential Stevie Wonder, which also contains "Don't You Feel It")

Another album released in France in 1978 in stereo is "The Jazz Soul Of Little Stevie" although this one has to see a stereo cd release
And that album is much better in stereo than in mono, "Some Other Time" for one has the harmonica and guitar burried with echo in the mono mix whereas its clear as a bell in stereo, making the moni mix unlistenable when you have heard the stereo

Early Classics saw the first cd release of "Monkey Talk" and "Little Water Boy", the latter being the promo mix

As it remains the sole cd by Stevie to contain these tracks, I consider this cd one not to miss anyway

John and Nabob, as for the Martha and Gladys collections, I assume you're refferring to the Master Series cds, which not only contain tracks unavailable elsewhere, but have the most dynamic sonic quality ever. In fact, even when a remaster of one of this track has been released afterwards, the Master Series cds still sounds far better and punchier to me, and these 1997 cds are still unbeaten today imho.

JB

keith if i remember there was a version of i had a dream on the shorty long ,different from the version on the hipo complete singles, i think, yes they had somr good stuff on that serirs, have them all.by the way what is dftmc,,cheers.

For those that don't post...JB-P is a bona fide member of "There aint much I dont know about Motown" club. In fact he might be member number one! LOL

Honest man.....dftmc stands for "Don't Forget The Motor City".......is it ringing any bells yet....have a look on all those cd's you've been buying for the past x number of years..! Maybe it's a bit early in the morning! LOL

ha john you are so right, the penny has dropped, john while you are here the pontins weekender has prices for chalets etc, does this include admission, can't see nothing about that, would you let me know, cheers

JB-P

Of course, you're absolutely right about Master Series being slightly different to Early Classics. Gordon didn't want two lots of Early Classics by the same artist and didn't care for Early Classics 2, 3, 4 etc. So he [[and his team!) came up with Master Series and changed the logo and a few other things. They were all put together around about the same time though.

As I say, Gordon is meticulous about his work and has one of the best ears I know for achieving ace sound quality. His work set a high standard of quality for future Motown product. You have to get up real early in the morning to catch him out. Mind you, I still tease him about STML 11278 listing the Velelettes when it should have been the Marvelettes.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MOTOWN-DISCO-C...23645701015336

Did you read the liner notes in the Marvin & Tammi set? The less said about that, the better!

Honest men

I think it does include admission. Previously it has been like that. John would be a better person than me to confirm that. I'll ask him to check out this thread for you. However, give him a little time. I happen to know he's writing a bio for the Velvelettes in the weekender booklet and I don't want him having any interrruptions whilst he's preparing the masterpiece he's gonna provide us all with at Prestatyn.

And that reminds me, I have to remind Paul Nixon to bring his camera and the ladies to bring a few different gowns. When they were last at Pontins in Hemsby, the ladies came into my chalet and we did the photo session that produced this picture. You'd nener know there was a HUGE wardrobe on the right of Cal and they were sitting/resting on the back of a sofa. HAHA

In all seriousnes, I really hope you will go cos I will really be looking forward to actually meeting you.

RE : ... while you are here the pontins weekender has prices for chalets etc, does this include admission, can't see nothing about that, would you let me know ....
The Prestatyn Weekender chalet price is the "ALL IN' price.
For this price you get into the site, parking, chalet accommodation, printed programme [[with bio's by yours truly) & wrist band allowing entrance into all 4 dance rooms [[both Tavares & the Velvelettes will be performing in the main room, whilst the Modern Soul act will be performing in the 'tented' room).
Only extras you need to pay for are ..... food, DRINK and electricity tokens if you don't get a 'higher grade' chalet.

If you watch this video ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq1BgXxthWk .... then ....
The stage that Chuck Jackson is performing on is the main room stage [[Angelo Starr's band were performing in the 'Commercial Soul' room not being used for a live act this time) and you also get to see the modern soul 'tented' room in the video.
HOPE THAT HELPS.

yes john i will be going. look forward to see you, im a bit worse for wear today, there was a gay pride festival, the first one in liver pool yesterday 70 bands , brilliant i am knackered anyway thanks for the info john, cheers

John,
... my bio on the Velvelettes will be a feeble effort.
The Legends & Motown printed programme is a small A5 format affair [[see opening to video posted above) & each artist only gets one page for their bio.
So I have to keep the bio down to around 600 words or the font size is so small that nobody can read it [[last year, I wrote the Chuck Jackson bio for the web site & they forgot to ask me for a 'condensed' version in time. So the full bio went into the programme at a tiny font size that was impossible to read without a magnifying glass).

Honest Men

Clearly John has telepathy, I've only just sent him the message asking him to come on here and help out. So don't think about him anymore today until he's done that Velvelettes bio! LOL

It tends to be a good laugh and it's not often old fogeys like me get a day out like this. Make sure you let the organisers know what songs you want the ladies to sing...and do it now so that there's time for the ladies to relearn the songs. The last time at Hemsby, we were in Milly and Norma's chalet practising "Beat Around the Bush" and "My Ship Of Love Is Sinking" with Lala Brooks helping out. The ladies didn't get to perform those songs on that trip though. Mind you, on second thoughts, I'd forget asking for "My Ship Of Love Is Sinking". One of the ladies will lay into me if that happens. LOL Cal will be over the moon if you ask for Twilite Time or Bring Back The Sunshine.

I'm glad you went to Pride...is that what they call it these days. That's a big step for Liverpool. When Clone Zone was just a stall, we were always nervous about Liverpool.....those Liverpudlians were TOUGH! We used to have a fab time in a place near to Liverpool called New Brighton; it wasn't the one down south in Sussex. I got some memories that I wouldn't mind re-visiting from those days. hehe

John

Your heart is in the right place. That is more than enough for me and the ladies.

john i would love the velvelettes to sing TWILIGHT TIME ,love it , New Brighton is 15 mins from me, nothing like it;s glory days, but still good big regeneration on there,at moment. you are a good laugh John speak later ,off to bed, shattered cheers.

Thanks for all these answers, including the ones that are, um, slightly unrelated to the question! [[But it's a GREAT pleasure to have a picture of Bertha flashing that coy over-the-shoulder smile on my very first thread on the new forum!).

The scope for DFTMC is "from the beginning" to the end of 1972. Only post-1972 45s and LPs that contained something never previously issued [[including alternate versions/mixes) are shown. But up till now, we've always shown all the CDs that we knew about. To make the website manageable, we now want to restrict the CDs in the same way, to just those that contained something new, although I expect we'll include some recent CDs [[such as the Miracles' Depend On Me) which contained nothing new but are nonetheless significant, in our opinion. How many and which is still to be decided.

Otherwise, we may find the entry for "Baby Love" extending over several pages!

Hey JB, what are these Master Series you speak of? Are you refering to the 20th Century Master/Millenium Collection CD's?

mr-postman

here is one from the series...forgive the opening picture on this site...it's a bit blatant for this time of day for me

http://flageolette.blogspot.com/2009...mpilation.html

Blimey Johnny - you on the turn?!

Turn! Who me! I wouldn't know how to!

I'm too old for all that now...and come to think of it, so are you!

LOL

These are the Master Series I'm talking about.
They were released in France -most of them- with the same catalogue number as in the rest of Europe albeit with a white art instead of the black one. My J5 cd is the french one. Makes me think I still have to get the black art one... :)

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JB-P

Have you got another house to store these CD's. You're worse than me!

Your carpet is cleaner than mine too..I can't even see mine for CD's