The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 1 45 dubs

[Tamla Junkie]

Hello all,

Does anyone know why the compilers of the The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 1 used dubs from 45s for so many of the tracks? The sound quality is kind of all over the place. I don't want anyone to think I'm being critical for the sake of being critical; the compilers did an amazing job in general and I'm sure they did the very best they could with what they had available. The singles collection is still the easiest and least expensive access to 99.99% of Motown's output we have and it's proven invaluable to me in cases where my copy of a single is in a typical VD or Very Detroit [[read: trashed) condition.

That said, I bought the set for my father when it first came out and he was a wee bit disappointed in the first box. He dubbed all of his copies of the '59-'62 singles onto Fidelipacs when they were new[[er) in the 60s and 70s, so we've both been spoiled by superior sound in that regard.

Was this stuff taped over? Did it get lost in the move to the Donovan building, or LA? Did they "walk off" at some point à la Hoffman and the Buddy Holly and Ray Charles tapes?

Just curious,
Ben

[keith_hughes]

Vinyl was a last resort in all cases, Ben, I assure you. The Motown "tape library" didn't come into existence until Billy Jean Brown joined the company in 1961, and I expect the original tapes of those tracks were lost before then - sent to pressing plants and never returned. The only one I can remember finding was Barrett Strong's "Let's Rock", and in that case the tape was irreparably damaged.

Billy Jean made an heroic effort to hunt down all the original tapes: early in 1964, she had Columbia return ALL the tapes they'd ever had from Motown that they still possessed. But Columbia wasn't the only plant Motown used in the early days: see the notes at the end of TCMS Volume 12B for a list as complete as we could make it.

[Tamla Junkie]

Thank you Mr. Hughes! That certainly explains quite a bit. I imagine the folks at Motown in '59 had neither the foresight nor the budget to keep safeties the way EMI did with the Beatles. Who could have possibly known that Motown was going to alter American music the way it did? It's a shame too as the Motown catalog is much richer than anything put out by the Fab Four.

Just out of curiousity, are there any singles for which even Motown doesn't have, or didn't have, a vinyl copy available and a collector's single had to be relied upon?

I apologize for being somewhat nosey, I just find the whole project fascinating. I have tremendous respect for you guys, especially after being taken to the cleaners a few times by record dealers while trying to complete my set of the '59-'62 singles on vinyl.

[keith_hughes]

All the vinyl was sourced from collectors' copies. I think there are a few of mine in there, though I don't remember which.

The Motown vinyl library was plundered more than 20 years ago, I think before Universal inherited it from Polygram. We're lucky so much of the paperwork is still around.

[Tamla Junkie]

The Motown vinyl library was plundered more than 20 years ago, I think before Universal inherited it from Polygram. We're lucky so much of the paperwork is still around.

That is terribly sad...

[jboy88]

So Billie Jean Brown is to thank for all of these great recordings that are still turning up some 50 years later. Without her, they all might be lost forever.