These "OTHER" Expanded Editions

[kenneth]

I honestly don´t believe anyone buying these bootlegs is not someone who has already spent quite a lot of money on the officially available releases from the artists.

I have about 600 Diana/The Supremes CD´s and yes some of them are bootlegs. But I own several different official releases of each release [[including every Diana/The Supremes album and every compilation I have gotten my hands on), so the unofficial ones are just for my collection.

I truly think that most fans bought, say, the Funny Girl CD when it was finally officially released - even if they had a bootleg previously [[I know I did).

Bottom line: the artists are only truly losing out when the owners of the masters refuse to officially release them. The fact that Funny Girl and Merry Christmas were recently released gives some hope for the future.

Very true at least in my case. I probably played the vinyl edition of "Funny Girl" maybe once or twice. I purchased the downloads when they became available, then I purchased Ben's 2-disc bootleg, and yes, then I purchased the official ultimate edition.

In any event, I have no guilt whatsoever. To me, it's all about the music.

Someone mentioned that Ben may have been imprisoned. I never heard that, though it's probably been 2 years since I had any contact with him. Last I heard [[from him) was he was working out some sort of plea deal to avoid prosecution. I'd be shocked to learn he may have actually been tried and convicted, but I have no knowledge either way.

I thought his greatest effort was the entire catalog of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. All the albums were presented plus the "Live at the Copa." Most were 2-CD editions, though not so much the later ones. Each of the early albums had the Mono/Stereo versions of the album [[even the official "Live" album), and most included a 2nd disc of hard to find rarities. I'm sure most of the rarities were released by Hip-O on various releases, such as their "Spellbound," the 3rd disk in the 50th Anniversary set, and across multiple "Motown Connossieurs" [[sp?) or other vault compilations. But having all the rarities in a series devoted to Martha and the Vandellas makes them more accessible. For whatever reason, when these rarities are presented as part of a box set [[such as with the Marvelettes) I tend to forget about them unless I'm playing the entire set. Silly, I know.

At one time, he was considering doing the same with the Marvelettes catalog, but I discouraged him even though they are my favorite Motown group, because their "lost and found" tracks are virtually all contained on 2 discs within the 2 box sets, though a couple sneaked out later in some of the Ace/Kent issues. So to present them again seemed unnecessary. The Vandellas' catalog was much more scattered across many different releases, including many various artist comps, so I welcomed having them more or less in one place [[series, that is). I suppose it would have been nice to have the Mono/Stereo versions of the early Marvelettes' albums. I believe that the 90s [[or was it 80s?) reissue of the "Please Mr. Postman" LP was in true Stereo; I'm unsure about the single CD issues of "Playboy" [[I think there was one) or "Marvelous" [[I know there was one). To my knowledge, we never got a CD issue of "Smash Hits of '62," though I believe there's a Japanese issue coming out soon. Of course, the Hip-O 2nd box set included both Mono/Stereo versions of "The Marvelettes" [[pink album) and "Sophisticated Soul" [[whose Mono was a DJ-only promo).

From this topic coming up many times, I'm sure many have different thoughts about the ethics of such things, but as I'm fond of pointing out, just how long did we wait for the Blinky release? I don't have another 50 years to wait!