Martha Reeves - "Now That We Found Love"

[mysterysinger]

Martha in a bit of a Philly groove on her album "The Rest Of My Life". An expanded version of the album was issued on CD by Funky Town Grooves in 2014 [[whatever happened to them?). Not a Motown release, of course, but there can't be too many people more Motown than Martha.

01 Higher And Higher 3:35
02 [[I Want To Be With You) The Rest Of My Life 4:55
03 Second Chance 3:34
04 This Time I'll Be Sweeter 3:57
05 Love Blind 3:44
06 Thank You 4:51
07 Now That We Found Love 4:28
08 Love Strong Enough To Move Mountains 5:38
09 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' 4:30

Bonus Tracks:
10 [[I Want To Be With You) The Rest Of My Life [[7" Version) 3:27
11 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' [[7" Version) 3:37
12 Thank You [[7" Version) 5:06
13 Love Strong Enough To Move Mountains [[7" Mix) 3:49
14 Now That We Found Love [[7" Mix) 3:29
15 [[I Want To Be With You) The Rest Of My Life [[Alternate Mix 1) 3:59
16 [[I Want To Be With You) The Rest Of My Life [[Alternate Mix 2) 4:58

[BayouMotownMan]

This is an excellent lp, not as good as her MCA set but nothing will match that. The album needed a hit to attract buyers but nothing happened with the singles issued. General Johnson took Martha back to Motown with Thank You, intro similar to Where Did Our Love Go. I always thought Second Chance could have been a hit. The only song on it that I don't like is the title track

[reese]

I really loved LOVE STRONG ENOUGH TO MOVE MOUNTAINS.

[daviddesper]

This album was on Arista and although we didn't know it at the time, that label would eventually have long continuous associations with such fine ladies as Dionne, Whitney, Aretha, Phyllis Hyman, Angela Bofill, and Melissa Manchester, to name a few. So just imagine what kind of solo career Martha could have had if the label had given her more opportunities to shine.

A few other ladies [[Southern Soul singer Shirley Brown comes to mind) also got one-shot deals with Arista that did not pan out for them in terms of longevity. I guess it all came down to dollars and cents and if the first one sold well enough, you got a "second chance", to put the situation in Martha-ese. Sadly she did not get hers.

As for this expanded CD, that was a nice touch but I have never cared for the idea of putting several versions of the same song out there, expecting us to gobble them up like brand new material. I would much rather an artist mine their vaults and release different songs that did not make the original cut as opposed to re-working the ones that did.

Think for example Dionne's project from a few years ago entitled "We Need to Go Back." That contained songs from her Warner Brothers years that never made it on to albums, but some of those tracks were awesome.

[motony]

"Love Blind" which Martha wrote, certainly could have been a hit at the time with some promotion[[non-existent).It had a similar feel to "Supernatural Thing" by Ben E. King, & that was a huge hit.