A nice try, but....
The Fancy One | Westchester County, NY | 02/14/2003
(3 out of 5 stars)
"not quite there. Motown has STILL failed to present a collection of Eddie's music that is worthy of the talent this man possessed. With bits and pieces from various albums that were released during his Motown tenure, it attempts to cover some of the tracks missed on the ULTIMATE COLLECTION and AT HIS BEST. In fact, the second half of the CD entirely focuses on his excellent Philly Sound work. Motown didn't really want to promote this material (could it be admitting that, by the 1970s, the "Motown Sound" was dead??) and that's unfortunate, because many of the songs Eddie made in Philly that weren't released as singles could've been huge hits. But THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION still comes up short. There are better, more solid tracks that could have been used...the lengthy tunes "Body Talk" and "I've Got To Be" made it instead of "Each Day I Cry A Little", "Please Don't Go Away" and "Deep And Quiet Love"? Come on, now! However, a bright spot is the inclusion of the beautiful ballads "Just Memories" (1972) and "Honey Brown" (1974), which have been hard to find on CD for years. Motown/Universal, let's stop the guessing what tracks we Eddie fans would like to have on a single CD, shall we? Just re-release ALL of his stuff on 2-fer CDs and we'll ALL be happy!"
I love this cd!!
LoVe2ReAd | USA | 08/12/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I love EJK's voice!! His soothing voice has really helped take my mind to somewhere far, far away. My only complaint is that, while I know that KoTruckin' and Boogie Down were his two biggest songs, I'd like to see some of his other tunes released. I think he made great songs, and if another compilation is put out, I'd like to see something other than what's on the Ultimate, Millenium, and Essential Collections. T Or Motown and Atlantic could just rerelease Eddie's albums onto cds...pretty please? Or heck, if you don't want to issue individuals, just do some type of boxed set."
A Rare Find!
S. Castellano | Scranton, PA United States | 01/12/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This shows Eddie's most versatile material. Many of these tracks you cannot find anymore (which is sad, considering that all of his albums were GREAT!) If you are a real fan, this is a must for your collection."
Track Listings (16) - Disc #1