Search - Martha Reeves & Vandellas :: Motown Early Classics

Great helping of hits and neglected gems

D.V. Lindner | King George, VA, USA | 11/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If I could program all my Martha & the Vandellas vinyl into a jukebox and hit `random' this collection is sort of what I would come back with, and I mean that as a compliment. Like all such Motown works of the "Early Classics" line this one gives you heaping scoop of famous singles, filled out with near-forgotten album tracks and B-sides from the group's heyday.



From their debut, "Come and Get These Memories" album we get "I'll Have To Let Him Go," "Moments To Remember" and "There He Is At My Door" ( the latter repeated on 1965's "Dance Party").

"Wait Till My Bobby Gets Home," and especially "Hello Stranger" were two of the finer cover versions of then-popular tunes the group did on their hastily assembled 1963 "Heat Wave" LP ( according to Martha's 1993 autobiography, the entire album recorded in one night). The great single "In My Lonely Room," from 1964, got itself included on their '66 "Greatest Hits" but left off their 1975, 2-disc "Anthology".



"Dancing In the Street" and it's subsequent album, "Dance Party" were next and this is the one most heavily mined here: "Wild One," "Nowhere To Run," "Motoring," "Dancing Slow," "Hitch Hike," "The Jerk," and the title song. "Dancing Slow" originally was the b-side of "Wild One" and, other than inclusion in this album, never appeared again in any vinyl collections of the 60s and 70s. Nor did the respective b-sides of "My Baby Loves Me" and "Jimmy Mack", but they're here: "Never Leave Your Baby's Side" and "Third Finger, Left Hand".



If you have to have every A-side hit by the group, then "Ultimate Collection" fills that bill, but this one is equally satisfying for those of us who didn't think twice about flipping the group's singles over, soon as we got them home, and made ourselves just as familiar with the alleged `non-hits'."

Useful introduction

Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 03/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Since the release of this compilation the Motown catalogue has been extensively revamped and in the UK all the original Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas albums have become available, along with some non-album bonus tracks, in the excellent 2 Classic Albums 1 CD series. Several of the other artists that were featured in the Early Classics series of the mid-nineties have been afforded the same treatment.



The purpose of the series was to present early album tracks and B-sides alongside some more familiar singles, and so has to some extent been superceded by the more recent releases, though they still serve as a useful low-priced introduction, and still feature some extra titles.



10 of the tracks here are now duplicated on the stereo CDs featuring the albums Come And Get These Memories, Heatwave and Dance Party. There He Is (At My Door) is the later Dance Party version as found on the flip of Dancing In The Street. Hitch Hike is best known in the Marvin Gaye hit version, on which the Vandellas sang in 1962. Their own version was recorded during the same period but wasn't released until Dance Party (1965).



However, unlike the 2 Classic Albums 1 CD series, Jimmy Mack is the mono single remix version (1967), and its B-side Third Finger, Left Hand is the original 2.45 mono version. I'll Have To Let Him Go, their debut single, is also the mono single mix (not the longer stereo version found on Come And Get These Memories). Jennel Hawkins' Moments To Remember (also recorded by Irma Thomas), from Come And Get These Memories, is here in its original mono mix.



My personal preference is for stereo versions though I realise that many find the mono mixes they maybe first heard on the radio at the time to be more authentic. Wild One (sounding great, incidentally, with the Andantes adding extra vocal depth) and Nowhere To Run are both stereo mixes of the single edits, slightly shorter than the album versions.



Never Leave Your Baby's Side was covered in the UK by the Tony Jackson Group, who presumably found it on the flip of My Baby Loves Me (1966). Neither of these sides has been added to any of the 2 Classic Albums 1 CD series, though the top side is now on the SoulSatisfaction 2 compilation. This appears to be the only place one can currently find Never Leave Your Baby's Side, one of my favourite of their B-sides, though an alternative version appeared in mono on Live Wire! 1962-1972 (1993). The original version here is also mono although a stereo version of the song was available in, I think, the eighties.



With a smattering of top singles such as the timeless Dancing In The Street, with its snow-chains percussion, and a choice selection of lesser known songs, this makes a great introduction to one of Motown's finest.



I would like to see a new budget series, though, that mopped up some of the stray A-sides and B-sides left out of the re-issue packages. In the Vandellas' case this would include My Baby Loves Me, Darling I Hum Our Song, You've Been In Love Too Long and Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)."