A Pleasant Surprise from an Unexpected Source!
T. A. Shepherd | Palmdale, Ca. 93550 | 12/19/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"As the year 2004 draws to a close, this compilation by The Velvelettes will go down as the most important Sixties release. It is their earliest recordings (Selfish Lover, My Foolish Heart and You Can't Get Away in particular) I find the most intriguing because at that time, Motown was quite brass heavy. Producers and arrangers drew heavily from Duke Ellington and Count Basie for inspiration. But that's just the music. Carolyn Gill's lead vocals are not only superb, but there's also that air of innocence that prevailed during this era. It was deep in the fall of 1964 when I first heard her deliver that immortal admonition from the pen of Mickey Stevenson, "Girls, those fellas are sly, slick and shy..." At first I thought it was The Marvelettes, or maybe Martha & the Vandellas. When I realised it was a new group, I marvelled at the intensity that Motown was pushing out new artists, and giving them comparitive material to the veteran artists. In 1964, you couldn't keep Martha off the charts. The Supremes were about to score big with their second number one record and The Four Tops had just been introduced. Marvin Gaye hit big not only with solo hits, but duets with Mary Wells and Kim Weston. And all this in the same year The Beatles brought on the British Invasion! The Velvelettes brought a new excitement to the Soul genre and it is no surprise that their next single, He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' would be anything less than a hit and a hit it was in the beginning of 1965. It would also be a big hit in the mid-eighties for Bananarama. The V's next two singles went virtually unnoticed and what a shame, because they were wonderful songs. Lonely, Lonely Girl Am I would be covered by fellow Motown group, The Temptations a year later on their Gettin' Ready album. The other single, A Bird In The Hand was part of a three song cycle by The Marvelettes (Danger: Heartbreak Dead Ahead) and Martha & The Vandellas (You've Been In Love Too Long). Although the latter two were written by the Stevenson-Hunter-Paul team, Eddie Holland and Norman Whitfield wrote the Velvelettes' song. As the summer of 1966 drew to a close, The Velvelettes switched labels--again (They first started out on the obscure I.P.G. subsidiary before switching to V.I.P.). Their sixth and final Motown single came out on the Soul imprint. Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol wrote and produced a fine single that barely bubbled under the national Billboard chart, but These Things Will Keep Me Loving You was later recorded by Diana Ross at the same session she recorded Some Day We'll Be Together with Bristol in the booth. Top quality unreleased sessions abound in this two-disc set (including a beautiful cover of The Supremes' Your Heart Belongs To Me), so even if you have The Very Best Of The Velvelettes (U.S.) or The Best Of The Velvelettes with all the bonus tracks (U.K.) this is still a must have collection. It also contains their great tracks from A Cellarful of Motown and Ultimate Treasures. It brings enough original tracks together to make three seperate albums! This does not include the five live tracks recorded in early 1964 nor the four French songs which grace the last nine tracks of Disc Two. All-in-all, it serves as a pleasant surprise from an uxepected source. The Velvelettes are truly legendary. (This anthology is an ongoing part of the same series as Barbara McNair, Billy Eckstine and Jimmy Ruffin two CD sets.)"
Near-definitive Velvelettes
Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 03/10/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The revitalization of the fabulous Motown back catalogue continues with this extremely promising series of mid-priced 2CDs, The Motown Anthology, already set to feature Brenda Holloway, Chris Clark, Billy Eckstine and others. Like the excellent series 2 Classic Albums 1 CD, the enterprise seems to have been British in origin, and those responsible deserve our grateful thanks for making these treasures available again, or in many cases, astonishingly, for the first time.
Being a Motown girl group in the sixties was tough if you weren't the Supremes, and even then it helped if you were Diana rather than Flo or Mary, but there were a number of them making singles and having hits - Martha and the Vandellas, the Marvelettes and the Velvelettes being the most notable examples. In 1964, the Velvelettes had taken on the Supremes in a local Battle Of The Stars show, and won. The proof of this is on the second disc, where their previously unreleased performance from the second show is included in stereo as a bonus. However, while both Martha and the Vandellas and the Marvelettes also released a number of albums, the Velvelettes output was restricted to just half a dozen singles (on Motown subsidiaries IPG, VIP and Soul).
This collection shows that this was not because the Velvelettes were kept out of the studios, as it contains 37 different titles recorded between 1963 and 1967, as well as 4 unreleased French language bonus tracks. Two of these songs, covers of Marvelettes and Mary Wells songs, are not otherwise available by the Velvelettes. There is also a second stereo version of These Things Will Keep Me Loving You for comparison, and a 15 second track of Cal wishing us all a Merry Christmas.
I would challenge new listeners to correctly guess which of the tracks on this 2CD were unreleased at the time, as those that stayed shelved are the equal of all but the very best of those that did come out.
25 of the first 39 tracks are previously unreleased, either unheard songs or alternative takes or mixes, such as the version of The Boy From Crosstown which is much brighter than the version released in 2001, and has the additional hallmark clattery percussion of the time.
Other valuable odds and ends have been mopped up from previous compilations such as the fabulous Cellarful Of Motown 2CD and Motown Sings Motown Treasures, the source of Everybody Needs Love, a version that predates the familiar version by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Another undiscovered gem is Since I've Lost You, produced by Norman Whitfield in 1964, predating his version with the Temptations on Puzzle People by five years.
The Velvelettes famously turned down Where Did Our Love Go?, which went on to become a supersonic success for the Supremes, as they felt it didn't suit Cal Gill's voice, so it is particularly fascinating to hear the alternative version of He Was Really Sayin' Something, which uses the same persistent handclaps and ska beat.
The definitive Velvelettes compilation prior to this one was Spectrum's The Best Of, which came out in 2001 in the UK. This collection does not make that one redundant, as nine of its tracks are not replicated here, though they are present in alternative versions, and these include the hit singles He Was Really Sayin' Something, Lonely Lonely Girl Am I and A Bird In The Hand. These are not included on the Anthology in their original versions, and it is a shame the compilers could not have found additional room for these in their previously available stereo mixes, and that more of the other tracks could not have been presented in stereo (just 3 on CD1 and 5 on CD2, plus the live tracks). In all other respects this release is a shining white knight, righting longstanding wrongs, and produced with the full cooperation of the Velvelettes"
Keep it coming Motown UK!
Larry Jones | San Francisco ,Ca | 11/23/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Can we see a similar collection for Kim Weston and The Marvelettes too ( well in the Marvelettes and Martha & The Vandellas case, a proper box set similar to the one The Supremes received in 2000?)
What I found fascinatinating about this UK Motown Anthology ( I have the Barbara McNair one also) that there are so many alternate versions of familiar Velvelettes songs. There's no way to say that the alternate version of "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin" wouldn't have been a hit ( this version seems more in line with the Motown sound at the close of 1964, with Holland-Dozier Holland writing for the Supremes Foot stomping and Hand Clapping, like "Baby Love" and other Supremes hits). There's an amazing amount of tracks here that would later be worked into classic tracks for other artists, most notably Gladys Knight & The Pips, "Since I've Lost you" seems similar to the version released by the Pips in 1967, minus the strings, not sure if it's the same backing track with "sweetner" (a Common Motown practice) as I'm sure as The Velvelettes and Miss Knight & Company's "Everybody Needs Love" are the same track. Also there are too Martha & The Vandellas tracks both from the "Sugar & Spice" LP (I'm In Love & We've got Honey Love) that are also identical to the released versions by the Vandellas, rights down to the (Andantes?) backing vocals
The Highlights are of course The Velvelettes released singles, which are snapshots of the Motown sound in the mid 1960's (and without the complete participation of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, which undermines any idea that their production style WAS what the Motown sound was)."You Can't get Away" does approximate the "Heatwave" H-D-H period, and probably got passed over because that sound had ranit's course and was failing on the charts. "That's a Funny Way" is one of the premium slower songs on this collection, along with the Hitworthy reworking of "Your Heart Belongs to Me" which sounds particularly fresh and soothing, nearly 40 years after it was recorded and "Bring Back The Sunshine" (later "Dark Side of the World) which was probably too sophisticated and emotional a song, even through it's stages of reworking, to every be a topside single (It was used eventually as a b-side for Diana Ross' first solo single).
They Greystone Ballroom tracks are fun, particularly "The Monkey Time" and hearing future Vandella Betty Kelley give impromptu shoutouts on "Ai'n't That Good News." The French tracks are novelties, but prove any motown singles, even inthe early days, could have gone to any artists, Carolyn Gill does a pretty stellar job on "You Lost The Sweetest Boy"(Tu Perds le Plus Merveileux Garcon du monde), considering she is singing in French
Historic and very interesting, even if you have bought previous Velvelettes collections.
"
Track Listings (24) - Disc #1