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The Most Motown Sounding Records Never To On Motown ?


Guest allnightandy

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Guest allnightandy

I have always thought this track could have fitted straight into the motown stable !

what other tracks do you know of that could easily have graced the great label

Sorry i missed the "BE" out of the title !

Edited by mike
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RHETTA HUGHES - 'Giving Up My Heartaches'

post-3850-0-93539200-1329760399_thumb.jp

Pure Motown in style and sound because it was recorded with Motown staff musicians at Terra Shirma in Detroit.

It was issued on the flip side of 'Cry Myself To Sleep' last year. It's the fastest seller on Shotgun so far but it probably still isn't known to a lot of northern soul fans.

Paul

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RHETTA HUGHES - 'Giving Up My Heartaches'

post-3850-0-93539200-1329760399_thumb.jp

Pure Motown in style and sound because it was recorded with Motown staff musicians at Terra Shirma in Detroit.

It was issued on the flip side of 'Cry Myself To Sleep' last year. It's the fastest seller on Shotgun so far but it probably still isn't known to a lot of northern soul fans.

Paul

No I didn't know it but it's great!

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No I didn't know it but it's great!

I thought you'd like it, Pete.

Most people bought it for the A side, 'Cry Myself To Sleep', and are amazed when they hear 'Giving Up My Heartaches' - usually for the first time.

I actually considered making 'Giving Up My Heartaches' the official A side. I'll probably do that if I need to issue it again one day.

Paul

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RHETTA HUGHES - 'Giving Up My Heartaches'

post-3850-0-93539200-1329760399_thumb.jp

Pure Motown in style and sound because it was recorded with Motown staff musicians at Terra Shirma in Detroit.

It was issued on the flip side of 'Cry Myself To Sleep' last year. It's the fastest seller on Shotgun so far but it probably still isn't known to a lot of northern soul fans.

Paul

Agreed Paul.

Top drawer LP track for years and now a killer 45!

:thumbsup:

Sean

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Mentioning the Impressions one of their later ones was held back following complaints from Motown. I know which one it was but it is stored in a difficult part of my brain to access, and I cannot be bothered to try and retrieve it at the moment.....:lol:

My nomination: Dennis Edwards "I didn't have to but I did"

Edited by Steve G
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Mentioning the Impressions one of their later ones was held back following complaints from Motown. I know which one it was but it is stored in a difficult part of my brain to access, and I cannot be bothered to try and retrieve it at the moment..... :lol:

My nomination: Dennis Edwards "I didn't have to but I did"

"Can't Satisfy"

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Mentioning the Impressions one of their later ones was held back following complaints from Motown. I know which one it was but it is stored in a difficult part of my brain to access, and I cannot be bothered to try and retrieve it at the moment..... :lol:

My nomination: Dennis Edwards "I didn't have to but I did"

Can't Satisfy Steve? :D

Cheers

Richard

OOps - sorry just seen Daz already got this :hatsoff2:

Edited by Premium Stuff
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Mary Love - You turned my bitter into sweet.

Actually thought it was a Motown track first time I heard it.

There's a reason for that. It was produced by LA Motown's producers (Hal Davis and Marc Gordon) and written by LA Jobete Music's writers (Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson), and arranged by LA Motown's regular arranger, and the session players were LA Motown's regular 1963-66 players on sessions for recordings that appeared on Motown released records.

To me, none of the other non-Motown cuts listed above sound really like Motown. The session players were not from Detroit, the arrangers were different from the Motown style. Many of them sound like NY or Philly cuts. To me, only Motown's LA Jobete recordings, and Detroit Soul recordings using Motown session players, arrangers and writers, sound really like Motown. Some examples:

"Lucky To Be Loved By You"-Emanuel Lasky

"That Was My Girl"-Parliaments

"You turned My Bitter Into Sweet"-Mary Love

"Let Me Know"-Mary Love

"Run One Flight Of Stairs"-Gloria Jones

"This Heart of Mine"-Artistics

"Happiness Is Here"-Tobi Lark

"My World is on Fire"-Jimmy Mack

"Me Without You"-Mary Wells

"Don't Lead Me On Baby"-Emanuel Laskey

"No Part Time Love For Me"-Martha Starr

"Poor Unfortunate Me"-J.J. Barnes

"My Mama Told Me"-Barbara Lewis

"Open The Door To Your Heart"/"Somebody Somewhere Needs You"-Darrell Banks

"The Touch of Venus"-Sandy Wynns

Don Davis recreated The Motown Sound at his Groovesviile/Groove City Records, at Golden World/Ric Tic, Solid Hit Productions, Thelma and Stax/Volt Records

Joe Hunter did so at Mickay's/Ring, Golden World/Ric Tic and Pied Piper Prod.

Mike Terry did, everywhere he went

Bob Bateman did at Correc-Tone, and on his indie Detroit and NY Productions

Mike Hanks did to some extent, as did Dave Hamilton and Ollie McGloughlin, Sonny Sanders in Detroit and Chicago (all used sometime Motown producers, arrangers and session players), Ed Cobb in LA

Edited by RobbK
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everybody is going to a love in, sounds like motown to me

Thats because rumour has it thats it's actually Smoky Robinson on vocals.

that was my take too, beat me to it

It has Smokey Robinson written all over it ... WIN

He is a dead a ringer on all the 45s but I don't remember a rumour that they were the same person.

You're not getting mixed up with "More, More, More of Your Love" are you? That one was originally recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on an album and covered by the Baltimore based blue eyed soul band, Bob Brady and the Con-Chords who released it as a single.

post-1918-0-70334000-1329767016_thumb.jp

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Guest allnightandy

definately want to add this one - I've even been asked which Supremes Lp its off :thumbsup:

LOVEABLES on TOOT Just beyond my fingertips

Andy

WoW ! you learn something new every day !that is just Soooooooooooooooooo motowny !

Love it

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A lot of tracks, such as 'You Hit Me' by Alice Clark, were pure Motown in style but they didn't quite get the identical sound - not enough to fool you.

One that got the sound and the style 100% was 'Touch Of Venus' by Patrice Holloway. More Motown than Motown, for obvious reasons.

I think of most Ric-Tic and Golden World tracks as Motown anyway, and many other Detroit labels got the Motown sound because they used Motown staff musicians, writers and arrangers etc. I've already mentioned the Rhetta Hughes track (and not just to give it a shameless plug) but even in the early 1970s some of those Carol Anderson tracks were very Motown - with songs written by John Glover and James Dean etc. You can imagine many of those songs would have been been pitched to Motown anyway.

Outside of Detroit, apart from the west coast team already mentioned, it's obvious that many of the Mirwood tracks were heavily influenced by Motown but they ended up with their very own sound (probably by accident).

The same applies to Harthon / Dynodynamics and others from Philadelphia. They were influenced by Motown so they often had very similar styles but they developed their own sound.

Anyway, most good examples have already been mentioned but one of my favourite Motown-flavoured tracks is 'I Can't Break Away (From Your Love)' by Barbara Lewis. If it had been issued on a 45 I'm sure it would have been a northern soul classic. There are several versions of this great song but only Barabara's had that obvious Motown sound.

Paul

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Could have imagined Mary Wells giving this a run for its money!

Sean

The words and tempo (and GENERAL) arrangement sound very like a Mary Wells Motown song. But the instrumentation sounds like Nashville. And it doesn't have a Motown bridge, which would have featured a sax solo. I could see how to convert this nicely-written song into a nice 1963-64 Motown Mary Wells (w/Love-Tones) cut. Maybe someday I'll get the software to cut and splice up a version!

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WoW ! you learn something new every day !that is just Soooooooooooooooooo motowny !

Love it

The instrumentation just doesn't sound Detroit at all. It sounds like one of the weaker L.A. ( Jobete) Motown cuts (without the flute). It just sounds like a Motown copy. No way I'd mistake this for a Detroit Motown track.

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Guest allnightandy

The instrumentation just doesn't sound Detroit at all. It sounds like one of the weaker L.A. ( Jobete) Motown cuts (without the flute). It just sounds like a Motown copy. No way I'd mistake this for a Detroit Motown track.

It's not serious it's just a bit of fun ! Motown copies is what i'm looking for

other companies attempts at trying to Emulate / cash in on motown !

Edited by allnightandy
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Off the top of my head one of the best Nashville recordings to have the Motown style (but not quite the sound) was 'Singing A New Song' by Freddie Waters.

I just thought of a nice example from New Orleans: 'All That Matters' by Tony Owens. Again, still very Motown in style for 1974 but not in sound.

A less obvious example, from New York in 1973... Don Downing's 'Dream World' was a song with a strong Motown flavour. The sound had changed but the song itself could easily have been written for the Four Tops a few years earlier.

I'm sure a lof of writers and producers came up with new songs and structures after listening to 'The Four Tops Greatests Hits'.

:shhh:

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