Elemental Music’s Motown Sound Collection continues to roll in November with a stylistically varied slate of three vinyl reissues: there’s a mono edition of Marvin Gaye’ When I’m Alone I Cry, a mono edition of the Four Tops’ self-titled debut, and a full-blown stereo edition of Eddie Kendricks’ People…Hold On, all available November 15.
Listeners who know Marvin Gaye primarily through his 1960s hits “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his ’70s masterpieces What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On, can be initially struck and then perhaps perplexed by just how tightly Gaye embraced a Middle of the Road sensibility early in his career.
An abbreviated assessment is that Gaye was following in the footsteps of Nat “King” Cole. That’s a smidge reductive, but it’s not off target as he did record A Tribute to the Great Nat “King” Cole for Motown in 1965. And it wasn’t Gaye’s only attempt at harnessing the supper club vibe, as the year prior he cut the pop and jazz standards set When I’m Alone I Cry.
What was Gaye up to? It’s important to remember that circa the early 1960s the supper club represented adult sophistication, not shmaltz. Note that The Supremes had success traveling down this avenue. Gaye was strong enough on vocals to pull it off, but he also wasn’t especially memorable in this mode. The arrangements are better than expected for this sort of thing, avoiding an overabundance of syrup, but the best tracks, “You’ve Changed” and “I’ll Be Around,” come early. Although not for completists only, a whole bunch of Gaye records should be picked up before When I’m Alone I Cry.
The debut album by the Four Tops also peaks straightaway with the group’s first hit “Baby I Need Your Loving” in the opening spot. “Without the One You Love (Life’s Not Worthwhile)” is sequenced next, and while also a chart single, it was a far more modest success both commercially and artistically. Quickly written by Holland-Dozier-Holland and designed with clear similarities to “Baby I Need Your Loving,” a big problem is that Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs is misplaced in the scenario.
“Without the One You Love (Life’s Not Worthwhile)” isn’t a misfire, but it is fairly minor, both as a Four Tops song and as an example of the Holland-Dozier-Holland compositional magic. Stronger songs do follow on Four Tops, a few of them by Holland-Dozier-Holland, including “Your Love is Amazing” and the album’s finale “Call on Me,” with its hints of Sam Cooke.
There’s even one more modest hit in “Ask the Lonely,” this one penned by William “Mickey” Stevenson, who also collaborated with Ivy Jo Hunter on the three of the record’s tracks, and notably the atypical and quite dated (if still enjoyable) “Tea House in China Town.” Overall, Four Tops is a solid keeper, even if Stubbs isn’t quite the powerhouse he would become in just a short while.
Released in 1972, People…Hold On was Eddie Kendricks’ second LP after leaving the Temptations. It has been assessed as his breakout solo effort, though it was a slow building success. The album teamed Kendricks with The Young Senators, a Washington, DC go-go band (contemporaries of Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers) that Kendricks tapped to back him on tour.
People…Hold On doesn’t have a tangible go-go edge, but The Young Senators did help establish a funkier socially conscious sound that was surely impacted by cotemporaneous work by Sly Stone and Marvin Gaye, though the album has a distinct feel, in large part through the richness of Kendricks’ voice, but also in the gospel influence that is particularly deep in “Day by Day.” The mood synth in closer “Just Memories” is also worthy of note.
The hand drumming of Funk Brother Eddie “Bongo” Brown is a crucial element in an equation that’s emphasis on dance grooves has been tagged as proto-disco. That assessment feels right; Kendricks and crew, including producer Frank Wilson, were building toward something rather than riding someone else’s stylistic coattails.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Marvin Gaye, When I’m Alone I Cry
B
Four Tops, Four Tops
B+
Eddie Kendricks, People…Hold On
A-
