Outside of the soulless Donald Trump, and the Charlie McCarthy clone Mike Pence, who doesn’t love Motown? After 10 years and thinking the Motown vault was finally purged of rarities and unreleased gems, this series has been revived on a new label, proving there’s still gold in the Motown mine. Containing 43 B-sides, album tracks and material never before issued on CD from the mid-1960s, like previous collections, this proves that Motown ran a Detroit music assembly line, so well underlined in the Funk Brothers documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” from a few years ago. Case in point was the Holland/Dozier/Holland composition “There’s No Left.” The track was originally scheduled for a Supremes session, but was re-assigned to the Four Tops, and then six months later the Isley Brothers also recorded it. There’s more evidence here that Smokey Robinson had an incredible talent for writing profound and catchy lyrics. The mix here contains a smattering of hit makers, The Temptations and Marvin Gaye for example, and others that should have been hit makers such as Chris Clark and Eddie Holland. Also, in the mix is a sizable contingent of complete mysteries such as Connie Haines, Oma Page, and The Underdogs. One must wonder how Edwin Starr’s “I Don’t Know What You Got,” Ivy’s Jo Hunter’s “Determination,” The Dalton Boys “I Had A Woman,” Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Nothing But A Fool,” and Eddie Holland’s “There’s No Love Left” collected dust for nearly half a century.
There’s also a couple of fine instrumentals here, tracks likely originally destined to vocal overdubs. An enjoyable and informative set confirming Motown really did capture “the sound of young America.”