Search - Martha Reeves & Vandellas :: Spellbound

Good Stuff

Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 06/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Motown's valuable Lost And Found series has been handed over to Hip-O-Select, who have expanded the format to double-CD sets, in this case featuring the ten-year tenure with the Gordy label of the fabulous Martha and the Vandellas (latterly Martha Reeves and the Vandellas). An unfortunate side-effect of this for UK customers is that the releases are somewhat harder to find, especially since Hip-O-Select seem not to export directly to here, and often pricey. They are, however, well worth tracking down.



The Motown vaults have been heavily plundered in recent years and it is now too well known that the quality of the hitherto unreleased material is unbelievably high to warrant expounding yet again. I would like to think there is another world at the edge of infinity where some of the material was released instead of Heatwave, Dancing In The Street or Jimmy Mack and enjoyed the same success. The standard is incredibly high on this set, with only the odd incomplete master (lacking overdubs) or trial run-through of a chestnut like Hold On I'm Coming or Since You've Been Gone sounding anything like throwaways. Recording dates are fully notated, the sleeve notes are helpful, and the timeline of albums for which titles may have been intended is helpful. Most of the tracks are mastered from mono mixes but there are eight stereo mixes across the two discs, including Earthquake, which had previously been released in the UK.



Time Changes Things kicks things off in high style, using the same backing track as the well known Supremes version, and is the earliest here, dating from 1962, followed by the Marvelettes' Someday, Someway. The early years pass by all too quickly with third album Dance Party having been finished with by track six, though seven tracks recorded or completed in 1965 appear not to have been intended for any album and include highlights such as Spellbound, I Got It Bad and I Can't Understand It. The Watch Out! sessions are represented by four songs, including Keep Stepping (Never Look Back)(a song which Carolyn Crawford also tried out and was finally heard on A Cellarful Of Motown Vol. 2) and You've Been On My Mind (a Shorty Long co-write which King Floyd later recorded), both excellent.



Most often the songs as well as the recordings were written off by the boffins at Quality Control, but there are exceptions. That's How Bad has Smokey Robinson returning to a song he'd first produced for Marv Johnson, whilst he later reworked You Neglect Me for the Miracles' Time Out album. Ivy Joe Hunter's song I Can't Help It (I Love You) featured on another Lost And Found in a version by Marvin Gaye, and was also recorded by the Isley Brothers, and there are several examples of a crossover of material between the Vandellas and the Four Tops.



There are no less than twelve recordings from the Ridin' High period sessions (which mark the name change to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas), and these straddle CD1 and CD2. They include their versions of For Once In My Life and Vikki Carr's 1967 hit It Must Be Him, both of which enter Shirley Bassey territory. Martha rises brilliantly to the vocal challenges, though I can't say either appeals to me, though plenty of the others rival those chosen for the album, and in the case of Sugar N' Spice frequently outshine them. Is There A Place In His Heart For Me? was later recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips and by the Supremes, but Martha's seems to be the original and its omission from the album seems bizarre.



The songs from the Natural Resources period include one called Standing Ovation. Could this have been the "missing" title song of Gladys Knight's album of that name? Earthquake still sounds like a hit to me and follows in the tradition of Martha's natural disaster titles. A couple of the tracks on Black Magic were produced by Stevie Wonder and a harmonica that sounds familiar also appears on some of the earlier tracks. I had regarded the Vandellas' seventies output as somewhat patchier than in their heyday, but hearing the selections on this second disc I now think they were ill served by the record label's track selection process. They were good at updating their sound, too, and the most recent recording, which closes the album, Ain't My Stuff Good Enough, is a good example of this, and ends the set on a high. The title seems apposite, as Martha and the Vandellas were left behind when Motown relocated to Los Angeles, and Martha Reeves embarked on a solo career with another label, but on the evidence presented here, her stuff was plenty good enough.

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