As summer rolls on, Elemental Music continues to bring the heat with three more entries in the Motown Sound Collection series. This month’s titles combine two classics from the label’s heyday with a transitional record by one of Motown’s defining groups. More Hits By the Supremes and Make It Happen by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, both offered in mono editions, and Get It Together by The Jackson 5 on red vinyl in a die-cut sleeve, are all available August 16.
Contrary to the title, More Hits By the Supremes is not a compilation; issued in 1965, the vocal group’s sixth album was instead their first non-thematic full-length release since their second, Where Did Our Love Go, which came out a year prior. The themed albums were the British Invasion-focused A Bit of Liverpool, The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop, and We Remember Sam Cooke. Another themed album, Merry Christmas, followed in late 1965.
That’s six LPs within two calendar years, quite an impressive feat, particularly as an aura of the slapdash never arises when soaking up these albums in sequence. Of course, they are not all equal in terms of quality. The strongest are the two LPs focused on the compositions of Holland-Dozier-Holland, a partial emphasis in the case of Where Did Our Love Go. For More Hits, the dozen songs are all sourced from the team as the record was produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier.
As representatives of Motown at its most chicly sophisticated, the group’s work could acquire a grandness of scale that sometimes registered as intended for adults instead of encapsulating The Sound of Young America, so the production moxie is worthy of note. Circa More Hits, the sound is still targeting teen dances and malt shop jukeboxes, not the supper club.
More Hits gains major traction through work crafted directly to the strengths of the trio; there are no asides to well-known standards or catalog obscurities, but rather, sustained crisp songwriting delivered with chemistry by Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard in their peak creative stretch. “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “Back In My Arms Again” are the big hits here, but much of the album matches the energy of those songs, including “Nothing but Heartaches” (also a hit) and “(I’m So Glad) Heartaches Don’t Last Always.” If smooth, More Hits thrives on verve.
A decade after Smokey Robinson took the Miracles to meet Barry Gordy, and two years after Smokey got top billing, they released Make It Happen, arguably the group’s best album. Other contenders include their 1961 debut Hi…We’re the Miracles and the 1965 set Going to a Go-Go, the first LP with Robinson as the clearly designated leader.
What’s unusual is that the worth of Make It Happen was initially largely overlooked, a reality directly related to what is now its most celebrated track, “The Tears of a Clown.” That song, a true highpoint in the Motown catalog, wasn’t released as a single until three years later, first in the UK where it went to the top spot, and then in the USA in a version that was partially rerecorded and given a fresh mix. It brought Robinson and the group their first and only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Concluding side two of Make It Happen, “The Tears of a Clown” is pop perfection in its original version. Written by Stevie Wonder (with Robinson and Hank Crosby co-credited), the song’s essential element is the lead vocal, impassioned but delivered with precision that elevates the message. The backing voices swoop in at just the right moments to raise the bar even more, and the intricate construction and exquisite flow of the instrumentation, one of the Funk Brothers’ greatest moments, seals the deal.
Make It Happen has the spirited stomping opener “The Soulful Shack,” the lovely baroque pop-shaded “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” the classic soul ache double shot (simultaneously touching on doo-wop but nodding to the ’70s) of “My Love for You” and “I’m on the Outside (Looking In),” another Funk Brothers showcase in “Don’t Think It’s Me” and the up-tempo groover “My Love Is Your Love (Forever)” to close side one. And the flip doesn’t disappoint as it rolls to its apex. The brilliance of Make It Happen is varied and inexhaustible.
With a few exceptions, chief amongst them Wonder and Marvin Gaye, Motown acts are defined by their singles output, and perhaps no act more so than the Jackson 5. After roughly half a decade of struggling, this family group with young Michael (you may have heard of him) as the front-and-center dynamo, landed a long term contract with Motown. With some fine tuning and an alliance with The Corporation, a songwriting team tailor assembled for the group, they were responsible for a bubblegum soul explosion on the singles charts in 1969.
But no less attention was paid to bringing Jackson 5 LPs (and yes, 8-track tapes) to market. The December 1969 release of Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 was followed by seven more through September of 1973, when Get It Together hit stores; yes, there was a Christmas album in there, but this is still an impressive run of productivity.
As Michael’s voice developed into a tenor, Get It Together was an attempt to forge a new group identity, fully jettisoning pop soul (a maneuver already in motion on prior album Skywriter) for funk and proto disco (but notably, not psychedelic soul). The Corporation was out, but Michael, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, and Marlon weren’t exactly scrambling for material; there’s a likeable version of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s “Reflections” (made famous by Ross & the Supremes) plus three songs by Norman Whitfield.
Two of those Whitfield selections, “Hum Along and Dance” and “Mama I Gotta Brand New Thing (Don’t Say No)” (the latter released the same year on Law of the Land by The Undisputed Truth, an album produced by Whitfield) stretch out the funk (with flashes of rock) to over eight and seven minutes, respectively. While appealing, these excursions are ultimately nothing jaw-dropping. The ambitiousness is legitimate but only intermittently successful (I do like how the songs flow together without interruption).
Get It Together closes with the original recording of “Dancing Machine,” which hit the singles chart the following year in a remixed and edited version that was the title track of their ninth album. It’s a solid enough acknowledgement of disco’s imminent upsurgence, but the record’s strongest cuts from a pop standpoint are “It’s Too Late to Change the Time” and “You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You).” If a lesser effort, Get It Together is still quite listenable.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
The Supremes, More Hits By the Supremes
A-
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Make It Happen
A
The Jackson 5, Get It Together
B
