The latest arrivals in Elemental Music’s Motown Sound Collection hit stores just in time for holiday buying. The three selections, all dating from the early 1970s, are The Temptations’ Solid Rock, the self-titled debut album by The Undisputed Truth, and Gladys Knight & the Pips’ Neither One of Us. Taken together, they offer a solid hunk of soul, 140 grams each, all available December 13.
By 1972, The Temptations were on lineup number four, with Eddie Kendricks freshly out the door for a solo career and Paul Williams’ role greatly reduced; he sings on only one track, “It’s Summer,” on Solid Rock, the group’s sixteenth LP. Unlike Kendricks, Williams did stay with The Temptations in a choreographical capacity until his passing in 1973.
These lineup changes (Damon Harris and Richard Street entering as replacements) would spell irrelevancy under most circumstances if not utter disaster, but in the case of Solid Rock, there is Norman Whitfield to consider. Although this is far from the strongest joint Temps-Whitfield effort, it does hold another of the producer’s fascinating and frankly sprawling psychedelic soul efforts. Breaking 12 minutes, “Stop the War Now” is amongst the wildest of Motown’s psych-soul forays.
In holding nothing back (Whitfield surely knew that psych-soul’s time was nearly up), the track avoids mere excess, in part through the skills of the Funk Brothers, who build up a heavy, heady experience. If “Stop the War Now” doesn’t fully justify its length, it’s not a space filler masking a lack of material, as Whitfield had no issues with interpreting recent hits by other artists; a version of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” is one of Solid Rock’s standouts. There was also no hesitation over returning to Whitfield’s own songs, as album closer “The End of Our Road” had already hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1968.
With its big beats and fuzz guitar, “What It Is?” delivers the set its instrumental highpoint, while “Ain’t No Sunshine” and the proto diss track “Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)” (taking aim primarily at former Temps singer David Ruffin) are the vocal showcases. Solid Rock’s main issue is that the highs don’t rise to the level of exceptional. Thankfully, the rest of the album escapes plummeting into the average.
Also produced by Whitfield, The Undisputed Truth, a trio comprised of singers Joe Harris, Brenda Joyce Evans, and Billie Rae Calvin, shared their best known tune, “Smiling Faces Sometimes,” with The Temptations, the song co-written by Whitfield and Barrett Strong. The differences in the versions are striking, as the Temptations album track, from Sky’s the Limit, is another long one residing in the psych-soul zone, while The Undisputed Truth’s version, clocking in at a trim 3:18 in a more straightforward mode (with some symphonic sweep reflecting the era), rose to no. 3 on the Billboard pop chart.
The Undisputed Truth never hit the Top 40 again, but they did bubble under quite a bit while cutting eight LPs, the first six for Motown. Their eponymous first effort is a solid showing, holding “Smiling Faces Sometimes” along with numerous interpretations of songs prominent in the popular lexicon, amongst them “Aquarius” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (one in a handful of Whitfield compositions) both in perfectly fine if not startlingly brilliant readings.
The standout versions are “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)” in a ten minute excursion that is something of a psych-soul offramp (but ultimately more of a Rare Earthy groove stomper) branching off from The Undisputed Truth’s generally more mainstream avenue, and “Like a Rolling Stone” in a gemlike take that ends the record on its highest note.
Unlike the above recordings, the ninth LP by Gladys Knight & the Pips and the group’s last for Motown before a run of albums for Buddah Records, has six credited producers. Usually, this many cooks in the kitchen is a bad sign, particularly when it’s a contract fulfiller, but Neither One of Us is an enjoyable collection of tunes, and cohesive through smartly executed focus on Knight’s lead vocal.
As exemplified by the album’s opener “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the One to Say Goodbye),” which landed the group a No. 2 pop hit and a Grammy Award, hits the early ’70s pop-soul target right in the bullseye. And unsurprising for the era, the track was a soulification of a country song written by Jim Weatherly (which was on the country chart in a recording by Bob Luman at the same time the Pips’ version was making its ascent).
“Who Is She (And What Is She to You),” a funky gender-tweaked take of a Bill Withers song that closes side one, is the record’s main stylistic digression; it pairs well with side two’s country-funky finale “Don’t It Make You Feel Guilty.” But if the rest of the selections are pop-soul to varying degrees, Knight brings deep soul energy throughout to a largely satisfying result.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
The Temptations, Solid Rock
B
The Undisputed Truth, The Undisputed Truth
A-
Gladys Knight & the Pips, Neither One of Us
B+
