The Complete Motown Singles
Vol. 5: 1965 (Motown/Hip-O Select)
Now we’re talking – stomping, clapping, crooning, shimmying, yelling. Flashing open on the Four Tops’ merry widow, “Ask the Lonely,” Jr. Walker’s “Shotgun” soon has you eyeing that beer can while reaching for a pen. Even then, Florence, Diana, and Mary – the Supremes – are swooping in to snatch 1965 from The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 5. Six discs, all more than 70 minutes long, cue up A- and B-sides from yet another peak year in the Motor City, while Hip-O Select’s Internet-only labor of love lays in virgin leather interiors. “Stop! In the Name of Love” halts the first CD, fighting off fierce competition from Kim Weston’s Bond theme wannabe, “I’m Still Loving You,” and of course Martha & the Vandellas’ jungle manhunt “Nowhere to Run.” The bronze goes to Brenda Holloway (“I’ve Been Good to You”). Marvin Gaye (“I’ll Be Doggone”) and the Miracles (“Ooo Baby Baby”) remain the pillars on which Motown became the greatest hit machine in pop-music history, always good for “Ain’t That Peculiar” or “Going to a Go-Go.” Smokey Robinson, especially, works Miracles, whether topside smashes (“Tracks of My Tears”), flipside crushes (“Since You Won My Heart”), or hire-outs: the Contours’ randy “First I Look at the Purse.” Six degrees of covers: J. Geils Band for “Purse,” and Weston’s “Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While),” a Doobie Brothers’ indelible. And always the Supremes, always. If their rending “Nothing but Heartaches” was a disappointment because it broke the trio’s string of No. 1 hits, then empty the closets. Discs two through six can’t dazzle like the opener, but whether the forgotten sound like Doris Day (Barbara McNair) or the Dalton Boys (“Take My Hand”), there’s “I Hear a Symphony” and Stevie Wonder’s miraculous “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” coming off the conveyor belt straightaway. Don’t Stop! For the love of God. www.hip-oselect.com.
This article appears in August 25 • 2006.
