2 Great Lost Gems from Motown

These 2 albums from Marvin Gaye's late 60's output are great! "That's the Way Love Is" & "Too Busy Thinking..." are the 2 major hits and they are both great, revealing 2 different sides of Mr. Gaye. The former is done in an intense, brooding "Grapevine" style, while the latter is a good time uptemo song which sounds like something Sam Cooke might have done. Many people complain that Motown kept re-doing the same songs with its artists. Personally, I like comparing the different versions. His take on "I Wish It Would Rain" doesn't take anything from the Temptations' original, but is still a very good version with a harder edge. Several other songs "Keep on Tryin" & "Give Her All the Love I've Got" have been done before by the Temptations and other artists, but Mr. Gaye's versions are very enjoyable. He also does "End of Our Road" (Originally done by Gladys Knight & Pips)in a similar style to his version of "Grapevine" and it is a great track. Some of the non-Motown covers are quite good, particularly "Groovin" and "Yesterday". Also, his version of "Abraham, Martin & John" is very moving. His version of "This Magic Moment" is nice, too. Some of the other "filler" ("Bitter Pill" "Only A Lonely Man" "Memories, etc) is all quite good. I also have the "In The Groove" (later "I Heard it Through the Grapevine") CD and taken together these 3 CD's are a great listening experience for any Motown/Soul fan.

MPG is Marvin's best '60's ablum, TTWLI is good too!

These import two-fers' are terrific. They feature terrific sound quality and great packaging. The albums included are:



M.P.G. (1969) **** (4 out of 5) Despite Marvin's long stream of hit singles, this was his first album to actually crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 200 albums chart and is his biggest seller of the sixties. M.P.G. reteams Marvin with "I Heard It Through The Grapevine-producer Norman Whitfield, and the two manage to overcome the typical Motown formula and create a surprisingly focused work.



A sense of consistency (which is what's missing from most sixties Motown efforts) is brought to the set by the blisteringly lean arrangements and some of Marvin's most impassioned vocals ever. The big smash hit is "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" (#4 Pop, #1 R&B), which is easily one of his best singles. The song's bouncy timbre made it the perfect (and somewhat surprising) follow up to the bone-chilling smash "I Heard It Through The Grapevine."



Some irresistible light blues is brought to the set with the incredible cuts "Seek And You Shall Find," "More Than A Heart Can Stand," and the hit "End Of The Road" (#40 Pop, #7 R&B). The disc plays out in a surprising satisfying manner, with the clever refrain of "Only A Lonely Man Would Know" laying down nicely beside the funky "It's A Bitter Pill To Swallow." The only tracks that miss the boat is the forgettable cover of "This Magic Moment" (which is also placed too early in the album) and the banal "Memories," which has nothing to distinguish it aside from Marvin's powerful performance. Thankfully these two missteps are listenable and M.P.G. emerges as Marvin's best solo album of the sixties.



THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS (1970) **** (4 out of 5) Produced by Norman Whitfield again, THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS continues the excellence of M.P.G. and is possibly the most underrated album from the first decade of Marvin's career. The tense and mournful title track (#7 Pop, #2 R&B) was another hit single, cracking the Top Ten on both charts. The formulaic "How Can I Forget" (#41 Pop, #18 R&B) was almost a hit, but it (along "No More Tears") is actually one of the disc's weakest moments. The sweeping "Gonna Give Her All The Love I Got (which received some airplay as the flip side of the "How Can I Forget" single) is really splendid and should have been a A-side release. Four covers appear on this recording, and they may be the most surprising songs here.



Marvin's renditions of "Yesterday" and "Abraham, Martin, and John" are stunning and absolutely heartbreaking. Shockingly enough, both manage to top the original recordings (by The Beatles and Dion, respectively). The remaining two covers ("Groovin'" and "Cloud Nine") are much less effective, but they're perfectly solid. Throw in the vintage Motown sound of "Gonna Keep Tryin' Till I Win You're Love" and a few other catchy numbers and you have another excellent Gaye-Whitfield release. On this record, there are flashes of the brilliance that would come later in Marvin's career; although it's still pretty unbelievable that the peerless masterpiece WHAT'S GOING ON would be released in little less than a year.

Two classic albums from Marvin

The first album featured here, MPG, was released in 1969 and the second, That's the way love is, was released in 1970.

The collection opens with Too busy thinking about my baby, a top five hit for Marvin in Britain and America. The follow-up single, That's the way love is, was atop ten American hit but missed the chart completely in Britain. How can I forget you became a minor American hit, but in Britain it was put on the B-side of Abraham Martin and John (my favorite Marvin Gaye song). The tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy gave Marvin a top ten UK hit, but it was Smokey Robinson and the Miracles who had the American hit with that song. From these two albums, there was one other minor American hit, The end of our road, which was not released as a single in Britain.

The other tracks making up these albums include covers of This magic moment (Drifters), Yesterday (Beatles) and Grooving (Rascals) as well as songs that had been hits for other Motown artists and some interesting but obscure original songs.

If you already have one of Marvin's hits collections and wish to explore further, you will certainly enjoy the two albums presented here.