Motown - The Complete Motown Singles Volume 7: 1967

The year Motown upped the ante.

So much for the Summer Of Love. It’s July 1967 and Detroit is on fire. A few blocks down from Motown’s Hitsville building, several thousand of the city’s black citizens are rioting, setting buildings ablaze in protest at the racial, social and political injustices heaped upon them by white America. They’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Despite the chaos, order is maintained at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, where Berry Gordy’s hit factory keeps to its usual routine and relentlessly churns out smash after smash. Motown isn’t without its own internal problems though – the label’s principal tunesmiths, Holland-Dozier-Holland, are about to quit the company in a royalty dispute and The Supremes have just jettisoned Florence Ballard for Cindy Birdsong and promoted Diana Ross to leading lady.

1967, then, in some ways, didn’t look a good year for Motown, but as the 120 tracks on this magnificent 5-CD set reveal, it was merely a case of “Crisis? What crisis?” Gordy gave producer Norman Whitfield greater creative freedom (he masterminded big hits for The Temptations and new signings Gladys Knight & The Pips) and brought in rookie Big Apple songwriters Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. As a result, Gordy witnessed the company’s profits soar. In fact, 75 per cent of the singles Motown issued in 1967 hit the US charts, which is a remarkable feat.

Interestingly, this compilation opens with a rare Motown failure from ’67: Love Gone Bad, the debut single by a mop-topped white rock group, The Underdogs, which illustrated that, although Motown had established a unique sonic identity, Gordy wasn’t afraid to take chances in an attempt to tap into different, potentially lucrative, markets. The 45 bombed ignominiously, proving that the Motown supremo couldn’t have it all his own way, but that didn’t deter Gordy from trying to penetrate the rock market again with The Messengers, also featured here with the first recorded version of Ashford & Simpson’s California Soul, later covered by the Fifth Dimension, Marlena Shaw and Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell. In fact, it was the sheer quality of the songs Ashford & Simpson penned for Gaye & Terrell in 1967 that hastened the songwriting couple’s ascension up the Motown chain of command, as they rapidly graduated from staff tunesmiths to producers. One of this collection’s undoubted standouts is the Gaye/Terrell duet, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, which, according to the copious sleevenotes, was originally written by A&S with Dusty Springfield in mind, and was first recorded by Tammi Terrell as a solo tune before Marvin Gaye added his part. Indeed, the exemplary track-by-track annotation by Bill Dahl and Keith Hughes, which provides a rich source of Motown trivia, is never less than fascinating. Those seeking deeper insights will find some in a thoughtful essay by Herb Jordan, which puts the Motown sounds of ’67 in their cultural and historical context.

This latest volume confirms that that, in terms of content and presentation, The Complete Motown Singles series is probably one of the best archival packages ever put together. Singularly magnificent.

5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars

Universal/Hip-O Select | B 0008993-02 (5-CD)

Reviewed by Charles Waring
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