Elemental Music’s The Motown Collection is a continuing series of long-playing vinyl reissues of crate digger favorites from the Detroit-bred soul music giant Motown Records catalog. All releases will replicate the ‘60s and ‘70s LPs’ bold sound and 12-by-12 full-color packaging. The Motown Sound Collection continues with titles scheduled for release through early 2025.

Elemental will release a total of 22 titles through the end of 2024, including music by such storied Motown stars as Smokey Robinson (and the Miracles), The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye (both solo and with duet partner Mary Wells), The Jackson 5, Eddie Kendricks, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and The Undisputed Truth.

“As a rule of thumb, we always try to reissue the music that we love. That’s our priority. With the Motown Series, we wanted to take a deep dive into the label’s history and to reissue some more obscure titles,” describes Elemental Music Founder and producer of the Motown Sound Collection Jordi Soley.

“For many of the albums we’ll be putting out throughout 2024 and into 2025, it will be their first reissue since their original release. It’s our way of showing some love to Motown’s legacy.”

The collection continues now with three more classics in the form of The Temptations’ Meet the Temptations (Mono edition), Marvin Gaye’s In the Groove and The Supremes’ Love Child.

The eighth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released on August 26th, 1968 on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records, was In The Groove.

It was the first solo studio album Gaye released in two years, after recording duets with female R&B singers Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell. In the Groove was reissued and retitled as I Heard It Through the Grapevine after the unexpected success of that tune, which would become Gaye’s biggest-selling and signature single of his career.

For the song, producer Whitfield decided to force Gaye to raise his vocal register higher than what he was used to. The album also marked Gaye’s first attempts at producing himself in the studio with his own self-penned songs, the funky gospel dancer, At Last I Found a Love, and the smoother Change What You Can.

Marvin Gaye - You (Music Video)

SIDE ONE:
1. YOU
2. TEAR IT DOWN
3. CHAINED
4. I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
5. AT LAST (I FOUND LOVE)
6. SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

SIDE TWO:
7. LOVING YOU IS SWEETER THAN EVER
8. CHANGE WHAT YOU CAN
9. IT’S LOVE I NEED
10. EVERY NOW AND THEN
11. YOU’RE WHAT’S HAPPENING (IN THE WORLD TODAY)
12. THERE GOES MY BABY

With instrumental accompaniment by The Funk Brothers & the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and featuring background vocals by The Andantes, The Originals, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Telma Hopkins, Joyce Vincent Wilson and Pamela Vincent, this album is probably the best of his pre-Tamla albums that I have heard. The first side is mostly heaters through and through, with the highlight being, of course, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a solidly infectious number with a sinister backbeat, delicious horns and tremendous vocals. I mean, there’s something very magical about those ’60s Motown singles that I’ll never tire of.

Other favorites are You, Chained, Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever and Change What You Can, all that only continue to showcase the fact that each and every track comes complete with the most perfect presentation of soul music with an stirring funk beat.

Meet the Temptations was the debut studio album by The Temptations, released on the Gordy (Motown) label in 1964. It includes most of the group’s early singles, among them the group’s first hit single, The Way You Do the Things You Do.

The line-up on the cover features Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Otis Williams, and newest Temptation Davis (later David) Ruffin, who actually only appears on the aforementioned hit. The other tracks all feature original Temptation Elbridge Al Bryant, who was fired from the group in December 1963.

SIDE ONE:
1. THE WAY YOU DO THE THINGS YOU DO
2. I WANT A LOVE I CAN SEE
3. DREAM COME TRUE
4. PARADISE
5. MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE
6. ISN’T SHE PRETTY

SIDE TWO:
7. JUST LET ME KNOW
8. YOUR WONDERFUL LOVE
9. THE FURTHER YOU LOOK, THE LESS YOU SEE
10. CHECK YOURSELF
11. SLOW DOWN HEART
12. FAREWELL MY LOVE

Meet the Temptations was originally issued only in monaural sound, and that’s the version presented here. The album compiles all six singles they released between 1961 and 1964, amongst them Check Yourself, Your Wonderful Love, The Way You Do the Things You Do, Just Let Me Know, which was their first hit single. To be honest, and rather surprisingly, apart from the occasional track with lesser sound quality, you would never tell this album has been compiled from different sessions.

The final album released this month is Diana Ross & the Supremes’ Love Child. Their fifteenth studio album released on the Motown label in 1968, was the group’s first studio LP (excepting covers and tribute albums) not to include any songs written or produced by any member of the Holland–Dozier–Holland production team.

Motown CEO Berry Gordy assembled a team to create a hit single for The Supremes. The result was Love Child, which returned the group to the Billboard Hot 100’s number one position. Staff producers such as Smokey Robinson, Harvey Fuqua, and Johnny Bristol also contributed to the album.

SIDE ONE:
1. LOVE CHILD
2. KEEP AN EYE
3. HOW LONG HAS THAT EVENING TRAIN BEEN GONE
4. DOES YOUR MAMA KNOW ABOUT ME
5. HONEY BEE (KEEP ON STINGING ME)
6. SOME THINGS YOU NEVER GET USED TO

SIDE TWO:
7. HE’S MY SONNY BOY
8. YOU’VE BEEN SO WONDERFUL TO ME
9. (DON’T BREAK THESE) CHAINS OF LOVE
10. YOU AIN’T LIVIN’ TILL YOU’RE LOVIN’
11. I’LL SET YOU FREE
12. CAN’T SHAKE IT LOOSE

With backing vocals by The Andantes, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and instrumental accompaniment by The Funk Brothers & the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the title track itself sure tends to attract all the attention and while it was a classic Supremes tune, the Love Child album (as a whole) had a lot more to offer.

With long-time Supremes producers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland having left the Motown organization, The Supremes found themselves forced to work with a myriad of Motown songwriters and producers; including Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Harvey Fuqua, Smokey Robinson, and Frank Wilson.

Virtually every one of the producers brought their A-Game to the sessions, most bringing original material as well. The result was an album that sounded considerably more contemporary than some of their recent releases (1967’s The Supremes Sing Rodgers & Hart or Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform Funny Girl), but with so many cooks in the recording studio, well, the collection also had a slightly disjointed feel to it.

Not that such a thing should diminish ones enjoyment of it though, far from it, for the vocals - and just the whole sound of the album - are lovely, with Diana’s vocals (in particular) are seamlessly mixed with the lyrics; and thus make them supremely beautiful.

The overall theme of this album is really pleasant and it’s just an amazing listen from start to finish, such a stunning album with no bad components, and everything was well put together. Such a positive feel good energy radiating off of the album, such a pleasant listening experience.

I mean, Diana’s vocals are absolutely addictive as they are captivating, each song having a different feel to it and thus they’re all amazing. A true classic album worth listening to no matter what kind of music you enjoy.

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