(“Flotsam and jetsam”)
**This is a discography for Motown-related releases other than those on the main Motown labels, which are listed here. If you’re looking for a full list of every Motown single, try the Master Index instead!**
Not everything on this site fits neatly into the Motown catalogue. Between the company’s foundation in the winter of 1958/59, and its demise as an independent concern in 1988, Motown-related music appeared on a whole host of obscure, often one-shot labels, either licensed by Motown or set up by the company specifically to release one or two records.
Rather than set up a separate sub-page for each of these weird and wonderful Motown apocrypha, I’ve collected them all below. Most of these releases don’t have anything in common with each other, beyond the fact Motown didn’t really know what to do with them. Enjoy!
THE UNCLASSIFIED SINGLES
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- WADE JONES: I Can’t Concentrate / Insane (Rayber 1001, January/April (?) 1959)
- THE VELVELETTES: There He Goes / That’s The Reason Why (IPG 45-1002, July 1963)
- CORNELL BLAKELY: I’ve Got That Feeling / I Want My Share (Rich 1801, date not known, 1963)
- LEE ALAN: Set Me Free (same song both sides) (Summer Camp ZTSC 94422, February 1964)
- VARIOUS ARTISTS: Greetings to Tamla Motown Appreciation Society (Hitsville USA (no cat #), Summer 1964)
- THE SUPREMES: The Only Time I’m Happy (8) / Supremes Interview (George Alexander Inc. 1079, June 1965)
(Click a song title to read a full review of that side. NB: The coloured numbers after each title indicate the highly subjective mark out of ten I gave that song on the day I happened to write about it. They weren’t intended to be taken too seriously.)
I’d like to see the “Motown” Rich record 1801, “I Got That Feeling”/”I Want My Share”, by Cornell Blakely, on here as well. The recordings were made in The Snakepit, produced by Mickey Stevenson and Clarence Paul, and songs written by Motown writers, published by Jobete Music. The record even had a Motown “duplicate master” number (like only Motown Records had). It was released AFTER Nashville DJ Richbourg’s Rich Records label (to which Berry Gordy and partner James Hendrix had been leasing Blakely’s recordings) had gone out of business. Motown then pressed up their “own” Rich Records label (apparently to guarantee continuity for Blakely’s career). Although it is not a “pure” Motown record (in the sense that James Hendrix and Berry Gordy were partners in that venture (as Motown and Harry Balk were partners in the Motown-Distributed Inferno Records). The “Motown Rich Record (1801) was as much a Motown Record as the motown Inferno Records were.
I don’t disagree (having relented and added in Wade Jones, there’s no real policy reason to keep Cornell’s record out any more), but I don’t have a copy to review!
Well, now I do. Enjoy!
The Black Forum label is missing. Unfortunately, I never purchased any of these spoken word LPs. Therefore, I don’t have a lablel scan to share.
Link to the 45s: http://www.seabear.se/Black%20Forum.html
Hi Bob,
It’s not missing – we just won’t cross paths with Black Forum for another nine years! BF released several albums, but just one single (which is what this site is concerned with), and that didn’t arrive until the spring of 1973. It didn’t seem worth setting up a whole discography page just for one single, so when we get to Elaine Brown’s “No Time”, it’ll have a Misc heading and appear on this page. But I won’t get there for quite a while yet…