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Gordy G 7016 (A), March 1963
b/w It Must Be Love
(Written by Berry Gordy)
Oriole CBA 1831 (A), May 1963
b/w It Must Be Love
(Released in the UK under license through Oriole Records)
Have you ever wondered what the exact point where a great songwriter completely ran out of ideas might sound like? Wonder no more.
Berry Gordy Jr., founder and owner of the Motown empire, had been a vitally important songwriter and producer in the early days, penning any number of the nascent label’s earliest hits. Throughout 1961, and even more so in 1962, he’d found himself increasingly sidelined from the creative operations, the growing fortunes of the company necessitating Gordy spending less time in the studio and more time in his office. By 1963, he was all but done as a songwriter; there would be occasional flashes of former glory throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, when inspiration struck (e.g. Brenda Holloway) or when a project particularly enthused him (Chris Clark, the CorporationTM, late-period Diana Ross & the Supremes), but his name would appear on less and less records, much less hit records, as the decade went on. This can’t have been easy to take for Gordy, an intensely proud man, but he had better writers working for him now, and he was needed elsewhere. Posterity would give him Lonely Teardrops, Money (That’s What I Want), and – of course – the Contours’ Do You Love Me, which brings us to this.
The result of Gordy’s reassessment of priorities, and the subsequent sidelining of the boss as an active front-rank Motown writer, was that a lot of the stuff he did find time for fell very far short of his best. The Contours were a case in point. Something of a pet project for Gordy, their big breakthrough with Do You Love Me must have been a source of immense personal pride, but it quickly became clear that these guys weren’t sensitive, intelligent interpreters of clever, nuanced material (not like the Temptations, who’d performed miracles with Gordy’s best song, (You’re My) Dream Come True); these Contours were dancers, rough and ready, able to whip live audiences into a screaming frenzy. And what those live audiences wanted, really, was Do You Love Me, which this group had pretty much perfected, and which they wouldn’t ever be able to top. You can almost hear Gordy wondering: what was the point in trying anything different?
And so, having already pumped out two Do You Love Me soundalikes in “Shake Sherrie” and “You Better Get In Line” – which had performed relatively disappointingly on the charts, considering the company’s high expectations – Gordy sat down again to write a soundalike follow-up, going back to the Do You Love Me blueprint even more slavishly, to the point that this is just an embarrassing retread. He clearly couldn’t be bothered any more, and audiences could tell; this limped to number 64 pop, and the Contours’ days as a headline chart act were over.
(It also failed to chart in Britain, where Motown’s UK licensee Oriole had seen Do You Love Me gazumped by a white British group, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, who’d taken their version of the song to Number One before the Contours could get off the starting blocks; Oriole had subsequently been eagerly and promptly releasing everything the Contours did, in the hope of picking up follow-up sales that never materialised.)
It really is transparently cynical, though, and badly done with it. Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby opens with another spoken-word intro: an awful, nasal-sounding delivery where one Contour patently recites from a script, and recites ineptly with it, as though English isn’t his first language – presumably intended as a reflection of the outlandish pronunciation of “You didn’t EVEN / Want me around. And now, I’m Back! To let YOU know” on Do You Love Me – but while on that record it had been charmingly strange, here it just falls horrendously flat, resulting in an awkward, tenth-rate amateur-dramatic feel: Look, I am tellin’ you…as a FWEND, because I think, you’re. So… nice. I really think a lot of YOU. Now, you can let her wear yer PIN you can let her be yer FWEND. But remember – what – ever – you – do.” It’s dreadful.
Things don’t pick up from there. As with the two previous follow-up attempts, the infectious, giddy energy from Do You Love Me has been entirely lost, replaced with a mechanical, soulless attempt to get lightning to strike again. All the ingredients are there, in a dutiful exercise in box-ticking: the same tempo (tick!), the same call and response structure (tick!), the Twist And Shout ascending open-chord bit in the chorus (tick!), to the point that it’s basically the same song.
Also, where Do You Love Me was hopeful, aspirational, happy, winning the listener over to the Contours as they tried to win over their girl, here they just come across nasty, spiteful, even misogynist, the narrator telling an unspecified “fwend” – casting us, the listener, in that role – that our new girlfriend (who just happens to be the narrator’s ex) is bad news, and so we’d better dump her quickly so that the narrator can get back in. With the unbelievably bad amateur dramatics of the spoken intro, we’re left in no doubt whatsoever that the narrator doesn’t give a stuff about our welfare, and is just being a first-class dick. It might have worked as a character piece – there could have been some knowing smirks in there, especially on the If you agree, send her back to me bit, as the narrator played a sleazy lothario, or there could have been some biographical detail laid on to tell a real story – but the Contours are the worst actors in the Motown stable, and this just comes across as the Contours themselves being unpleasant. Quite a commercial misjudgement.
(Berry Gordy wasn’t alone in thinking it could still sell, though – the Del-Rays turned in a cover for Stax Records in 1964, making this one of a positively tiny handful of Jobete tunes to cross the great divide and get a Stax/Volt release).
It’s not a terrible record – it shares a lot of the rhythm and danceability of Do You Love Me – but it is mean-spirited, cynical and completely pointless, and so the fact this isn’t getting one out of ten shouldn’t be construed as any kind of recommendation.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in The Contours? Click for more.)
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| Amos Milburn “I’ll Make It Up To You Somehow” |
The Contours “It Must Be Love” |
Motown Junkies 
I’m really interested to know people’s reasons for disagreeing with this one…! If it’s just rabid Contours fans, they should be cheered up a bit by tomorrow’s piece.
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…er, well it’s quite good to dance to.
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So is “The Bump”, if you’re drunk enough.
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This is another one of the Contours obscure sides I was lucky to find an original pressing of when I went oldies hunting in the late 1970s. (And the next one, which will surely wear no 10-crowns from you either.) As a missing piece of the Motown puzzle, I was (always) happy to find it but I share the lack of enthusiasm for it as a song. In the 30some years since, I haven’t worn this one out either, and it’s still plenty shiny.
I consider The Contours records I have in my collection akin to a guilty pleasure. Like the much better but just as sweaty and raw Jr. Walker material, a haven of raunch to escape to when I’ve had a long dose of Gordy’s upscale, crossover determination, most represented by The Supremes when they’re doing the Funny Girl album, the Rogers & Hart stuff, and especially their live albums where even their own hits sound rearranged so Las Vegas-style, Steve & Eydie or Wayne Newton could embrace them.
The Contours are now in a slump here, I agree, but they’re not finished yet either. They are still to cross paths with Smokey who will work two enduring wonders on them, not only genuinely restoring the group’s humor in one case, but getting a bracingly sincere brokenhearted performance that I bet Gordy -and most of us- never dreamed possible from them.
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It’s not the raunch I object to here, it’s the fact that to all intents and purposes it’s the exact same record as Do You Love Me (and, indeed, the same record as Can You Do It, and not a very different record to You Better Get In Line, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to Shake Sherrie, etc), with about four notes changed, except not as good and with a nasty subtext.
I actually find it less energetic, free and liberating than, say, Amos Milburn, regardless of more sensible indicators like tempo and arrangement, because at least Amos meant it; here, the supposedly rebellious, raucous lunkheads toe the company line as obediently as Mary Wilson ever would. This is just a cynical retread of a genuinely excellent record by a group and a writer phoning it in, with an all-pervading air of “will this do?”, and while on paper it should tick all the right boxes, it leaves me almost totally cold. If Do You Love Me was the sound of the Contours cutting loose and having a great time, this is the sound of the Contours self-consciously pretending to have just as much fun the fourth time around. It was on one of the earlier Contours “soundalike sequel” reviews that I invoked the memory of Beach Boys Party!, and I think the comparison still stands; fake fun is identifiable from eight miles away, and is no match for real spontaneity.
All of which is just galling, because as you quite rightly point out the Contours were far from done, even in this line-up. Indeed, for some actual dance/rock fun, one need only flip the record over!
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“Do You Love Me” ts a lot better than the 3 semi-soundalike re-makes. But, I don’t like “Do You Love Me” all that much. I didn’t like a Contours’ song until Joe Stubbs became their lead. And their best song was a Dennis Edwards lead, “It’s So Hard Being A Loser”, This 45 was a throwaway. If I hadn’t tried to collect ALL Motown releases to that point, I wouldn’t have bought it. I agree with Nixon’s “2” rating. The flip is a little better, but not enough to matter.
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A big “Right on” to “Its So Hard Being a Loser”!! Would have loved to hear David Ruffin take a shot at it.
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It would have been ideally suited for Jimmy Ruffin. Bearing in mind the depth of his output of Dean & Weatherspoon songs, his failure to record it is a glaring omission.
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You sure it won’t be included on “Cellar Full of Motown Vol 27”?
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4/10 for dancebility.
Your interpretation of the record’s recitation is HEE-larious. I wish i could hear you do it in person.
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My first reaction was that this is too early to sound like The Beatles, but then I quickly realized that both this, and the Beatles, sound like 1962’s Isley Brothers’ Twist & Shout.
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My introduction to this song was when I purchased the stereo album of “Do You Love Me” which was actualy the single releases….This is one of the songs I can do without. I found the 45 at a used record store and brought it because I was curious about the “B”side which is the side for me. This songs sounds like something that could be ina “Flinstones” episode with Wilma & Betty doing the Pterodactyl
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Sooooo… I love quality, tastefully done art as much as the next person. So, why on earth do I have a place in my heart for “Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby”? As another poster stated, my introduction to the song was when I picked up the 1980’s re-issue/compilation edition of the “Do You Love Me” album. I was still somewhat new to this whole Motown thing but I had been at it long enough to know all about the follow-up-a-hit-with-a-soundalike-until-you-wear-it-out theory. When I got to this song, I knew this had mined the formula for all it was worth, much like Martha & The Vandellas’ “Live Wire” was one follow-up too many.
I figured this was some kind of effort to recoup the glory of one fluke hit record (one that many DJs unitedly called “Garbage”!) With that said, for some reason, I liked, and still like the record. For one thing, it appealed to me as a musician. I got a weird fascination with the fact that they even could still come up with yet another extension of the “Do You Love Me” blueprint. I liked the beat. I liked the vocal interplay between Billy Gordon and the guys. Sure, it lacks the class of The Temptations and Miracles, but it’s a bit like sometimes enjoying a McDonald’s hamburger vs. Filet Mignon. There is no rhyme or reason to why you’d ever prefer the former to the latter, and yet, there you go.
I had read how the Contours were rated super low at the company, so maybe my expectations were low anyway and I just took the song for what it was, a last ditch cash in. And still, I like it, bad spoken intro and all. One of those things I’ll probably never be able to quite qualify.
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