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Gordy G 7027 (A), January 1964
b/w Old Love (Let’s Try It Again)
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 272 (A), March 1964
b/w Old Love (Let’s Try It Again)
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
People seem to think I was overly hard on Quicksand, this single’s immediate predecessor (and I do mean “immediate” – less than two months elapsed between the release of that one and this one.) So I’m intrigued to know what people will make of this.
Contrary to popular opinion and received wisdom alike, for me Live Wire is at least as good as Quicksand. Supposedly the straw that broke the camel’s back, a second straight retread of Heat Wave (complete with the same rollicking beat, guitar riffs and backing vocals seemingly lifted straight from the earlier mega-hit – there’s even a two-syllable title!), this is apparently where America got bored with Martha and the Vandellas living off past glories and demanded they come up with some new tricks to keep people interested. This didn’t make the pop Top 40.
Odd to report, then, that taken on its own merits, Live Wire is actually excellent fun, faster and looser than Quicksand, recapturing some of the exuberance of Heat Wave, building on the theme of unwanted, unstoppable attraction explored in Quicksand (and only hinted at in Heat Wave), and matching it in form with a brutal, flat-out musical attack that’s at least 10 bpm too fast for the vocals to keep up without running out of breath.
Oh, everything I said about Quicksand goes double here; it is a retread, it is treading water creatively, Martha herself is again not on her very best form (probably this time because the music is going too fast), Roz and Annette aren’t given enough to do – but on its own merits, it all actually works slightly better than Quicksand as a mid-chart hit record in its own right.
Most of that can be credited to the band, who lay down a track so exciting that Brian Holland actually interrupted the ’63 Motown Christmas party to drag Martha away to listen to it. It’s easy to hear what he heard. From the chiming bar-room piano at the start pretending to be a baby grand, to the driving drums, bass and horns (check out the instrumental break at 1:54, easily the thrilling equal of the drum solo from Quicksand), and the incredible guitars, this is just about the most “everything going on” Motown production since Carolyn Crawford’s Devil In His Heart. When you then add Martha’s shouted interjections at the end (My eyes light up! Yeah! Sets my soul on fire – REAL live wire!)… I wouldn’t trade any of that stuff for the world.
Not as good as Heat Wave, then, but – surprisingly – on balance a better, more vibrant and more exciting record than Quicksand. A complete dead end, sure, but cracking good fun all the same.
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.
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Martha & The Vandellas “Old Love (Let’s Try It Again)” |
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My argument may be slightly undermined by the fact I accidentally named this page “Quicksand” to begin with…
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Martha says in her autobiography that HDH dragged her out of a Motown Christmas party to lay down the vocals on this one, and she thought “they’d lost their minds because it was so fast“, but gave a performance like a woman possessed because she had every reason by this point to trust their track record.
I was still 9 for two and a half months to go when this came out, and by this point Martha and the Vandellas had me lassoed and branded, and each new release made me jumping-up-and-down happy. It wouldn’t hurt to mention that “Live Wire’s” (relatively) weak chart peak of No. 42 on Billboard Pop, was during the same time period that “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” were chasing each other back to back to back at the top of the same chart. Beatlemania had detonated in America, big time. The Temptations breakthrough hit is the next Gordy issue in line, and had to deal with this same fresh hysteria. It did so admirably, reaching a heroic No. 11.
I love the gimmicky opening that can fool a novice that something classical is getting started, then the beat starts in and can throw you across the room. A fine, fine record and I’m glad to see it wearing an 8 đŸ™‚
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I believe Martha hardly ever performed this live because of the speed.
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When this record first came out, I took it to my local youth club where nobody had heard “Heat Wave” or “Quicksand”. Everyone loved it, and I had to keep playing it all night.
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Not only is “Live Wire” an inferior imitation of its much better predecessors and deserves no more than a “7” (perhaps a “6”), I hold it responsible for the even poorer showing of its superior successor, “In My Lonely Room.”
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I actually like this one a lot better than Quicksand.
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I always found the frenetic energy of ‘Live Wire’ a bit forced, compared to the spontaneous volcanic eruption of ‘Heat Wave’ and the ineluctable Nietzchean fatefulness of ‘Quicksand’ – but as always, Nixon, you make me listen afresh.
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Livewire is the poor mans heatwave. Quicksand was much better because the pace was not as frenetic and Heatwave on its own merits is a great record. The Vandellas were an important part of the sales of these records along with superior lead vocals by Martha but Livewire is a great records but it shrieks of Buy me I sound like the other two records we are following a formula please buy me. I hear this in the grooves!
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Hard to argue with any of that, really, but 50 years later and listening to them both side-to-side, I just find this an all-round better record than “Quicksand”, even if they are both just two very obvious riffs on the “Heat Wave” concept. I like this one more than I theoretically ought to.
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High energy Motown soul!. From the first day i heard it i loved it and consisdered it a double-sider (the very nostalgic “Old Love”)
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Call me crazy, but I would be very suprised if the piano intro was not the subliminal inspiration for Paul Simon’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. Remove the first two notes of the latter and they’re identical – melodically and harmonically. Obviously both are of gospel origin, but …
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I think “Live Wire” is worthy of the “8”, and is better than “Quicksand”, which was just an attempted “clone” of “Heatwave”.
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The pace of this one brings to mind that of Eddie Holland’s “Leaving Here,” and I was a sucker for all those fast, wild, and crazily soulful songs that it seemed no other R&B record company was producing. You could dance whatever you wanted to them and didn’t have worry about getting the proper steps down the way you had to with dances that had names, which was always my downfall, given my lack of ability in that area. But the repetitive melody in both songs was top draw, and those ‘Whooos’ in “Live Wire” made me wish the song would never end. Ric Flair must love this one.
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I don’t like livewire that much. Matter of fact it may be least favorite Martha and the Vandellas A side
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