Tags
Tamla T 54095 (B), May 1964
B-side of Try It Baby
(Written by Mickey Stevenson (as “Avery Vandenburg”) and Morris (Luvel) Broadnax)
Stateside SS 326 (B), August 1964
B-side of Try It Baby
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
During the course of writing this blog, there have been times when I’ve expected some controversy and none has arisen – and, equally, there have been times when I’ve thought I was stating the obvious, only to find I’m apparently out of step with public opinion. I have no idea what you’re all hearing in Try It Baby – I wondered briefly if I was listening to the wrong song? – but, hey, if you all love the record and it’s me that’s got it backwards, well, more power to you.
I’m not anticipating much of a backlash over this B-side, though. Sad to report, this is pretty dismal.
It’s been well explored on Motown Junkies before now that for all Marvin Gaye’s newfound success and stardom as a top-drawing R&B/pop act, what he really wanted, deep down, was to be the next Nat King Cole. Here, in 1964, after a few hits but before the hangers-on and the heroin, he was still very much in that particular headspace. Strip away all the trappings of fame, stick the 1964-model Marvin in a high-end supper club, give him a mic, a spotlight and a stool to sit on, let him close his eyes while candles flicker on the tables of discerning white patrons… he’d have taken that deal in a heartbeat.
But there were two huge flaws in that kind of talk which meant it could never happen that way for Marvin, even if he was seemingly oblivious to both of them.
Firstly, the public were emphatically not interested in Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., MOR crooner extraordinaire; when given the choice between a Stubborn Kind Of Fellow and a When I’m Alone I Cry, the punters voted with their wallets, early and often.
Secondly, and rather more crucially, he was absolutely not the new Nat King Cole. However much Marvin wanted to do standards and middle-of-the-road material, it’s just not his strong suit. On the bland, pseudo-standard MOR sides he did cut – like this one, for instance! – his voice is technically excellent, but he lacks emotion, connection (with either audience or material) – more than one account describes Gaye’s approach to these as methodical rather than emotional, concentrating on hitting the right notes rather than putting any of himself into the performances, and I can well believe it. He seems to treat this sort of material as a series of vocal exercises, showcases to prove he could really do it rather than anything to really commit to. There were no offers on the table from the supper-club circuit, and that couldn’t be solely chalked up to the fact Marvin had been seen shaking his ass on TV to Can I Get A Witness, no matter how firmly Gaye convinced himself that was the case.
Motown head honcho Berry Gordy, no idiot, had astutely called all of this correctly, right from day one, back when he’d first signed the handsome jobbing session drummer – see I’m Afraid The Masquerade Is Over for more evidence of this – but he knew he had to manage Marvin’s expectations. The boss understood that in order to get the best out of Marvin Gaye the R&B chart star, the price might be a certain amount of indulgence of Gaye’s doomed fantasy ambitions.
And so it came to pass that Motown released the LP When I’m Alone I Cry (left), a beautifully-jacketed platter of total MOR mush that Marvin himself allegedly offered to underwrite in order to have it pressed up.
Marvin was very popular by now, and he looks so handsome in the tastefully-lit cover shot that When I’m Alone I Cry must have shifted a few copies on the strength of that alone, but it’s hard to know what a crowd of swooning teenage girls made of the album when they actually got it home. Whatever the case, it clearly didn’t make enough of an impact for Motown to consider themselves happy with the return on their investment. They’d already issued the title track as a B-side a few months earlier, and now they dusted off another song from the album for use as a flip, maybe in the hope that buyers of Try It Baby might rush out to the shops to see what they’d been missing, or perhaps as a reminder of Gaye’s versatility as a performer.
Either way, it’s a mistake. This is another “pseudo-standard” published by Jobete’s MOR arm, Stein and Van Stock, writer Mickey Stevenson again credited as “Avery Vandenburg”. Orchestra horns, upright bass, brushed drums, soft-jazz piano noodling, and Gaye noodling too, aimlessly vocalising over the top in a manner so forgettable I couldn’t quote two lines of this back to you right now even though it’s actually playing as I’m typing.
This is the sort of directionless slop I really can’t abide; a tuneless dirge sacrificing melody for a vague melodiousness, sticky with self-satisfied lethargy, inhabiting some sort of horrible hinterland between Mantovani and Manilow but without the hooks. It’s not Marvin’s fault, although he’s never more than adequate on this one; there are hundreds upon hundreds of records that sound exactly like If My Heart Could Sing which leave me equally cold, songs from the soundtracks of stagey, long-forgotten Fifties movie musicals and hokey, long-forgotten Fifties stage shows. When writing about the title track, regular contributor 144man absolutely nailed what I find wrong with this stuff:
When I first heard this track back in 1964, I thought that it was music suitable only for the old folks. Now it’s 47 years later, and I still don’t feel old enough to appreciate it.
I doubt there has ever been a time when this was the Sound of Young America. Banal and boring, the main value of If My Heart Could Sing is as a constant reminder of how even the all-time greats could falter if they strayed too far from their home turf. I love Marvin Gaye, and I really don’t want to listen to this again.
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 Marvin Gaye? Click for more.)
![]() |
![]() |
Marvin Gaye “Try It Baby” |
The Miracles “I Like It Like That” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
---|
Like the blog? Listen to our radio show! |
Motown Junkies presents the finest Motown cuts, big hits and hard to find classics. Listen to all past episodes here. |
No backlash about this side from me. Whenever I’ve pulled out the single, I’m lucky to get halfway through it, and hit reject.
Marvin was shot by his father one day before he was to turn 45, and since you reviewed “When I’m Alone I Cry,” I have been wondering what might have been. By the dawn of the 80’s, Marvin Gaye Studios was boarded up, he’d barely gotten through two tumultuous marriages and rancorous divorces, the IRS was snapping at his heels and, furious that they had released In Our Lifetime without his express permission, he’d left Motown. He’d admitted to David Ritz earning and losing millionaire status at least twice, was using near-lethal amounts of coke, and then made the fatal decision to live again in the same house with his father.
That man, with all that emotional baggage and hard knocks, I very much would have liked to hear take on Sinatra’s mournfully reflective, “It Was A Very Good Year,” or the bitter-tinged “Summer Wind.” There’s not a doubt in my mind that at 50, Gaye could have fearlessly interpreted such material and give them new life.
But at 25, Marvin could not have been seeing anything but blue skies and clear road ahead, and that’s why he’s so very authentic singing the foibles, the ups and downs of young love, because young is what he and the rest of us babyboomers were.
LikeLike
Since we won’t be discussing 80s Marvin for a LONG time yet – and this isn’t meant to be a conversation-starter, just something for people to watch! – readers might enjoy this bootleg copy of Transit Ostend, the documentary made about Marvin’s brief but happy time getting clean while living on the seashore in Belgium in the early Eighties, before his (ultimately fatal) return to the US.
LikeLike
Transit ostend is one of the best documentary about the late Marvin but if you want to fully appreciate his stay in Ostend and if you’re lucky enough to understand french, you’ve got to read the book by Richard Olivier : L’ami ostendais de Marvin Gaye (Marvin Gaye’s Ostend friend).
LikeLike
The kind of record I don’t mind seeing used as
1. a place mat at a 40th high school reunion
2. a hanging decoration at a grade school 50s sock hop
3. warped into a candy dish
4. SKEET SHOOTING TARGET
LikeLike
Dismal. I could almost imagine Lawrence Welk introducing Gaye singing this one except it’s too awful a pseudostandard for even a musical geriatric like Welk.
LikeLike
I disagreed with you on the A-side; absolutely no disagreement here.
LikeLike
Hope you didn’t mind me quoting you!
LikeLike
Not in the slightest. Feel free…especially when you agree with me!
LikeLike
When I worked at a record store in the ’80s, I collected most of the 45s in the Motown family of labels up to 1968 – this is definitely one of the 45s that simply filled in a numbered slot and then collected dust on my shelf. Excellent post!
LikeLike
Thanks Marie. And to everyone else: if there’s anyone who hasn’t been to see Marie’s stupendous blog at catchthattrainandtestify.blogspot.com, go and bookmark it RIGHT THIS SECOND.
LikeLike
Like “When I’m Alone, I Cry,” the 45 of this one (which I also recognized as a self-indulgent vocal exercise, presaging the likes of Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera) saw the tape cut out after the violins ended, never providing the natural decay one hears on other MOR tracks from other artists (including Nat King Cole or Tony Bennett).
LikeLike
It reminds me olf eating a lot of sweets and then stopping suddenly….you know when you blood sugar level suddenly crashes and you get all sweaty and your hands shake and you’re anxious?
That’s what this side is. All you need to recover is to load up on your “Stubborn Kinda Fella” and you’ll be ok in a fast 15.
LikeLike
It appears from the reviewer, that when Motown writers compose a MOR styled song it gets a low rating. Once again this is a quality song, but as it is not typical Motown fare it gets slated. If this lovely song had been recorded by Nat King Cole, who was probably the style of artist associated with this type of song, it would have been highly praised. However, having been introduced by a younger pop slanted artist it gets condemned.
LikeLike
I usually like most of Louvell Broadnax’s songs. This one is okay. But it doesn’t do all that much for me. I’d give it a “3”.
LikeLike