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Soul S 35002 (A), July 1964
b/w I Want Her Love
(Written by Norman Whitfield)
It’s odd; I know part of my reason for doing this blog was to remind people (including myself) of the sheer quantity of really good records Motown somehow managed to release in their heyday, but looking back over the last few weeks’ worth of A-sides, the quality threshold is just staggering, even for me. We’re entering a period now where it’s almost as though nobody at Motown could do wrong – talk about your Golden Age right here.
The Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops… former runts of the Motown litter were having a good time of it in 1964. Given the number of new stars bursting through the ranks at Hitsville, it’s therefore not so much of a surprise to see honest, hard-working slogger Jimmy Ruffin given the full Motown makeover treatment too. Berry Gordy had identified another potential superstar lurking on the books, and it was time to bring Jimmy along.
The last time we met Jimmy Ruffin was back in 1961, when he cut a flop single for the short-lived Miracle Records label, the little-remembered Don’t Feel Sorry For Me. Since then, he’d been condemned to a day job noted by Nelson George as the most gruelling work available in Detroit: a shift on the assembly line at Ford. (He didn’t spend these years serving in the Army, as many sources inaccurately state – Jimmy had enlisted in the Fifties, but was long since demobbed by the time he followed his younger brother David to Detroit at the turn of the decade).
The older Ruffin stayed in touch with Motown, keeping his hand in by doing piecemeal work: compere duties, occasional bottom-of-the-bill live engagements, handclaps, finger-snaps, and what seems to be one solitary trip back to Hitsville in 1962 to record a song (Half Of Your Love) that was subsequently shelved for 41 years (it eventually surfaced on Jimmy’s excellent anthology CD, The Ultimate Motown Collection, in 2003). He also played guitar for David’s sporadic solo gigs, before David joined the Temptations. If that meant the accompanist work dried up, it might also have served to remind everyone at Motown that David’s older brother was still technically under contract, and so it came to pass that Jimmy was temporarily recalled from the purgatory of the Ford factory.
If things had shaken out differently, Jimmy might have been able to clock off for the last time right then and there. Young Norman Whitfield, still pretty much at the bottom of the Motown food chain as a writer-producer, turns in a slinky, soulful pop-blues number, and Ruffin obliges him with a brooding performance full of reflective pain. Jimmy’s voice isn’t as quite as strong as it would become later in the Sixties, though it’s still a sweetly likeable effort – but it’s equally clear that Whitfield wouldn’t make his fortune working with this Ruffin.
Indeed, there’s an argument to be made that at this stage, Jimmy’s voice simply isn’t big enough for the song (and perhaps more importantly the arrangement) Whit builds around him here. Tender, vulnerable, full of vibrato, Ruffin pours his heart out over the hackneyed but touching lyric (I don’t need my arms, ‘cos I know / That they’ll never hold you again / What good are my ears, when they only hear / Bad gossip from our so-called friends). His reward is that he ends up subsumed by the bolder, brasher brass and backing vocals, all more professional and more direct than Jimmy can manage yet. He tries a few raw howls of emotion, but when a quirk of chronology means Since I’ve Lost You gets played back-to-back with Levi Stubbs, there’s only going to be one winner on that score.
Still, even if the overall impression is of a pretty record that never quite takes its foot off the brake pedal, there’s more than enough here to suggest Jimmy was one to watch. He’s personable and highly likeable, and his voice is good – it’s just perhaps not quite the right voice for this particular song.
All in good time, Jimmy Ruffin, all in good time; now, back to work on the assembly line. Your chance will come soon enough – and when you’ve been waiting this long for your break, what difference will a few more months make?
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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Jimmy Ruffin “I Want Her Love” |
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In Philadelphia, I don’t think I heard Ruffin on the radio until “As Long As There Is L-O-V-E Love.” I might never have heard this if it weren’t part of the “Top Ten” album in 1966 (Soul 704). He’s two summer away from his own Motown Immortality, but we know it’s coming. 🙂
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Dave L, was that on WHAT or WDAS?
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this is indeed as nice reintroduction to the softer of the two ruffins. of course, we are all waiting for the big hit coming up. strange, but it feels like the next ruffin single sounds like an anomaly in this very futile period. a huge deserved hit, but quite different from the direction motown was forging this year. i can’t wait to read what you have to say about it. however, this hit seems slightly better than its rating indicates and ruffin’s voice sounds just fine to these ears!
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I do think Jimmy sounds great, but he’s overrun by the big song going on around him – but of course it’s not long before he’ll be able to front perhaps the “biggest” song in Motown history without fear of getting lost in the arrangement.
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A little off-topic here 🙂 but I’m pulling out all my favorite Motown Christmas songs of late, naturally.
I love everything on the mono version of “Merry Christmas The Supremes” (Motown 638), but especially the sublime butter cream frosting that is Ross’s delivery of “White Christmas.” Now, I’ve since read that the Christmas album was done in Los Angeles, so maybe it very well isn’t Benjamin doing those atomic drums on “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” but they are fantastic, whoever it is! 🙂
I favor Melvin Franklin’s spoken-word version of “Someday At Christmas” (“Temptations Christmas Card,” Gordy 951) over Stevie’s rather juvenile-sounding original; for a Stevie selection I like “What Christmas Means To Me.” And, of course, The Miracles’ “Christmas Everyday” is getting its usual workout too 🙂
Happy Holidays, Nixon, and to all other Motown Junkies visitors too. 🙂
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My Radio Cardiff appearance from last Saturday is now online to hear again, if anyone wants to hear what my voice sounds like at 8am in the morning:
http://screencast.com/t/Vd5reoAS
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Interesting — noticed your accent has a bit of an Irish tone I am familiar with Cockney and Scouse but what is yours??
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Mongrel.
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Considering Nixon’s rating of this song (and the reasoning behind it), My holiday wish for him is to get two songs stuck in his head for the rest of the Christmas season: Randy The Newspaper Boy and Happy Ghoul Tide. He deserves a Ray Oddis Christmas.
6. A bloody 6.
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Damn, that’s cold. 🙂
I’d point all disgruntled Jimmy fans to the explanation of what a 6 means in the Marks Out Of Ten page linked at the top. I mark hard, people.
Six: The second most misunderstood mark on the site. 6 is good. 6 is above average – this is a good record, and would grace the playlist of any radio show. If I gave it a six, it’s likely in that personal top 500 I mentioned. It’s good. It’s just – in my opinion – not quite good enough to realistically count itself among the ranks of the truly great Motown records, which is where the green numbers start.
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I’d give it a 7 (on YOUR difficult scale).
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It was a borderline decision, for sure.
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Agreed. A smooth soul groove from Jimmy.
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Do you think it’s worth more than a 6 in the female version. As much as love Jimmy, my loyalties are threatened in this case.
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I think so, yes. Gladys is fantastic, while – perhaps as a by-product of the Velvelettes re-using the same band track tape – to me Cal Gill sounds a bit less overwhelmed by the (slightly more muffled) Funks and strings. But my favourite version is the Undisputed Truth’s take from 1971.
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This is only my second post, and it seems that again I agree with our host. I give this a six. The arrangement suits Mr. Ruffin like a Saville Row suit. What is interesting to me is that while early in Norman Whitfields career there is nothing here that suggests what he will evolve into. Though I do notice that he wrote this particular song himself. When you think about it, most of the songs that we identify with him are written with others. Therefore if you were to compare him with say Smokey, it seemed that Smokey could have achieved the same results if he wrote alone, my thought is that Whitfield had better results when he wrote with someone else. I would like to believe that Whitfield as an artist tried his material on a number of artists as he did with this song for artistic reasons,but it could be the “Spaghetti Syndrome” of throwing the different versions against the wall and see which one sticks. I prefer the Temptations take.
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Hey There, The Tempts do a good job on this one. Gladys Knight & her guys do a smokin job on it as well. Jimmy Ruffin, technically never had a great voice. Some critics talk about how he had trouble staying on key. However, when he had the right production/arrangement/song he could sound very good. Though the title esacpes me I liked that comeback hit he had in the 70s which I think was produced by one of the Gibb Bros. Of course, Mr. J Ruffin gets my vote for having one of the best album titles ever… “The Groove Governor” Right on!
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Jimmy’s 70’s hit was “Hold On To My Love”.
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I agree, Mr. L., with your comment on Jimmy’s voice. A little thin on the high notes in several of his songs, “I’ll Say Forever My Love” being illustrative. But, you know, I love that and his other recordings anyway.
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🙂
{{ happy dance
Got HipOSelect’s deluxe “More Hits By The Supremes” for Christmas. 🙂
Mono at last, and on CD. It was the first album I ever owned back at 11.
http://www.hip-oselect.com/scr.public.product.asp?product_id=303A66EC-87D0-4597-BFD9-8FC5A9EB95C1
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Wow! I bet you are enjoying that. I finally got the More Hits album a few years ago & I find it to be quite good. What a selection of songs! One reviewer on another site said that he could argue that More Hits was a better album than Revolver. Pretty cool!
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Not bad but Gladys wiped the floor with him a few years later. Early on Jimmy had a habit of not “going for it”. However, this problem was soon solved and airplay and sales picked up (check out the stylistic approach change and hear him hold his own against brother David in “Born To Love You” from the “Gettin’ Ready” Lp as well as the album “I Am My Brothers Keeper”.
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