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UNRELEASED: scheduled for
Soul S 35007 (B), December 1964
B-side of Do The Pig
(Written by George Coolures and Bobby Hunt)
And so, finally, to the end of 1964. Without a doubt Motown’s most successful year to date, artistically and commercially, it was also their busiest; the bumper crop of 168 sides slated for release in ’64 has actually taken us longer than a year to review here on Motown Junkies. But we’ve had some magnificent highlights – My Guy, My Girl, Baby I Need Your Loving, the Supremes’ Where Did Our Love Go and Baby Love, and – from last week – the Velvelettes’ peerless He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’. And we’re really only just getting started.
Compared to that little lot, closing out the year with a throwaway scribble like Thompin’ can only produce disappointment. Perhaps this is another reason why the Merced Blue Notes’ one and only Motown single went unreleased, the masters returned to the band to sell on elsewhere (which they did, hence the Galaxy Records label scan up there) – maybe someone felt they just weren’t good enough to keep that kind of company.
If so, it’s a little harsh. This is the stronger of the two sides, a helping of jaunty instrumental organ-led R&B/jazz fare, and while nobody’s going to be mistaking these guys for Earl Van Dyke or Booker T and the MG’s, it’s actually quite good fun.
The structure’s very similar to the A-side, the underwhelming, beery Do The Pig, a strident organ riff leading into a shuffling blues-rock groove, and again the organ isn’t played with any particular virtuosity – but there are two big improvements here.
Firstly, instead of a shouty chanted vocal, we instead get a lengthy guitar solo a la Django, bright and plucky and flexible, before the guitarist (I think it’s Ken Craig, who co-wrote the A-side, but I don’t know for sure, I’m afraid) descends the scale and starts flat out shredding, something we’ve not heard on a Motown 45 since the long-forgotten days of Nick and the Jaguars. It’s a fine performance which blows away any musty jazz cobwebs left by the slightly clumsy organ work, and lightens the mood considerably.
Secondly, both the guitarist and organist/co-writer Bobby Hunt – who seem to be treating this as an extended jam session (often the best way with jazz musicians of any stripe, of course) – indulge themselves creatively throughout the record, which is a boon given the lumpen lack of ideas on display on the A-side.
It’s still not great or anything, but it’s much more listenable than the topside, and it boils down to a fun little record. The Blue Notes’ slightly lumpen synthesis of pop, blues, jazz, rock and roll and R&B is awkward, and yet despite that – or maybe precisely because of that – it’s nonetheless an appropriate note on which to close out 1964, a year in which Motown had dabbled in all of those things, often all at once.
As Motown began 1965, flush with the previous year’s success and with My Girl (released just in time for Christmas ’64) heading quickly up the charts to Number One, I’m tempted to ask whether anyone at the company really believed that the new year would end up being even better. But it did. In 1965, Motown would not only rack up more hits, and ring up more sales, than ever before, they’d also create some of the most enduring pop records ever made – records destined to be labelled with that dirty old critic’s word, classics – and end the year a truly worldwide force. All of which feels a long way from Merced, California, but the Blue Notes had at least played their little part in the Motown story, and they weren’t embarrassed by the competition.
VERDICT
* * * * * * * * * *
5 / 10
(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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| The Merced Blue Notes “Do The Pig” |
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Considering the wealth of talent at Motown’s disposal, it’s strange that there were so few successful instrumentals released during the 60s.
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My pet theory is that unlike their contemporaries at Stax, the Funk Brothers just weren’t allowed off the leash enough to go forward and make the records they wanted to make (after all, it was in Motown’s interest to keep them tightly under control, with very sharply defined limits of tolerance for self-expression and experimentation, which meant keeping them in their corner – albeit a well-paid corner, and keeping them placated with a few releases under their own names), and although I’ve got a theory on Earl Van Dyke as a potential solo star, it meant they never really made too many records that sound like potential hits. “6 by 6” is probably the most commercial, “The Flick” the most intriguing (but never a hit single in a million years)… but all of that’s still to come.
Of the rest of the Motown roster, obviously Junior Walker was a law unto himself, and beyond that they didn’t really have many other acts whose stock in trade was instrumentals; the first big hit instrumental for a Motown act I can think of off the top of my head is the Commodores’ “Machine Gun” from the early Seventies, though I’m sure I’m missing something obvious!
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“Cleo’s Back” was “pretty big” (depending upon one’s definition).
I’d vote for “More Than a Dream” by Eivets Rednow (that famous ex-Harmonicat)! Of course, the latter never even sold one copy at the 45 full price. We all got ours from the record shop’s bargain bins, or in a thrift shop, or by asking Motown’s secretaries if they could give us any spare DJ copies.
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Robb- I got mine in a 10 pack for 39 cents –usually one record and ten more or so–you could get them at the grocery store or the convenient store–the records in the junk pile were usually either MCA’s group of labels, Starday-King, or Shelby Singleton’s group of labels [including the “bastard” SUN label].Eivets was the top record–you had to buy the box and open it to see what the rest were
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Some of the unreleased band tracks are almost good enough to issue as instrumentals in their own right. “True Fine Boy” [HDH backing track for Saundra Edwards] immediately springs to mind.
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However, 1965 would also bring some competition to Motown—STAX through their distribution deal with Atlantic–plus Atlantic’s own Wilson Pickett…and James Brown’s emerging popularity on the pop charts
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Indeed! I’ve got a whole narrative to take us through 1965 and how America (and America’s airwaves) were a different place than in 1964, and how Motown coped with those changes… I hope you all enjoy what’s coming up.
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I LOVE The Merced Blue Notes’ cuts. I bought them on Tri-Phi, Mammoth and Galaxy as soon as I saw them. Rufus Jr. is fabulous. I like “Thompin’ ” very much, too. I was VERY disappointed that Motown put no push behind them, and never even really pressed any. I’d give this a “7”.
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