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Tamla T 54110 (A), January 1965
b/w Go Ahead And Laugh
(Written by Sylvia Moy, Mickey Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter)
Tamla Motown TMG 511 (A), April 1965
b/w Go Ahead And Laugh
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Tamla Motown)
Many people (me, for a start) call the mid-Sixties Motown’s Golden Age, and with good reason: the label released so many classic hit singles between 1964 and 1967 that it’s often hard to believe they all came out of the same tiny Detroit townhouse. By the start of 1965, the stage was set for world domination, and pretty much everyone knew their roles. The writers and producers were in place, the Supremes, Temptations, Vandellas and Four Tops were nailing hit records left right and centre, and a whole supporting cast of superb acts – any one of whom could spring a classic Number One on their day – were lined up six deep on the release schedules.
With all of that in mind, it’s something of a surprise to arrive in January 1965 and realise Motown still didn’t know what to do with Kim Weston.
By now, rare was the Motown artist who continued to receive the label’s blessing (and investment) even though they weren’t getting hits; rarer yet if that artist had no direction, no clearly defined sound, no regular working relationship with a producer.
Still, like a few other misfiring members of Motown’s golden generation, Kim had some big cards left to play, cards which may have helped protect her from the ever-present threat of the axe. First off, she was married to the label’s A&R director, top writer/producer Mickey Stevenson, which has led to endless unjustified claims of nepotism, but which surely didn’t hurt her chances of sticking around. And secondly, she’d won the plum role of duet partner for another Motown family connection, the boss’ brother-in-law Marvin Gaye, effectively replacing Mary Wells in the process. As well as the pair’s first duet 45, the bouncy What Good Am I Without You, Kim’s solo career – which had stalled after a brace of excellent but non-chart-bothering singles in 1963 – had received a commensurate boost as well.
The return of Kim Weston to the Motown front lines is reason for celebration everywhere, since as well as being connected, she also happened to be brilliant – as she is again here, obviously – but the Motown larder was well-stocked with brilliant artists, Hitsville the only place on Earth where brilliance alone wouldn’t put you ahead of the chasing pack.
Kim’s Motown singles to date here on Motown Junkies have been an eclectic mixed bag, a hotch-potch of different styles and settings, with no discernible thread connecting them other than Miss Weston herself. The consensus seems to have been that while she had a remarkable voice – and she really did, she was probably the most technically gifted singer on the company’s books, her smouldering contralto both laser-accurate and extremely powerful with it – she was stymied because nobody at Motown knew how best to deploy her talents.
She could wipe the floor with the competition doing slow-paced torch ballads – Go Ahead And Laugh (dusted off and re-used as a B-side here), Just Loving You – but then Brenda Holloway was already being pushed in that direction, and moreover Brenda had managed to have some hits with that sort of material.
She’d proven an excellent vocal foil for Marvin Gaye in Mary Wells’ stead, so would she directly replace Mary Wells’ solo career, too? Nope – her attempt at a breezy My Guy soundalike, the woeful Looking For The Right Guy, had been a commercial and critical dud. Even though both Mary and Kim were husky contraltos, there was a throaty, raw quality to Miss Wells’ vocals that Kim just couldn’t replicate. Again, most of Mary’s material was passed to Brenda Holloway, much good though it did her.
Motown didn’t give up there. Kim could do various midtempo R&B-pop grooves in an attempt to find her niche and show off her voice – doo-wop and blues on Love Me All The Way, breezy pop hooks and emotional pain on It Should Have Been Me, R&B-pop on Another Train Coming… All good, and everything, but none of it exactly right, either for Kim’s voice or personality.
She’d turned in her best effort to date with her last single, the excellent A Little More Love, but after that record too had stiffed, it was back to the drawing board yet again for Motown’s most enigmatic vocal talent. Mickey Stevenson (Mr Weston himself) and Sylvia Moy, who’d paired up to write her previous 45, brought in Stevenson’s new writing partner Ivy Jo Hunter to try and crack the problem. The result is plenty intriguing: for the first time, Motown’s biggest voice was given a storming uptempo Motown workout written especially for her. And thus begins Kim Weston’s transition from underused curio to genuine soul queen.
It’s not an easy transition, mind you, and it’s not fully accomplished here – Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say – but I’m Still Loving You has more in common with Kim’s future than her past, and it’s a welcome development.
This one starts off in distinctly unpromising fashion, a ridiculously huge quasi-operatic intro – blaring horns, the Andantes doing a full-on choral overture, a bombastic chant of I’M STILL LOVING YOU! / NO MAT-TER-WHAT-YOU-SAY-OR DO! – which is pitched way too big for the ensuing song, and threatens to capsize the whole thing and pitch Kim overboard with it before we’ve even got going. It’s poorly-conceived, strident and cold, and it means the song proper starts off at a disadvantage.
(In my head, this song invariably gets mashed up with another (later) stomping Stevenson production with a similarly huge intro, Frances Nero’s Keep On Lovin’ Me, which always leads me to disappointment when a favourite misremembered bit from one song turns out not to be in the other, but I suppose that’s hardly anyone’s fault. What is noticeable is that while both records attempt to grab the listener by the throat, Miss Nero’s 45 manages the trick rather better than Miss Weston’s. But I digress.)
Kim gamely fights her way back from the ridiculous intro, with the aid of a lovely melody and some very pretty strings straight out of the John Barry or Monty Norman playbook (and I do mean straight out of it, the main chords here are lifted directly from the James Bond theme), as she launches into the story of a woman who’s having trouble moving on past a particularly messy and painful breakup.
It helps that this is her best vocal yet, the first time she’s not being pushed out of her natural tessitura, squeezed by force into a space that wasn’t originally carved out for her. And she is excellent here, able to compensate for the wildly uneven tone of the song, switching between the beautiful heart-on-sleeve verses –
Last night, I wrote you a letter
I tore it up today
(Tore it up today!)
It read: ‘…Not doing any better
Since you went away’
– and the massive chorus, a reprise of the intro which demands Kim ramp her voice right the way up (in terms of both scale and volume) to compete with the Andantes’ bellowing soprano parts, in order to convey a woman on the edge.
If the chorus were dialled down a bit, this might have been absolutely sensational (and would have also made for a stunning duet between Kim and Marvin – my mind’s already pencilling him in for alternate verses of a cover that sadly doesn’t exist.) Instead, by reaching too far too soon, this ends up diminishing some of its impact, and doing something of a disservice to Kim’s exceptional lead.
But it’s a start nonetheless, and while the record didn’t chart either in the US or Britain (where it flopped so spectacularly that it’s now considered one of the rarest of all Tamla Motown 45s), this particular genie couldn’t be squeezed back in the bottle. If it wasn’t quite Kim’s ticket to Motown’s top table, it also made sure her claims to stardom could never be ignored 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 Kim Weston? Click for more.)
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Martha & the Vandellas “Nowhere To Run” |
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The 45 of this is such a violently loud workout, that I’m always amazed that even the best stylus manages to stay in the groove. I’ll bet on cheap players it probably skipped a lot.
Weston delivers a good song in the end, but I agree that startling intro could have been re-thought. In retrospect, of course, it’s easy to see this one a signal of better things right ahead, three fantastic singles as Weston is switched from Tamla to Gordy. And even when they arrive, Weston’s legacy is not thanks to Motown’s piss-poor promotion, but because fans knew greatness when they heard it.
That also makes it a frustrating thing to this day, when dealing with casual Motown fans under the impression Motown’s female talent starts and ends with Diana Ross.
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Of course, the “cheap” record players typical of 1965 (the fabled “ghetto boxes”) had heavy tracking forces (8-10 grams on mono units) that could overcome such heavy modulations. Those Ronette flip-over crystal cartridges could handle anything! However, they also accelerated wear and tear on the grooves. If this was ever pressed on polystyrene those copies would die QUICK (see Isley Brothers, “It’s Your Thing,” which Buddah put on notoriously crappy plastic).
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I disagree completely.
I love the over-the-top intro and the strident chorus. Kim’s interpretation is, as always, excellent, but it’s the comparative weakness of the verses that ultimately lets the song down.
10/10 for the intro; 8/10 for the rest of the record.
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I like the intro too. I’d give the song an 8, despite it’s instrumental mix having flaws, and the songwriting not being perfect. Kim did a great job on a promising but slightly flawed song.
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Yo Robb. With ya on this one – a definite 8! I love this song!
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Bit of a delay with the next piece on Martha & the Vandellas – I’ve been trying to write it for a week, but it keeps turning out terrible. Keep the faith! 🙂
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I’ll bet it’s tough. It was a moment when we last were able to let ourselves think Martha & the Vandellas were going to continue to get as well-produced and timely releases as the newly-emergent Supremes. Instead, the waiting periods between new and exciting M&V material begins to stretch in 1965. The girls inside Motown were to find it out quicker, but even we at the cash registers would be shown, by degrees, there was only going to be one Queen.
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This was never one of my favorite Kim Weston records but I listened to it in light of your review and the resulting comments. It definitely shows how the recording techniques of the last months were increasing in sophistication. As the liner notes hints at, the use of the Andantes becomes an indispensible element, as strong on this record as the musicians themselves. We’re lucky, though, that the record has Kim to keep on top of everything that’s going on.
Still not as great as “A Little More Love,” though.
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Considering how far Motown has come on the blog a 7/10 is a little too high for me. I would give this song a 4/10. The intro which is also the chorus is just too much! An instant turn off is what it is. The verses are somewhat pleasant, yet boring, which makes me lose interest, which makes this song tiring. If this wasn’t a hit I’m not surprised.
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Totally agree with damecia. The intro alone makes this my least favorite Weston release and its one that received almost zero airplay here in ’65. Even today the most esoteric of classic soul djs ignore it.
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Bogie agrees with me….I’m the coolest person on Motown Junkies right now lol
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Well … the intro is actually just the chorus and of the three main hooks, it’s the most original.
1. The part you attribute to the James Bond theme: the 007 riff has this same type of movement on a minor chord but this song does it with a major chord, so it’s really derived from It Never Entered My Mind by Richard Rodgers (“Once I laughed when I heard you saying, that I’d be playing solitaire, uneasy in my easy chair … it never entered my mind”) or any number of other songs – not sure which one came first.
2. The rising instrumental figure immediately before the first verse is from Bacharach’s Reach Out For Me (1964).
3. Now, the chorus that you don’t like (I realize you’re criticizing the production more than the content) sounds deceptively derivative, but most of the songs it reminds us of came much later – the whole bit of Ami G FM7 became huge and Ivy Jo (or whoever came up with that element) goes it one better by putting the G under the last FMaj7 – another future cliché that was amazing in 1965.
So, in that light, why not lead with the most strikingly original hook, the chorus? Again, you’re probably right that it could have been toned down, but, frustrated as they must’ve been to have not yet scored a huge hit for this great singer, they may have been looking for something of a more attention-grabbing nature and to hit the fickle record-buying public with their best shot before their attention span waned?
But – to play devil’s advocate with myself – apparently all was for naught if this wasn’t a big hit.
By the way, I’m still hoping that one of these essay will decisively disentangle the identities of the members iof the Ivy/Ivory Joe/Jo Hunter clan. I’m still completely confused.
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You want a huge, exaggerated intro? How about “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”? And operatic Motown? How about “SEEEEEVEN ROOOOOMS! FIIIIIIILLED WITH GLOOOOOOOM!” There’s two great songs that do just about the same thing as this one does.
I really like the intro (I really like the whole song!). Kim is a strong enough vocalist (like Dusty and Levi) to roll with the intro. And since “A Little More Love” had a big orchestral sound, it makes sense for this song to have that too. The opening grabs the listener’s attention right away, and the pounding percussion keeps the attention, drawing the listener further in as that ominous “James Bond” motive sets in. Then as the volume drops and the orchestra fades, a sultry contralto voice takes complete control of the song (as in “Goldfinger”).
Also like in “Little More Love,” this song does a great job of capturing the two extremes of Kim’s spectacular voice. There’s the warm, tender soft side during the verses, balanced by the anguished but assertive belting side during the chorus. The switch is certainly jarring (even more so on “You Hit Me (Right Where it Hurt Me)”), but I think that that works fine for a song of such desperation. It works especially well when you remember the line “I can’t hold back what’s inside – I’ve got to let you know! I-I-I’M STILL….” Haven’t heard too much of Kim’s post-Motown work, but I wish that more of her later songs had explored the softer side of her voice, rather than going straight for the raw shouting (not that that’s bad, of course).
I especially love the interplay of voices during the chorus. The way the Andantes echo the explosive “Whoa-oh-oooooh-OH!” like waves crashing one after the other. And then Kim eases back down into the next verse with the ever-so-soft pleading “No, no, noooo, no, no baby…”
When I first heard this, my inexperienced ears heard this as coming from further in Motown’s future, like 1967. Maybe it was the huge arrangement and the bongos, I don’t know (of course, you can imagine my reaction to “Thrill a Moment”!).
By now, you might think that I’m going to give this a 10. But no, I’d just push it up to an 8. This sounds like a first run, an experiment. Plus Kim’s got bigger and better songs ahead of her (if only there were more!). Still, one of my favorites by Kim.
Oh, by the way, hi everyone! Been reading this blog for some months now, gradually building up the confidence (and finding the time) to comment. I love Motown, love the reviews (even if I don’t always agree with them), and love the comments!
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You want a huge, exaggerated intro? How about “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”? And operatic Motown? How about “SEEEEEVEN ROOOOOMS! FIIIIIIILLED WITH GLOOOOOOOM!” There’s two great songs that do just about the same thing as this one does.
I really like the intro (I really like the whole song!). Kim is a strong enough vocalist (like Dusty and Levi) to roll with the intro. And since “A Little More Love” had a big orchestral sound, it makes sense for this song to have that too. The opening grabs the listener’s attention right away, and the pounding percussion keeps the attention, drawing the listener further in as that ominous “James Bond” theme sets in. Then as the volume drops and the orchestra fades, a sultry contralto voice takes control of the song (as in “Goldfinger”).
Also like in “Little More Love,” this song does a great job of capturing the two extremes of Kim’s spectacular voice. There’s the warm, tender soft side during the verses balanced by the anguished but assertive belting side during the chorus. The switch is certainly jarring (even more so on “You Hit Me (Right Where it Hurt Me)”), but I think that that works for a song of such desperation. It works especially well when you remember the line “I can’t hold back what’s inside – I’ve got to let you know! I-I-I’M STILL….” Haven’t heard too much of Kim’s post-Motown work, but I wish that more of her later songs had explored the softer side of her voice, rather than going straight for the raw shouting (not that that’s bad, of course).
I especially love the interplay of voices during the chorus. The way the Andantes echo the explosive “Whoa-oh-oooooh-OH!” like waves crashing one after the other. And then Kim eases back down into the next verse with the ever-so-soft pleading “No, no, noooo, no, no baby…”
When I first heard this, my inexperienced ears heard this as coming from further in Motown’s future, like 1967. Maybe it was the huge arrangement and the bongos, I don’t know (of course, you can imagine my reaction to “Thrill a Moment”!).
By now, you might think that I’m going to give this a 10. But no, I’d just push it up to an 8. This sounds like a first run, an experiment. Plus Kim’s got bigger and better songs ahead of her (if only there were more!). Still, one of my favorites by Kim.
Oh, by the way, hi everyone! Been reading this blog for some months now, gradually building up the confidence (and finding the time) to comment. I love Motown, love the reviews (even if I don’t always agree with them), and love the comments!
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“Two A sides are coupled here for the British market. I’m Still Loving You sees our Kim accompanied by an ultra shrill femme chorus which tends to envelop her on occasion. But Kim can sing out with the best and more than hold her own… 3/5”
[Dave Godin, Hitsville USA4, 1965]
The UK flip was Just Loving You.
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Kind of blows my mind that you prefer this overblown misfire to the catchy, danceable, LOVABLE “Looking for the Right Guy.” I wouldn’t make this point again, except you seem to want to bash that Motown evergreen every chance you get! As for THIS one, I don’t want to hear it again.
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Unpopular opinion. Aristically (possibly commerical) Motowns greatest era was the 5 yr period from 1971-1976. So many great Landmark albums were made during this period. Easy 4 albums in my perosnal top 10. Marvin Gaye Whats going on, Lets get it, and I want you. Stevie Wonder Innversion. Plus great other great marvin and stevie albums. Diana ross lady sings the blues, Willie Hutch the mack, the jackson 5 dancing machine album, the temptations a song for you. come on now. Plus a heap of great singles many that were # 1. I do love 1964-1967 as well. All though if I could (which I can’t) make a top 50 very few of my tens would come from that era
Possible 10’s 1964-1967 only
Brenda Holloway Hurt a little every day
Marvelettes the hunter gets captured by the game
Supremes my world is empty without
The miracles ohh baby baby and oh be my love
Lots of 9s tho
Sorry for the rant. I love this blog btw. Also maybe I’m just a little more partial to 70’s soul (which Motown was definitely a competitor if not the leader in)
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I forgot about Smokey Robinson Quiet Storm album. Man that album is everything
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