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Tamla T 54120 (B), July 1965
B-side of Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead
(Written by Mickey Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter)
Tamla Motown TMG 535 (B), October 1965
B-side of Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Tamla Motown)
It’s not that there wasn’t a “Motown Sound”, or that Motown didn’t create records that sounded an awful lot like their other records; both of those things are true, but perhaps not in the way they’re usually meant.
The poor old Marvelettes, who had no strong musical identity of their own for listeners to identify with in the first place, spent their entire time at Motown in search of that identity, that unique “voice”, without arguably ever really finding it. They weren’t helped by the fact there was no Marvelettes album released between 1963 and 1967, no opportunity for fans to draw together the developing themes of their developing sound. It must have been a bewildering experience to be a lover of the group during the mid-Sixties; the situation, ironically, is not too different to that in which their erstwhile protegées the Supremes had found themselves a couple of years earlier, with all sorts of different and contradictory nods to the future. The girls were growing up – but what sort of group were they growing into?
Here in the mid-Sixties, as Motown gets bigger, and the sums of money involved in promoting and distributing would-be national hits get correspondingly bigger too, the number of experiments, oddities and throwbacks issued as A-sides begins to fall. By now, if you were a big-ticket Motown act – and for the Marvelettes, Motown’s first chart-topping group, that was still just about the case four long years after their début, albeit they were whooshing back down the Hitsville pecking order with every underwhelming chart entry – you’d only see a curveball A-side if your last single hadn’t lived up to expectations. The formula was in place – not a musical formula, as the prevailing Motown sound kept on evolving right the way throughout the company’s time in Detroit, but rather a commercial formula: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; if it’s broke, fix it right away. If all was well, your new single would bear a striking similarity to your last one, and if fans wanted the curveballs, they’d need to flip over; the B-side was where they’d be.
The Marvelettes’ last single, I’ll Keep Holding On, had been a Top 40 hit and flirted with the R&B Top Ten, passable business by their newly lowered commercial standards, and so the follow-up was accordingly cut from the same cloth; Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead is a step forward in terms of production and maturity (if not in terms of quality songwriting). But it failed, and so this chapter of the Marvelettes story – where they occupied the same sonic and attitudinal territory as Martha and the Vandellas, but with rather less commercial success – was drawn to a premature close. Another false start, another dead end.
Does Your Cheating Ways offer any more of a clue to the future of the Marvelettes? It’s certainly unusual in that it’s drawn from somewhere the Marvelettes hadn’t visited in a while, acknowledging the influence of the kind of brassy, midtempo, calypso-tinged bossa nova sort of sound that made up most of their last studio LP (1963’s The Marvelous Marvelettes). But it’s not really a regression; the sound is slicker, the harmonies are tighter, and this ends up sounding for all the world like something written to spec for Kim Weston or Brenda Holloway. (Ironically so, given that Brenda herself was currently mired in a run of challenging cover versions of ill-suited material, as we’ll see again shortly.) There’s more than a hint of show tune pizazz about this, too, like it’s trying to flirt with the trappings of the kind of anthemic, soaring songs that made that style work, without necessarily being strong enough underneath to carry it off.
Instead, the overall effect is a bit messy, bordering on the chaotic. (If the A-side Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead showed up the Supremes’ Nothing But Heartaches, here it’s the Marvelettes who suffer by way of an unflattering comparison; when put alongside the Supremes’ similarly outlandish blast-from-the-past exercise Ask Any Girl, this one just isn’t as intriguing. Indeed, I’ve found it hard to write much about the song itself; I’ve already forgotten the lyrics, and the tune is one of those that just sort of blends in with the background noise of everything Motown was doing in 1965 that wasn’t an immortal classic.
It’s to the Marvelettes’ credit that while it isn’t a brilliant record on any level, this still somehow manages to sound fresh, in its own idiosyncratic way, as it jolts along. There are plenty of reminders of the past in here, and a forgotten past at that (Motown, of course, built their marketing around the here and now, meaning less and less echoes of the pre-supernova days, the Playboy album and Mary Wells); but to answer my original question, yes, there are moments here where the Marvelettes’ future comes shining through, brief glimpses of the midtempo grandeur and sophisticated soul of the Pink Album and beyond.
If it’s still very much a snapshot of a group in transition – and if that transition would never really be adequately captured on vinyl in the absence of a couple more albums during this period – well, that transition was maybe the most striking Motown would ever see outside of Stevie Wonder, the Marvelettes going from arguably the most jejune and childish girl group of 1961 to arguably the most mature girl group of 1969, and any evidence of that is bound to be worth hearing on some level.
We won’t meet the Marvelettes again until November, when they’ll emerge from their chrysalis with a whole different sound (and a brilliant record to show it off). Strangely, considering this isn’t brilliant – and that it could easily have been recorded a year before by someone else without anyone batting an eyelid – Your Cheating Ways perhaps offered unwitting fans more of a clue to that new sound than first realised. Who knows, maybe this is plenty intriguing after all.
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 The Marvelettes? Click for more.)
The Marvelettes “Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead” |
Brenda Holloway “You’ve Changed Me” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Landini said:
Just heard this one for the first time. Nix, you are right. Sounds very much like a Kim Weston number. In fact the keyboard riff in the background brings to mind “I’m Still Loving You”. Nice little song in its own way. A good B-side.
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Dave L said:
A 6 is fair. “Your Cheating Ways,” when compared with “No Time For Tears” and “Anything You Wanna Do,” just ahead, isn’t very exciting. It doesn’t have the stark slickness of the former, or the throwback, girlish fun of the latter. Even I don’t remember the lyrics much beyond, ‘you’ve got to pay, boy, for your cheating ways.’
It doesn’t stay in your head like the regretful ‘why should I cry each day, when you didn’t love me anyway … like the wise, I realize, what’s done is done’ or the rollicking ‘if you tell me it’s forever, I will spend my life with you’ and all the divine bombast any singers could give the words ‘I’ll make a deal with my heart to never love no one but you.’
But -always a but- the Marvelettes b-sides, predominately through the spring of 1968, will remind us that Gladys is still hanging in there while Wanda is on all the topsides. Not helping us to remember this one -and like “Anything” and “Paper Boy” after it- Motown sent “Your Cheating Ways” right down the rabbit hole after the run of the original single. None of the three were heard from again until the mid-90s.
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Ken said:
I love this track. Certainly it’d rate an 8 in my books. In a way, it sounds like it would only have needed a bit of arrangement tweaking to turn it into a Neil Sedaka record. Another artist who around this time – like the Marvelettes, -was making great singles, then watching them underperform on the charts. Anyway to me it’s a delicious Motown/Sedaka sundae. And Gladys sounds fantastic – as usual.
Was there ever another girl group that boasted two equally phenomenal lead singers? I love Gladys and Wanda both – and sometimes it’s hard to even tell which of them’s singing lead on an album track. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Gladys – if only because she never ambushed us with anything like Wanda’s unfortunate “Locking Up My Heart” falsetto.
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Robb Klein said:
I’d also give this an 8. A fantastic B side! Should have also been recorded by Kim Weston. Can’t beat Stevenson/hunter (better than HDH-for me!). One of my top 5 Marvelettes’ recordings.
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Mickey The Twistin' Playboy said:
Yes, Rob!! A great track.. 8/10. Coupled with Danger, it’s one of the Marvelettes’ strongest releases.
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Rob Green Nashville TN said:
The horns make the record along with Gladys and her narrative. Love it, one of my favorites too! And of course those slightly off key background girls make it unmistakenly The Marvelettes!
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144man said:
For several days I thought this was the follow-up to “I’ll Keep Holding On” until Radio Caroline started playing the correct side. It sounded current enough at the time, and good enough to be an A-side. I rate it a 7.
Good call about the track being suitable for Kim Weston. I’d never thought about that before, but now I can actually hear Kim singing it in my mind’s ear.
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W.B. said:
As I mentioned in the comments to “Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead,” I once had a (Southern Plastics-pressed) copy of this record – and this side, as I’d noted, got somewhat more play than the designated A side. One thing that stuck out to me was the rhythm pattern employed by the drummer, which from my ears’ standpoint anticipated the kind of drum patterns used on many a James Brown record of the later ’60’s (from “Cold Sweat” to “I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)” to “I Got the Feeling” to the original “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose”) – and, within Motown itself, at key parts of Edwin Starr’s first big hit for the company, “Twenty-Five Miles.” Only without the 16th-note syncopations (from what I could hear) of those later tunes. Maybe it was the longer time that attracted me more to this than “Danger Heartbreak…”, who knows. But it certainly, in respect to the arrangements, was off the beaten path for Motown, though still within its key “sound” circa summer ’65.
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MotownFan1962 said:
“…it could easily have been recorded a year before by someone else without anyone batting an eyelid…”
It does sound like it was recorded in 1964, when Georganna Tillmann was still in the group. I can hear her distinctive contralto.
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W.B. said:
Very observant there . . . according to the ‘Don’t Forget the Motor City’ site, the recording of this track was completed on March 11, 1964 – and they mentioned that Gladys was the lead singer.
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MotownFan1962 said:
So Ms. Tillman is on this record. It’s nice to know the old ears are still working!
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bogart4017 said:
This is the only Hunter/Stevenson record that i can think of that doesnt stick to your ribs. Kinda like chinese food you know. I forget the words and melody 3 minutes after the run-out grooves stop spinning.
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Mickey The Twistin' Playboy said:
I have to disagree. This is one of my favorite Motown B-sides and maybe my favorite B-side of the Marvelettes. I love the syncopated rhythm, especially the intro. I think it’s one of Gladys Horton’s best vocal performances. 8.5/10
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Tony Moore said:
QUESTION: The All Music listings for Motown show many examples of Ivy Jo and many others for Ivory Joe. There’s also a song, I Remember When where the artist is listed as Ivory Joe Hunter as the composer credit is for both! (Ivy Jo Hunter-Ivory Joe Hunter). Is this right?
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MarkV said:
Ivory Joe Hunter was an R & B star best known for “Since I Met You Baby.” He did not write or record for Motown. Ivy Jo Hunter wrote and produced many records for Motown. As you probably know, he first worked with William “Mickey” Stevenson, then as a solo writer-producer. He also recorded an unreleased LP “Ivy Jo Is in This Bag” for Motown. He’s the vocalist on the 1970 release “I Remember When (Dedicated to Beverly”) as “Ivy Jo.” I believe his first credits listed his name as Ivy Hunter.
Making things even more complex, a third musician, Joe Hunter, was the original pianist for the Funk Brothers at Motown, and he can be heard on “Pride and Joy” and You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me,” among others. He departed the Brothers in 1963.
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Robb Klein said:
Ivy Hunter (Ivy Jo)’s birth name is George. He was born about 20 years later than Ivory Joe Hunter, who was a long-time Atlantic Records artists, who started writing songs and singing as a piano-playing solo artist in the 1940s. He worked out of New York. The Funk Brothers’ Joe Hunter, was a piano player and band leader in Detroit for many years before Motown started. Berry Gordy hired Joe and his band to be Motown’s main session players and touring band, back in 1959. He had used them in recording sessions at Bristoe Bryant’s studio and United Sound Studios before Tamla started.
It may be that Motown recorded one of their artists singing an Ivory Joe Hunter song, as he was a prolific songwriter for over 40 years. But, Ivy Jo never collaborated with him, and I’m sure he never got his name added to an Ivory Joe Hunter song by adding or changing lyrics. So, any writing credits listing both names, together, must be a misprint of some sort. Joe Hunter left Motown in late 1964. Ivy Hunter was hired in late 1964. So, it is POSSIBLE (but not likely) that that double Joe Hunter credit you saw was Joe Hunter and Ivy Hunter. But, I’ve never seen that credit combination on any vinyl credit, and don’t remember seeing it on any vinyl unreleased credit. So, that would be a new one on me. Do you remember what song that was?
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MarkV said:
According to the Complete Motown Singles, “I Remember When” is credited just to Ivy Jo Hunter (as composer and vocalist).
As one of the more unsung writer-producers at Motown, he’s responsible for a lot of beautiful records, many of which have only been released after Motown’s heyday. You can find them on the many “from the vaults” CDs of the past 20 years.
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Robb Klein said:
I know that very well, as I worked for Motown for most of the 1970s (into 1980), and I worked on “From The Vaults” Projects. Ivy hunter and Mickey Stevenson are my all-time favourite writing team (ahead of HDH and Whitfield Strong and right up on top with Smokey Robinson).
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Mark Vining said:
I’ve been re-reading some of these old entries, and I didn’t like the tone of my previous post here…somewhat pedantic, considering the fact that you had access to these unreleased cuts back in the day! Sorry.
Thanks, Robb, for your continuing posts to the site.
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Kevin Moore said:
Thanks Robb! I’m changing all the Ivory Joe composing credits from Volumes 5, 6 7 etc. to Ivy Jo. It’s odd that allmusic has many credited to each. So just to be clear funk brother pianist Joe Hunter was never associated with the names Ivy or Ivory, so if “Iv” occurs in a Motown credit it’s gotta be Ivy Jo, yes?
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Robb Klein said:
Correct.
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Kerry said:
I feel that Your Cheating Ways, is an excellent song with a powerful driving bass and beat from beginnig to end!! Gladys handles lead vocals very well and i love the background vocals with a slight southern accent.!!’
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