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VIP 25026 (A), October 1965
b/w Voodoo Plan
(Written by Robert Staunton and Robert Walker)
Who let these guys back in again?
It’s probably fair to say that the Headliners, a white band (not a vocal group) from Florida who’d signed to Motown after having impressed with an eclectic genre-hopping live set, hadn’t exactly covered themselves in glory since arriving at Hitsville. Their one and only Motown 45 to date, Tonight’s The Night, a pale, clunky sort of effort, had seen a low-key release almost exactly a year ago, shoved out on the lower-profile VIP label. Things had changed since then: not only were Motown now successfully “crossing over” to white airwaves and Dansettes, but the label was also in a position to demand hits, to cut loose any stragglers who weren’t pulling their commercial weight. They’d flexed their muscles in this regard already, dropping several struggling acts (acts who didn’t have a long service medal from the dark pre-fame days to save their place in Motown’s bright new dawn) after just one flop single.
So it’s a surprise to see the Headliners turning up again here at the tail end of 1965, by which time Motown had no need for them, and no sentimental reason to keep them around. They weren’t particularly popular, nor were they particularly good, and so the only explanation is that since label owner Berry Gordy had stuck his neck out and signed them personally, they were being given special treatment: a golden-ticket second chance, a mulligan, a do-over. One more shot at successfully transferring their apparently electrifying live presence to vinyl.
So, we cue it up, and we get pumping bass, and tinkling, inviting piano, and a driving guitar riff – hey, this is pretty good! And then the vocals kick in, and… oh, it’s a sodding Beach Boys pastiche.
It’s a leaden helping of lumpen West Coast surf pop, aiming for the drive and froth the Boys had nailed with the likes of I Get Around or even Be True To Your School, but ending up sounding like a version of those songs as sung by a bunch of bored session men, a pretend “teen” group made up of 30-year-old blokes. It’s a spiritual cousin to I Get Around, but it’s not in the same league.
Wisely – other than an ill-judged reference to “old mister sun” at the start – writers Staunton and Walker (two respected, seasoned Motown hands, of whom I’d expected better) largely avoid having the Headliners indulge in cod-youth slang. However square Mike Love sounded declaring “I’m gettin’ bugged drivin’ up and down the same old strip!”, it was about a gazillion times more convincing than this, and I’m grateful the lead Headliner doesn’t really attempt it – but it still rings false, a plea to the older generation to just let The Kids have their fun but sounding inescapably old in its hand-me-down clothes, like its creators are no longer young enough to carry it off.
The song is weak in itself, but it’s again not helped by the Headliners, whose whole performance is off in such a way as to make this another wearying slog to listen to. The “harmonies” are flat and shouty, the lyrics are indistinct and mumbled, the playing which began so brightly ends up drifting off-time… and they don’t sound like they’re actually having the fun they keep on telling us they’re having, something of a major flaw and one which holes this record below the waterline. Check out the world’s most half-hearted attempt at a spontaneous shout of “woo!” at 1:48; the effect is more Pontins than Pasadena.
Of course, they may well have been in a bad mood at being presented with this song in the first place. The Beach Boys themselves had long since moved on from pushing this kind of sound at the forefront of their efforts on 45 or 33, rendering this attempt already dated. (If the Headliners surely didn’t kid themselves they were making a rival to I Get Around, it must still have been galling to play the tape back and find they hadn’t even made an Amusement Parks USA or Salt Lake City). Despite the brief thrill of the intro, and the sneakily likeable physical clunkiness it sometimes brings to the table, ultimately, this is a mess.
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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The Headliners “Voodoo Plan” |
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Bonus points for the first appearance of the “proper” brown/orange/yellow VIP label here on Motown Junkies, though.
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Yeah, I was about to say . . .
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Was going to make the same comment. I believe this heralds the makeover of all the company’s label logos–and the VIP one is a favorite of mine.
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Interested to read of Laurence Horn’s involvement with this. Here’s a cut & paste of his Wikipedia entry:
“Lawrence Horn is a musician, formerly a record producer and chief recording engineer for Motown Records. He is currently serving a life sentence for hiring a hit man to commit a triple-murder.
Horn was notable for pioneering many mixing techniques while at Motown, and for directly supervising most of the mixes for Motown singles during the label’s success period from 1964 to 1967.
Laid off by Motown in 1990, Horn slid into debt. In 1993, Horn contracted James Perry to kill his wife, mentally challenged son, and the family’s overnight nurse in their Silver Spring, Maryland, home. The murders were carried out on March 3, 1993.[1] The motive for hiring Perry to commit the murders was that Horn stood to gain $1.7 million from his son’s trust fund that was established after the settlement of a lawsuit resulting from a medical procedure that left him a quadriplegic.[1] Perry was sentenced to the death penalty in 1995 for the murders,[2] and in 1996 Lawrence Horn was found guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of murder conspiracy[1] and sentenced to life imprisonment.[3] The conviction of the assassin, Perry, was overturned by an appeals court and a second trial sentenced him to three life terms in Maryland’s prison system in 2001.[2] Perry died of an undisclosed illness while still in custody on December 30, 2009.[1]
The case prompted a lawsuit against Paladin Press, the publishers of Hit Man, which James Perry used as a guide to execute the murders.[4] The lawsuit was settled when the publishers agreed to stop selling the book and pay millions of dollars in compensation to the families of the victims.[5]
“
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Wow! I didn’t realize this happened in Silver Spring, MD! I grew up outside of Washington, DC & now live in Annapolis, MD.
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FInally heard this one. Odd little record.
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I wonder if Horn is the one fiddling with the buttons in the background on that Motown documentary while the Temps were recording “Sorry is a Sorry Word”.
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I can’t imagine how this group could ever have been an exciting live act. On both their VIP singles they sound bored and lifeless. This is a peculiar recording. It starts off quite optimistically and gives the impression it could be an enjoyable pop record but as soon as the vocals kick in it goes down hill. The vocals are simply drab and the diction is unclear, I can’t decipher half the lyrics. Additionally, the melody is rather odd. Each verse starts with the melody ascending, then suddenly it descends when you don’t expect it to. Which to me anyway, makes it uncomfortable to listen too. A very unusual melody structure in my opinion.
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