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UNRELEASED: scheduled for
VIP 25025 (B), October 1965
B-side of I’ve Been Cheated (promo only)
(Written by Gary Montgomery and Jack Dalton)
Whenever they’re discussed, the Dalton Boys are referred to as a white folk band, but their one and only Motown single, I’ve Been Cheated – promos of which were sent out with two different B-sides, this being one of them – saw them firmly in the R&B camp, a sort of Merseybeat-Motown hybrid sound inching towards what would later be called “blue-eyed soul”. The Motown house band, the Funk Brothers, provided the backing for the A-side, leaving the nagging feeling that the musicians were let down by both the shoddy material and the weak singing.
I don’t know who the players are on this proposed flip side (replaced with another song before any stock copies were pressed up), but everyone sounds more in their element here – at least the vocals and the music sound like they belong to the same record, which is a step forward of sorts. Unfortunately, the result is like hearing R. Dean Taylor* playing tutor to an uninterested garage band who’ve only just got a copy of Please Please Me; it’s almost totally unrelated to the A-side (which presumably explains why it was pulled back, they’re two largely incompatible records), and while it’s not completely incompetent, it’s also not very exciting, because it’s still a real mess and everyone sounds really bored.
* (Who wasn’t involved here, I was astonished to note after I heard this for the first time; it sure sounds like one of his.)
It’s not without its charm, this – I first heard it on one of the excellent A Cellarful of Motown compilations, before The Complete Motown Singles series existed, where Take My Hand was included as an example of the kind of weird curio most Motown aficionados never got to hear. It sticks out like a sore thumb in some respects (it’s even more of a blatant Merseybeat/British Invasion pastiche than the A-side, and it couldn’t be much whiter), but once again I’m left wondering what might have happened if the vocals were scrubbed off, as there’s undeniably energy here, a hum of excitement buried under the bland, shapeless harmonies and the unambitious, pedestrian air that pervades the whole thing.
Like the A-side, the intro is the strongest part, a muscular 4/4 garage workout dressed up with driving horns and jangling guitar. There are a couple of pleasing lines (the first verse opens with a fun couplet: You’re the kind of girl who likes to tease / And I’m the kind of guy who’s ill at ease). But it ends up being ruined; it becomes obvious quite fast that there aren’t enough ideas in the song to sustain it for two minutes, or even two lines, the Boys chiming in with a tuneless bellow of Take my hand / Take my hand / Take my hand, a non-hook far too weak to bear the weight of the song. And yet they keep going back to it, and it becomes tiresome even before we get to the point when the Boys decide to extend the final “hand” over a six-second melisma to take us to the hideously messy cod-Beatles breakdown of the middle eight.
They really, really seem to have liked the early work of John Lennon, even copying his vocal style in a few places, but this amateurish scribble of a song – which sounds like something someone made up on the spot – would have ended up lining Lennon’s wastepaper basket in Hamburg long before the Fabs ever got near a studio. The Dalton Boys know it, too, audibly losing enthusiasm as the song goes on and the realisation dawns that they’re not making a classic, that they’re (once again) wasting a good band track on a sloppy half-finished song; in that respect, they’re not far behind this listener. I was drumming along at the start, but after a minute or so of aimless jangling and tedious stretches meant to mask the joins between the different not-very-catchy bits that have been stitched together here, I ended up drumming my fingers on the table instead, waiting impatiently for it to finish.
Again, I wanted to like this based on the intro; again, it bores me, and I can’t see myself ever coming back to it. It’s a fifth-rate effort of a song, a jog that ends up going absolutely nowhere.
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 Dalton Boys “I’ve Been Cheated” |
The Dalton Boys “Something’s Bothering You” |
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That’s very odd, as I have found myself coming back to this song many a time. Sounds like we’re on different planets to me. IMHO, this song works, although I must admit I’ve never been one to put lyrics under a microscope like you do. There something about this production that has captured my interest. Rating it only a “3” is too low for me. I’d raise it to a “5”.
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I agree with Howard. This song is sung well, and like its flip, has a good instrumental. I’d give it a 4. It’s more in the “Surf vocal music” vein, rather than “Garage” or Soul, but it is very listenable, whereas it’s flip has a super Funk Brothers’ instrumental, ruined by a very weak vocal effort.
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It was a 4, but I was surprised how quickly it overstayed its welcome after only a few plays – the intro makes it jump out (like the A-side, it gathers a lot of goodwill before the Boys ruin it), but I grew weary of it unexpectedly fast.
And I can’t agree it’s well-sung; horses for courses, but that awful bit where they have to bridge the chorus and middle eight by stretching a warbled “Take my ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-and” to three times its normal length…?
Robb, you confuse me – you gave the A-side a 1 and called it “probably their best Motown cut”, but you like this one? I’ll freely admit I had your assessment in my head when I was writing this, so I’m surprised to see you give it some qualified praise.
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Sorry, I went completely from memory. The backing tracks are super, but the singing is TERRIBLE. I remembered the time they sang “Take my hand.” in the middle of the song, and it was actually on key. But the singing over all is atrocious. And, I hate choral singing without any harmony. I like songs with a lead singer. I would give the instrumental a 9, and the vocal a “0”. That would make it a low “3”, due only to the super instrumental. The lyrics are pure garbage. Interesting (and not surprising) that no good (or ANY) Motown writers wrote it. It was only written by The Dalton Boys. They make The Headliners, Messengers and The Underdogs sound terrific by comparison, and I think they all sing terribly.
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Unfortunately, the lyrics, or lack thereof, brings this song down to the “3” assigned by the Administration.
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Compared to any of the Swinging Blue Jeans’ efforts, this record is a masterpiece!
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What??? You don’t like “The Hippy, Hippy Shake”?
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I am looking forward to hearing this one!
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I have a theory (no doubt wrong) on this one – it sounds like the Boys forget to come back in @ 2.10, missing out the line “our relationship was never good” which was sung before the “knock on wood” line in the second verse – perhaps as a result, quality control, instead of getting them to re-record the song, or even dub in the missing line, decided to hastily can the track in favour of an already handy instrumental track which they could chuck onto the ‘b’ side in order to get it in the shops.
If that was the case I feel it was a real missed opportunity. For me, not only is it by far the best of the 3 Dalton Boys cuts, it is the second best of all the ‘blue eyed soul’ sides released on VIP in 1965 (second only to the sublime three minutes that is ‘he’s an oddball’ – no, i’m not joking). But whereas I accept that ‘oddball’ is an acquired taste which doesn’t tickle other ears as it does mine, I reckon with a bit of promotion, ‘take my hand’ could have actually been a chart hit if released as the ‘a’ side (not a ‘#1 changing-the-course-of-motown-history-hit, but something that could have settled either side of #50 pop). To me, it has just the right combination of c1965 garage pop and that superb classic motown backing track that could have finally scored Berry his long sought after VIP pop hit.
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I agree that Berry was definitely trying regularly from as early as 1958 with The Biscaynes on Ridge Records, and 1959 with Nick and The Jaguars (The Ferros) on Tamla, all the way to releases on by The Hornets, Headliners, Dalton Boys, and Underdogs on VIP and groups on Rare Earth to break into Detroit’s “Garage Music” market. Motown’s Garage groups regularly appeared at The Hideout and Twenty Grand. But, he never really put much money or effort into marketing them. Maybe that was because he never had any marketing people who knew that type of music well, and had the right connections to DJs working for radio stations who played that music, and who had connections with the distributors’ representatives that handled that style (genre) of music.
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