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Gordy G 7048 (B), January 1966
B-side of My Baby Loves Me
(Written by Robert Dobyne, Charles Jones and Robert Staunton)
Tamla Motown TMG 549 (B), February 1966
B-side of My Baby Loves Me
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Tamla Motown)
Happy New Year, readers! It’s fun to be starting 2015 at the same time as I start to write about 1966, and what a treat this is for an opener; one of the sassiest records we’ve covered so far, absolutely dripping with attitude in a way we haven’t seen since the best of Mary Wells and won’t see again until the arrival of Gladys Knight. The sass, it burns!
Never Leave Your Baby’s Side provides, quite literally, the other side to Martha and the Vandellas’ gorgeous My Baby Loves Me; where that one swept you along on a bumpy carpet of silky balladry and dimmed lights, this one is much more in your face, the group’s unique soul stew front and centre, showing that none of Martha’s trademark energy had been dissipated during a tempestuous and largely unproductive 1965.
The list of great Motown B-sides is already as long as my arm, even if for many people we haven’t even properly got to the really good stuff yet, and this one is another fine addition. It really illustrates the strength in depth of the Motown machine; never collected on a studio album (despite effectively being a title track to their masterpiece LP Watchout!, released later in the year), largely cut adrift (even in the CD era) until The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 5 came along, and ill-served even then (as we’ll soon see). And, also, brilliant.
SIT AND CRY AND WONDER WHY
There are two different versions of this in circulation, alternate mixes with what sound like subtly different lead vocal takes, one found on The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 5 and the other on the Vandellas’ 50th Anniversary: The Singles Collection, although neither publication’s liner notes makes note of the difference; Don’t Forget The Motor City says that the TCMS 5 version is an alternate mix and the anniversary set contains the actual 7″ version. They’re both great; I think I prefer the TCMS 5 one, but that could just be a few extra years’ familiarity talking.
In both flavours, it’s really quite remarkable just how “out there” this record is; neither mix sounds particularly clean, both are muffled and distorted and muddy, featuring disembodied bits of backing vocals and horns and strings and drums and things (snow chains again? Surely not) sweeping in and out of the general fog, sticking their heads above the parapet for a minute before disappearing back into the murky depths of the band track.
Most strikingly, both versions feature a noticeable skip at 1:20, when Martha and the girls make an apparent false start, as if they’ve come in a measure too early, before aborting the attempt and starting again –
So when you go out walking… WATCH OUT!
[UNEXPLAINED PAUSE]
…So when you go out walking…
– except that it’s in both versions, with two different vocal takes, so unless the backing vocalists had messed up and the studio boffins couldn’t remove that bit from the only existing tape before Martha overdubbed her lead or something, well, maybe it was intentional after all, or at least a happy accident kept in for serendipity’s sake. Who knows? The point is, this is a raggedy sort of a record, as rough and unpolished and full of snags as a horn-and-string-laden mid-Sixties cut from one of Motown’s greatest divas could ever be.
And over the top of it, here’s Martha Reeves, apparently singing from the prow of some half-seen ship in the night, occasionally struggling to make herself heard over the glorious din, and it’s incredible. The recording of Martha’s signature song, Dancing In The Street, had been beset by technical problems, a careless tape op wiping Miss Reeves’ (by common consent excellent) first vocal take, just as everyone in the studio was high-fiving each other. The fallout – Martha having to try and deliver the same magic a second time straight away – resulted in a great vocal, some genuine irritability and even anger bubbling away under the surface. Never Leave Your Baby’s Side is the closest she’s come to doing it that way again; she’s furious.
This is the story of a woman scorned, but it’s no wishy-washy lament from a crushed young woman in a darkened bedroom, as it might have been in the hands of Diana Ross. Instead, this is a warning, a shot across the bows from a jilted bride whose own poured-out scorn is bordering on the vituperative, and quite rightly so. There’s no hope of redemption here, no shades of grey. This one simply boils right down to all men are bastards, hormone-driven boys, incorrigible horndogs who are just waiting to cheat on you as soon as your back is turned. For the narrator, the obvious solution is, well, obvious: now you know the score, ladies, don’t you dare turn your back.
It’s a testament to Martha’s supreme skill here that she remains completely sympathetic even while she’s actively telling me I’m a philanderer-in-waiting. She’s scarcely ever been less troubled by keeping to a melody, colouring wildly outside the lines in places, sometimes giving it both barrels, sometimes doing a semi-spoken word rant, spitting out her words with such venom you can almost feel the flecks of spittle from the speakers… and yet somehow still feeling almost languid in her slow-paced, self-assured delivery, which only heightens the bitter sting when the backing singers shout their chant of “Watchout!”
But this is Martha, and so where in lesser hands this might have degenerated into free-jazz scatting and slippery, hard-to-catch wildness, she knows exactly how far she can stray from the (splendidly catchy) tune while still getting its essential essence across to us, pulling a whole bunch of crazy vocal stunts but always keeping one hand on the wheel. It’s as whistleable as any Vandellas song we’ve covered so far, and never less than utterly compelling; immediately before that weird time-skip, she delivers one of my all-time favourite Motown call-and-response bits:
VANDELLAS:Don’t leave him alone…
MARTHA:…’Cause when you get back, he might be GONE!
The return to both the heavier beats and the heavier themes of the earlier Vandellas’ best material is a welcome one; this is a record at once ominous and impressively demanding of your attention, neatly illustrating not only where they’ve come from but also where they’re headed. Especially their superstar of a lead singer.
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 Martha Reeves & The Vandellas? Click for more.)
Martha & the Vandellas “My Baby Loves Me” |
Brenda Holloway “Together ‘Til The End Of Time” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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benjaminblue said:
The “skip” you describe is also on the version included in the 1962-1972 Singles box, immediately after a very strange vocal, rather than instrumental, break. But that is not why I skip the song every time I listen to the box set.
Generally — while the recording contains some isolated attractive features — it all seems very incoherent, as none of the individual elements appears to mesh with the others.
And Martha’s free-form vocal does not come across as jazz to me; it sounds like she could not be bothered to learn the song, perhaps knowing it would be a B-side at most. She doesn’t strike me as being drunk and out of control, like Florence Ballard did on certain early recordings by Diana Ross and The Supremes, for instance “I Saw Him Standing There,” an outtake from A Bit Of Liverpool, but she does seem undisciplined.
Saying something is “jazz” is a too-convenient excuse people use when they create a hodgepodge and don’t have the time, energy, inclination or know-how to fix it.
Later this week, I’m going to force myself to listen to this one on repeat play, keeping your comments in mind, but through the years the recording has been consistently unappealing to me, so my expectations at this point are not high.
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The Nixon Administration said:
Great comment, thanks. Hey, you don’t have to like it, this blog would get boring if everyone agreed! (I felt almost apologetic putting up yet another big green number, but this – for me – is a sustained run of quality the like of which we’ve not seen so far and [spoilers!] won’t really see again.) I’ve lost track of the number of times I found myself trying to like something I plainly didn’t, just because a critic I respected had found merit in it.
On “jazz”, well, I’ve never used it that way – not being a great jazz lover (it’s probably the one genre or form of musical expression I just can’t seem to really “get” beyond the usual well-known touristy monuments), I usually mean it in a faintly disparaging way, I suppose! To me, there’s an ocean of difference between, say, Ella Fitzgerald’s almost supernatural control over her voice and breathing, being able to cram about eight hundred syllables into one bar without ever losing the thread, and some Britain’s Got Talent wannabe who mistakes melisma for meaning.
Martha for me is always closer to the former than the latter – as I said on the A-side, she seems to regard the tune as a safety net rather than a strictly-defined path, as though she’s simply operating on another plane. I love her, and this pair of sides here are the absolute distilled essence of why, but of course, as always, your mileage may vary.
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MotownFan1962 said:
“The sass, it burns!”
I like that! It fits the record perfectly. I’d give it a nine, too. It’s one of my favorites by Martha and the Vandellas.
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The Nixon Administration said:
What do you mean, I put the wrong label scan up after a month of waiting? Look, it’s fine now!
[sheepish exit]
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Dave L said:
After years and years of the 7 inch Gordy 7048 version being the only one available, it’s the one closest to my heart, and yes I love this neglected b-side every bit as much.
The opening, scalding brass tells you in mere seconds this is a changed mood from the a-side, alright. No post-coital afterglow here. 😮 An angry Martha, a bitter Martha is a Martha impossible to ignore, and “Never Leave Your Baby’s Side” is a fully worthy companion to the impatience of “Nowhere To Run” and the nearby doom of “You’ve Been In Love Too Long.”
Another one to leave us incredulous wondering how Motown could give it the unwanted stepchild treatment after 1966.
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John Plant said:
My only quarrel with your splendid review is the score – for me this is an easy ten – I fell in love with it the first time I heard it, my 45 was on the verge of being pierced straight through to the other side when my sister Mary, bless her soul, transferred the remastered song to a cassette for me. Nobody but Martha and my beloved Verdi can infuse anger with so much irresistible energy. And in both cases the paradoxical result is not to leave us poisoned with toxic emotion, but to allow us to experience a joyful and liberating release. Catharsis, I guess. A whirlwind of a song.
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John Plant said:
P.S. I wrote to Motown about the lyrics: I couldn’t make out one word in the line “‘when those ____ girls come around…’ I asked them just to fill in the blank for me; and a couple of weeks later I received my letter with the word ‘fun’ in the blank space. Those fun girls. In case anyone was wondering….
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MotownFan1962 said:
I always though it was “when those young girls come around”. Now that I think about it, that doesn’t really make sense (Martha Reeves was around 24 when she recorded the song). Thanks for seeking out and passing down the truth!
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The Nixon Administration said:
Oddly enough, given my past form for mishearing lyrics, this was one I had no trouble with – where I grew up, “fun-girl” was an insult (albeit a slightly old-timey one, casting aspersions on a young lady’s moral propriety, loosely analogous to “floozy” or “strumpet”) in the same way Martha’s using it here.
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bogart4017 said:
“Floozy”?? “Strumpet”?? I havent heard these in years!!! By george i’m loving this!!
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Landini said:
Hi Everyone! This is a good song for what it is, but to my ears it is a bit of a letdown from MY BABY LOVES ME. I thought that the lyrics were a little overwrought – doesn’t the guy run off with her best friend on their wedding day? A LIfetime Movie set to music? So… not a bad record at all – just not a desert island disc for me. Cheers to all!
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144man said:
I remember reading in Record Mirror that the UK single version was different from the American, so Motown must have sent the wrong tape over again.
I like most Staunton-Walker compositions, but they do tend to be on the short side. This one is no exception clocking in at just over two minutes.
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Seacow said:
I never really thought of that “skip” being an error. Yes, it’s awkward, but it Martha’s vocal comes too smoothly out of the bridge for it to be an error. If there’s any error, maybe the band played a couple bars too many for that final verse, and no one noticed until the vocals were added, therefore necessitating that “skip.” Just speculating. Anyway, I think it’s one of the more interesting features of the record. To anyone familiar with it, it’s sort of like the beginning of the final verse of the Mamas and Papas “I Saw Her Again” – in which there’s an extra bar of instrumental coming out of the bridge and the vocal comes in – then stops! – then actually starts the final verse. To my knowledge that actually was an error. Great essay as usual (well worth the wait!). Personally I’d give this a 7. Good song, great Martha performance, but that muddy production almost ruins it for me. I do enjoy quite a bit of “lo-fi” music, but Motown is not my place to get my fix of it.
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The Nixon Administration said:
Yeah, I wasn’t really happy with “skip” as a choice of words, but couldn’t think of a better one to describe it. Anyway, your theory sounds very likely (and I agree it’s actually a good addition, whatever its origins).
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Randy Brown said:
This would be an 8 or 9 with better production, instead of one of Motown’s “C” teams. I get the idea that the backing track was a cheaply made demo instead of a proper Hitsville recording…
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nafalmat said:
My word this is powerful recording the arrangers seem to have thrown everything into this backing track including the proverbial kitchen sink! Talk about Phil Spector’s wall of sound, most of his stuff sounds quite sparse compared with this. I’ve always loved this but mainly because I love big backings when they are appropriate and they don’t come any bigger than this. When you analyse the song it’s pretty average both melodically and lyrically but the finished product is absolutely amazing. Robert Staunton was certainly a talent to be reckoned with. He seemed to go for these huge arrangements like that used on Say You by the Monitors but that’s a better song than this. I love the ‘watchout’ bits, very exciting. Is it this track that gave the title to the girls later album even though it wasn’t included on the ‘Watchout’ long player. Quite simply marvellous.
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144man said:
The song was considered strong enough in the UK to be covered by Tony Jackson, formerly of the Searchers.
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nafalmat said:
Yes, I remember Tony Jackson’s version which was played a few times on Radio London and/or Caroline, but didn’t chart and was poor compared with Martha’s. Tony or his A&R manager must have been Motown fans as Tony also released a PYE single of his version of Mary Well’s ‘Bye bye baby’ which sold enough to creep into the very bottom of the UK charts. That was a better attempt but obviously inferior to Mary’s original!
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bogart4017 said:
Stereo separation totally ruins this song. You arent hearing it unless you have the original 45 pressing where everything sounds all “limped together”. Good song to dance the Jerk to, by the way.
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Slade Barker said:
Walker/Dobyne/Jones/Staunton were hardly first-rate writers, and the sound & production on this is muddy. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s an easy 4 or 5, but how you can give such a high mark when you’ve deliberately badmouthed, nay demolished, some of the most popular, best-written, best-played, best-sung, best-arranged, best-produced records in Motown history boggles my mind. It makes me want to cry, because it seems as if you’re deliberately building up little discoveries with modest charms and knocking down gigantic works of art. Since this forum is the only place on the web that reviews every record, I would have liked a more rational approach. If you think about the weight that, say, Leonard Maltin’s Film Guide has held in the USA since the late ’60s, that’s something to aspire to. Mind you, I wouldn’t mind the 8’s and 9’s going to minor fan favorites like this one if you didn’t go out of your way to trash so many of the best records Motown ever made.
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144man said:
I couldn’t disagree with you more. As far as I’m concerned, these reviews give an honest reflection of the author’s views, and I do not believe that he has any hidden agenda. I think you are giving too much attention to the marks, which are by their nature extremely subjective, at the expense of the reviews themselves.
For the record, the reviewer has given marks of 10 to Mary Wells’s “My Guy” and to the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go”, two records which I consider average and worthy of no more than a 5 or 6; so I daresay that if I were writing this blog, you would be unjustly making the same criticism about me.
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The Nixon Administration said:
“This!”, as the young people say. No ulterior motives here, just my honest (and, as I hope I’ve made clear, entirely personal and subjective) opinions, no more or less valid than anyone else’s.
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Don't Mess With Will said:
Messy this may be – but it holds its own haha! – and it is one of my very favorite Vandellas songs! A sure 10. I only found out about this song because of this blog and when I heard it for the first time (while watching the amazing video made by tomovox on Youtube) I was floored! This is a worthy heir to “Nowhere to Run” with its earth-shaking clatter. That tambourine slays!
Honestly I actually like the muddiness of the arrangement, like a seething stew of fear and rage swirling around Martha. It kind of sounds like the strings’ line during the verses is stuck on a loop, going round and round in a panic. I really like the review’s image of peeking over a parapet, as if in a losing battle. There’s a creeping angst and a hopelessness which I’ve found in some of my favorite Motown songs. While I like the more upfront version on the anniversary set, I’m more intrigued by the fuzzier atmosphere of the CMS 1966 set. On the latter the tambourine is more isolated (and therefore more like the chains on “Dancing” and “Nowhere”) and there’s also this popping sound (a plucked string?) marking the tempo that contributes to the song’s fascinating weirdness.
Yes, the “skip” at the start of the third verse was disconcerting on the first couple listens, but after a few more listens it began to sound more to me like a purposeful part of the song. I think of it as the narrator checking to see if you’re still paying attention (as if one could get distracted from a song like this!) or using that pause to let the point sink in or be emphasized:
“So when you go out…. WATCH OUT!” (ha, tricked you!)
The song could have been a worthy A-side if it was a little cleaner-sounding and maybe was lengthened/fleshed out with an instrumental break or another verse. But then there wouldn’t be this thrill of discovery since it wouldn’t be quite so hidden.
My one big criticism of the song is the backing vocals, which sound like the Andantes. While they match Martha in power, they do not match her in tone, sounding too pretty and choir-like, not angry or sassy enough. The contrast is almost funny during the bridge, when the sweet-sounding “don’t leave him alone” is met by Martha’s acidic response. While the Vandellas by themselves may not have done as clean a job, they had proven on “You’ve been in love too long” that they could echo Martha’s scorn. As for Martha’s delivery, I think the semi-spoken style is spot-on.
If readers are divided on this song, I’m wondering what people will think of the Vandellas’ next single…
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Robb Klein said:
I think that a “9” rating is way too high for this song. I’m not a big fan of Staunton and Walker, as they were inconsistent. They wrote a few excellent songs. But this one is noisy, and messy to me. And it has a bluesy melody that I don’t care for. I’d give it a “6”.
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Mojo Detroit said:
It sounds like the tape broke and they spliced it back together.
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Lozarithm Blank said:
Seems like the UK single used the alternate mix that appeared on the Live Wire! set. Bogart4017 mentions a stereo mix (not disclosed in DFTMC which shows only mono mixes – but perhaps the Live Wire! one was actually stereo?) which I’d like to find again (I had it on a UK compilation CD many years ago).
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eubiecatgmailcom said:
I just heard this recording for the first time, via a lovely unplayed vinyl 45 (thanks to the record deities–Motown’s styrene pressings [or moldings] are horrid). Blown away by its epic majesty. My copy sounds crisp and clear on both sides…I see what you mean about things rising and falling as if in a fog, but it’s a big, bold-sounding production that has a 3-D quality. A great record and, yes, among Motown’s best Bs.
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