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Gordy G 7016 (B), March 1963
B-side of Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby
(Written by Sylvester Potts and Joe Billingslea)
Oriole CBA 1831 (B), May 1963
B-side of Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby
(Released in the UK under license through Oriole Records)
A wholly unexpected, but very pleasant surprise.
Whereas the success of Do You Love Me had, for the foreseeable future, consigned the Contours to a quagmire of uninspired, increasingly-tired soundalike follow-ups – Shake Sherrie, You Better Get In Line and the A-side here, Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby to date, and there’d be still more of them to come – this B-side, written not by Motown staffers but instead by two of the group themselves, is more of a throwback to the raucous rockers of their early days, and specifically the excellent Whole Lotta Woman, but with a more professional sheen borne of a year’s extra recording experience.
Somewhat against the run of play, it’s actually really good, and should totally have been the A-side here.
The group alternate lead singers – Sylvester Potts takes the first verse, while Billy Gordon reprises his sandpapery croak-scream from Whole Lotta Woman in the second and fourth, other Contours filling in on lead as and when needed – in an unexpectedly intricate fashion, impressively well-timed, to extremely pleasing effect.
It’s all good stuff, but when Gordon takes over, the song ramps up a gear; he bawls out his lines (Yeah, ‘s like I’m fallin’ fallin’ from a mountaintop, fallin’ fast and I can’t stop) at the audience with maximum force, while the rest of the Contours provide a startlingly smooth bed of sweet backing harmonies, filling in with both a great call-and-response bit (Do you really really love me? Do you really, really love me?, delivered with an audible wink) and a series of extremely well-judged “ooohs” that display depths of singing ability the group had frankly never even hinted at before.
Yet this is no sweet ballad – it’s a highly-danceable, vivid, pummelling freight train of a song, an uptempo R&B/rock & roll stomp with barrelling Northern Soul drum fills and handclaps, and a fine match between the charging music and the lyrical evocation of just what it’s like to fall hopelessly in love. It’s superb.
Completely out of nowhere, this has to be considered one of the best records the early Contours ever made, and it should have become a significant hit single in its own right, perhaps even leading to something of a reappraisal of this early line-up’s skills. (Certainly it’s made me think twice about underestimating them – I’d written this off before hearing it, a mistake I won’t be making again.) The fact that it came buried under a tenth-rate retread of Do You Love Me which all but killed them as a chart force just highlights how unfair the music business can be, because this is positively spiffing.
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 Contours? Click for more.)
The Contours “Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby” |
Connie Van Dyke “Oh Freddy” |
Dave L said:
đŸ™‚ There are some surviving Contours yet, and I think you made them proud and happy today, Nixon. Nice going.
I’m glad to say I have this, and though it’s not mentioned on the 45, wasn’t this pulled from the “Do You Love Me” album also…?
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The Nixon Administration said:
đŸ™‚ if so, I probably made them sad and cross yesterday, I suppose… The upside of being brutally honest about records I don’t like, though, is that when I give high marks, hopefully people know I mean them.
Re: the LP – it was (though the A-side wasn’t), though I can’t provide any further information than that. I don’t have a copy of it, and the Internet gets horribly confused between the LP, the single and the later greatest hits compilation, all titled “Do You Love Me”, which isn’t much help.
A different bit of trivia: supposedly, this is the song the Contours were in the studio to work on in the first place when Berry Gordy buttonholed them to record Do You Love Me. How things might have been different.
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Dave L said:
Positively, it’s on it. I just checked out an eBay seller with the original Gordy 901 LP, and a close-up of the side 1 label. In order, Do You Love Me/ Shake Sherrie/ You Better Get In Line/ The Stretch/ It Must Be Love/ Whole Lotta Woman.
Good Lord, I’m no less mesmerized by those gorgeous purple Gordy script labels at 56 than I was at 9. If they were alcoholic beverages, my liver would have killed me 20 years ago đŸ™‚
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The Nixon Administration said:
They are a thing of beauty, aren’t they? Credit where it’s due, much of the acclaim should go to Gordon Frewin, who scanned a lot of these lovely Gordy labels for me and who has apparently now perfected a technique for capturing them incredibly cleanly. Have a look at the pristine new copy of Dream Come True, it’s a work of art.
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The Nixon Administration said:
If I was re-doing this review today, I’d definitely give this a 9. I must have been feeling particularly grumpy that day or something.
(I never change marks retrospectively – they’re meant to be an indication of how I felt at the time – but I thought I should mention it, because I’ve been playing this all day and it really is great.)
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Topkat said:
YouTube actually has a video of THE CONTOURS singing this song LIVE at the Apollo Theatre in New York. View it HERE:
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The Nixon Administration said:
Wow! Thanks for that.
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Topkat said:
The video that I’ve submitted here reveals that it was Billy Hoggs (not Sylvester Potts) that did the opening lead on this song , with Billy Gordon picking it up midstream. Potts was clearly in the background , with Hubert Johnson and Joe Billingslea.
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bogart4017 said:
“Spiffing”? Goodness where DO these words come from. They are quaint and i’ll be using them directly.
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