There’s always the nagging feeling that everyone on the record was having more fun making it than you are actually listening to it – but not by very much. It’s good to let your hair down once in a while. (6)
Very likeable, performed with enough humid Southern soul that it’s definitely not an ersatz blues record – Ward knew his stuff too well to let Gordy sand the edges off entirely – but nor is it the electrifying rough blues that Singin’ Sammy so clearly yearned to be singing. (5)
A slow doo-wop/blues number that practically calls for a seductive, alternately slinky and then full-on delivery. Wells duly obliges with another excellent performance, full of character and frankly astonishing given her age. Like the A-side, the material isn’t the best, but the voice makes it worth the visit. (6)
The start of the “Motown Sound” is traditionally dated to 1963 and the Vandellas’ Come And Get These Memories, but the band had it in them all along, as evidenced by this throwaway B-side performed the best part of two and a half years earlier. (5)
A bluesy pop ballad with doo-wop tempo, Mable John turns in a similarly startling lead vocal performance as she did on the A-side, but the song isn’t as strong. (4)
Mable John, an early confidante of Berry Gordy (from back when he was struggling to get songwriting work) and who provides the touching opening essay for the first volume in the Complete Motown Singles box set series, was the first Motown female solo act, beating out the better-known Mary Wells by a matter of weeks, and this engaging bluesy strut was her first professional recording as well as her début single. (6)
Obviously, the record sold very poorly (obviously), though there was some modicum of success in the fact that those involved don’t appear to have been sued. Listen once, let it raise a faint smile or two, be bemused by the surprisingly downbeat ending, and then forget all about it. (1)
It’s a fun little song, and the chorus is catchy (though I struggle not to think of Lord Rockingham XI’s Hoots Mon at the same time), but as a follow-up to a classic hit single it fails to hit the mark; also, the production is weak and muddy, and the sound quality is especially poor. (6)
Better than the first version, but I still don’t think there’s actually very much song going on underneath all the harmonising and vocal pyrotechnics. Pretty, though.
It isn’t as awful as Hold Me Tight, but then neither is having a vagrant sneeze in your face.
One of the bottom five worst Motown records of all time, the best thing you can say about Hold Me Tight is that at least Gordy had the balls to admit his mistake in releasing it in the first place, and acted quickly to put this terrible record out of its misery. (1)
Motown Junkies 