Not terribly impressive, I’m afraid; once the shock appeal of finding a Motown honky tonk single has worn off, we’re left with a record that’s somehow managed to end up being both strange and boring. (3)
Even if it’s mean-spirited, it is a good tune, and I find Mullins sneakily likeable as a vocalist. If it’s not that great a record, it’s still probably among the better Mel-o-dy country releases, and I’d have been interested to hear more. (4)
If Marvelettes fans weren’t likely to be moved by this ill-judged and poorly-executed cover, it’s equally unlikely any hardened jazz cats were particularly impressed either. We can only hope Earl himself was having some fun doing this throwaway jam, splashing his instrumental karaoke all over a fine band track, because I’m not sure anyone else enjoyed the experience. (3)
It’s alright, but the organ is annoying, and it mainly serves as a reminder of Motown’s foolishness in not issuing one of the vocal versions instead. (5)
The obvious skill and proficiency with which Hot Cha has been assembled doesn’t make me like it any more. Less Hitsville or Soulsville, this is more like Dullsville USA. Please don’t do this again, Junior. (3)
It is just a whole lot of fun. It’s also quite stupid, and proud of it (as with Stevie Wonder’s Fingertips, another unashamedly direct Motown stomper), but that plays in its favour; it’s a gas. (9)
A breath of fresh air which sounds like the début from some new talent, the jumping-off point for a new and exciting career. Certainly it doesn’t sound like what it really was: a final, half-hearted throw of the dice from a disinterested label, one of America’s great unsung singers shackled to a record company who didn’t bother to release her records. (7)
Hattie Littles, the most unjustly forgotten of all Motown’s early heroines, still doesn’t have a proper anthology collecting together the reams of material she apparently cut at Motown; on the off chance anyone at Ace/Kent is reading, we can but hope such a project emerges soon. In the meantime, as legacies go, things could have been far worse.(7)
Very much an appetiser, a curtain-raiser for the entrance of the Elgins proper which is coming up in a few months’ time; beyond that, it’s an interesting listen, but ultimately little more than that. Perhaps appropriately for such a dated record, the group who made it were already being consigned to history. (4)
Good fun while it’s playing, completely forgettable once it’s done; it bears absolutely no relation to the future of the Elgins, not to mention the rest of the Motown catalogue at the time, but it’s nice enough. (5)
It’s just lacking that final spark, that something extra which would take the song into the realms of greatness, rather than it being pleasing but ultimately inconsequential. Of course, I suppose when something’s this pleasing, it hardly matters. (6)
Motown Junkies 