{"id":25640,"date":"2023-07-19T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T09:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25640"},"modified":"2023-07-13T08:57:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T12:57:12","slug":"album-review-various-artists-detroit-harmonisers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/19\/album-review-various-artists-detroit-harmonisers\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Various Artists \u2013 Detroit Harmonisers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Music licensing requirements in the UK and Europe are less stringent than they are here in the U.S.; what that means for listeners interested in compilations exploring music made in years gone by is that they will often find many of the most interesting collections coming from overseas labels. Case in point is Detroit Harmonisers<\/i> (that\u2019s the British spelling, of course). This new single-disc set brings together 27 sides by vocal groups from the Motor City. Recorded and\/or released in the narrow time frame of 1959-62, these tracks feature four groups, all of which fit into the Motown category, whether the music was released on that label or one of its associated imprints, or not.<\/p>\n

The disc begins by serving up the entirety of The Contours\u2019 1962 LP for Gordy Records, Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)<\/i>. The roaring lead vocal and tight harmony backing on the title track ranks among the most exciting three minutes in soul\/r&b. As was often the case in those pre-Beatles days, the album is best characterized as a collection of filler built around the title track. But there are occasional bright spots. The tunes aren\u2019t weak, and they\u2019re well-executed; it\u2019s simply that none of them is especially distinctive, and they cannot help but pale in comparison to the thrilling title track.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou Better Get in Line\u201d is from the \u201cthat worked before so let\u2019s do it again\u201d school of songwriting; from its spoken intro on down, it\u2019s a thin retread of \u201cDo You Love Me.\u201d For all its charms, \u201cThe Stretch\u201d sounds like the sounds of the mid \u201850s, not 1962. But the uptempo \u201cIt Must Be Love\u201d is a winner. \u201cClaudia\u201d features an impressive arrangement with thrilling stabs of brass and electric guitar.<\/p>\n

On \u201cWhole Lotta Woman\u201d the group sounds as if it\u2019s singing in a different key than the one the musicians are playing in; unless you\u2019re a fan of dissonance, it\u2019s best avoided. The country blues of \u201cSo Grateful\u201d are unexpected. \u201cFunny\u201d is a close-harmony vocal number that again finds The Contours looking back to the \u201850s, this time with mixed results.<\/p>\n

The remainder of Detroit Harmonisers<\/i> collects tracks by two \u2013 or perhaps it\u2019s three \u2013 other groups. Four tracks by The Satintones find the group jumping on to the pop bandwagon with titles like \u201cGoing to the Hop.\u201d The arrangements are tame only occasionally inspired and sometimes out of tune, sounding a bit like Frank Zappa and the Mothers\u2019 take on doo-wop circa Ruben and the Jets<\/i>.<\/p>\n

With The Satintones\u2019 \u201cSugar Daddy,\u201d Berry Gordy (who wrote most of the tunes on this set) seems to have had a notion to rewrite Leiber and Stoller\u2019s \u201cPoison Ivy,\u201d released the same year.<\/p>\n

A different lineup of The Satintones \u2013 featuring three of the original members plus two new ones \u2013 is represented by seven tracks on this collection. Song theft was a common practice in those days, and the group\u2019s recording of a song called \u201cTomorrow & Always\u201d was positioned as an \u201canswer record\u201d to The Shirelles\u2019 \u201cWill You Love Me Tomorrow.\u201d Problem is, it\u2019s the same song. The original record listed some of Berry Gordy\u2019s associates as co-writers alongside Gerry Goffin and Carole King; that wrong has since been righted, and only Goffin\/King credit survives today. For all that, it\u2019s a decent recording, albeit with nothing special to recommend it.<\/p>\n

The other Satintones tracks are sturdy if unremarkable (and occasionally overwrought) late-period doo-wop, Detroit variety. The set wraps up with a handful of tracks from The Valadiers, a white(!) group on Motown. That bit of trivia is the most notable thing about the group and its music. Technically Motown, this material is not at all representative of what most think of with regard to that style. And it certainly doesn\u2019t classify as what the British call Northern Soul. But for fans and\/or completist collectors of doo-wop, Detroit Harmonisers<\/i> merits a listen, and the packaging, liner notes and annotation are all commendable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music licensing requirements in the UK and Europe are less stringent than they are here in the U.S.; what that means for listeners interested in compilations exploring music made in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,49,60,65,69],"tags":[5194],"class_list":["post-25640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-rb","category-review","category-soul","tag-detroit-harmonisers","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-60-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25642,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25640\/revisions\/25642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}