Motown Chartbusters: Volume 9

Diana Ross - All Of My Life 1973

Diana Ross's sumptuous All Of My Life opens the album here, another huge hit and another wonderful song. It came from her 1973 Touch Me In The Morning album. Quality, smooth ballads were her currency in this era.

Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground 1973

Stevie's Higher Ground is a magnificent slice of genuine funk - all clavinet licks, great drum sound and a catchy down and dirty vocal and a big hit too. What an intro it has too. 

The Jackson 5 - Dancing Machine 1973

1973, and Dancing Machine is where the Jackson 5 start to get really "early disco" with a highly danceable groove, one which would appear on, and be the title of, their next album, as well as appearing on 1973's Get It together album too. 

Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - My Mistake (Was To Love You) 1973

My Mistake (Was To Love You) was a fine, Gaye-led very Motown, upbeat and soulful number. It is another of the best songs on the pair's collaboration 1973 album, Diana & Marvin. Its vitality brings to mind Gaye's finest duets, with Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston.

Syreeta - Spinnin' And Spinnin' 1974

A big Stevie Wonder-penned hit here for his then wife Syreeta Wright. It is an airy, dreamy, quirkily soulful song. Its melody actually seems to reflect spinning and spinning around. Wonder wrote and produced a whole album with Syreeta in 1974, entitled Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. 

Eddie Kendricks - Keep On Truckin' 1973

Solo work here from the ex-Temptation - the invigorating and catchy Keep On Truckin'. While I love the extended album cut, I actually feel that the single version served the song better, the longer version being ever so slightly incohesive. Maybe I am just used to this single version from the seventies. Either way, the song is great, packed with hooks, stonking wah-wah and clavinet, great funky percussion and a killer vocal. The "on the red-ball express" funky bit at the end is peerless. 

R. Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House 1974

Another perhaps surprise hit for the underrated R. Dean Taylor. He had several of these, didn't he? This upbeat, slightly Four Tops-ish pounder of a track proved to be a huge hit on the dance-floors of Northern England. Yes, it became a Northern Soul floor-filler.

Smokey Robinson - Just My Soul Responding 1974

Now solo, Smokey Robinson came up with what I consider a real Motown deep cut gem here. Sensual and soulful, it is a fairly lengthy slow groove of a track that, while not obviously commercial, just has something so evocative and appealing about it. It is quality soul as opposed to Motown, as much material from this period now is. I have loved it since buying it as a single in 1974. 

Diana Ross - Last Time I Saw Him 1973

Now a big star, dare I say a diva, Last Time I Saw Him was a bit of a musical departure for Diana Ross, being a bit of a lively ragtime, jazzy piece of vaudeville fun. It was only a minor hit single. Maybe that was why. It is enjoyable enough, I guess.

Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - You Are Everything 1973

The big hit You Are Everything is very well-known and the two singers combine superbly, but not everything was rosy between the two. For various reasons, Gaye was loth to join up with Ross. He also blotted his copybook by smoking marijuana in the studio (as was his wont) as the then pregnant Ross showed up. Arguments and tension ensued. Then there was the problem of the billing - whose name would be mentioned first. Ross got the nod. It was surprising, therefore, that the ensuing album turned out to be a very successful and polished sounding affair. Some of the material was recorded with the artists in separate studios but you would never have known. The album has a high quality sound throughout - nice and warm with a fine seventies stereo separation and a deep bass sound. This is exemplified in this excellent lovelorn single.

Stevie Wonder - He's Misstra Know-It-All 1973

Now for the marvellous He's Misstra Know It All, apparently directed against then President, Richard Nixon. Melodic, with a totally addictive piano hook and a gruff, soulful vocal culminating in the "look out he's comin'" shriek. Great stuff. It is my favourite Stevie Wonder song of all.

Diana Ross & The Supremes - Baby Love 1974

Re-released as a single in the UK, this 1964 huge hit needs no introduction, does it? It duly charted again, unsurprisingly. 

Jimmy Ruffin - What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted 1974

Another classic re-released in the UK. What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted is, of course, a timeless Motown classic. It needs no introduction from me, does it? An interesting rarity is an extended version of the song featuring a spoken intro. The only CD version of this I can find is on the Motown Stereo Box. The song also appeared on volume one of this Motown Chartbusters series.

Stevie Wonder - Living For The City 1973

The mighty Living For The City is perhaps best listened to in its extended album version. The song has a funky, insistent, rumbling opening organ riff against a throbbing bass and is assisted by some swirling synth riffs and, of course, Wonder's gritty vocal telling of an innocent black man's unjust descent into urban crime and eventual incarceration. The spoken "prison guard" scene in the middle of the long version was a deeply shocking portrayal of institutionalised racism. It is a depressing tale, with no hope at the end of it whatsoever. A vitriolic condemnation of contemporary times and, indeed of much of today's society. It hits you right between the ears. As a musical spectacle it is superb. Wonder's vocal at the end is growling and desperate, a narrator who has reached rock bottom. 

Diana Ross - Love Me 1973

Love Me was another 1973 Diana Ross single, and a nice, sensual one but the days of automatic big hits seemed to be suddenly in the past. Ross would always have a big hit in her, as subsequent years would prove, but it was not a given anymore. Despite that, the fact that this album seems to alternate between Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross tracks shows that she still carried some clout.

Eddie Kendricks - Boogie Down 1974

The Keep On Truckin’ sound-alike, Boogie Down, like its predecessor, positively bubbles with funk. It has lots of bongoes, sweeping and horns in the instrumental section. 

The Commodores - Machine Gun 1974

Machine Gun was a really big hit, which was slightly surprising as it was an instrumental. It is, however, a sublime piece of clavinet-driven funk. The percussion is infectious and there are some spacey keyboard interjections throughout. This was my first experience of The Commodores, so my early memories of them are of this sort of thing, as opposed to smoochy ballads.