3 More Motown Reissues for the New Year

Elemental Records had so many Motown albums planned for the label's 2024 reissue campaign that it couldn't get them all out in 2024. So we're starting the new year with another look at fresh reissues of three classic LPs. 

The first is my personal favorite of the bunch, and one that begins with what might be my favorite side of music on any sixties Motown album. The Supremes' Reflections not only kicks off with my fave Supremes track and Motown track of the sixties, the mysterious and mournful psych-soul title tune, but it then bounds between a series of great album cuts (the tough and funky "I'm Gonna Make It" being a particular stand out) and excellent yet less well-known singles ("Forever Came Today" and "In and Out of Love"). Most of these songs were supplied by Holland-Dozier-Holland, who also produced The Supremes for the final time with Reflections.

The absence of Motown's supreme songwriting/producing trio is felt on most of Side B, which leans too hard on competent covers of popular pop songs like "What the World Needs Now Is Love", "Up, Up and Away", and "Ode to Billie Joe". However one final Holland-Dozier-Holland track and a couple from Smokey Robinson and Warren Moore make the side listenable enough, and, to unnecessarily drive my first point home, Side A of Reflections is indispensable.

Speaking of Smokey, his second solo album is also on Elemental's current docket. Although there's nothing here to rival his greatest sixties hits with The Miracles, Pure Smokey catches him well before his eighties transition into a too-smooth adult-contemporary pop star. So we get some funky pieces like "It's Her Turn to Live", "A Tattoo", and the almost-disco-like "Virgin Man", which broaches some very unusual subject-matter for a genre that tends to emphasize horizontal prowess. Also lyrically atypical are "The Love Between Me and My Kids", which comes closest to the classic Motown sound, and "She's Only a Baby Herself", which deals with one's offspring in a far less comfortable way. Much of the rest of the album is a little too mellow, but it's fascinating to hear Smokey the songwriter take some of the chances he does on Pure Smokey, and that voice remains as brandy-sweet as ever.

Always the most "adult" sounding of the key Motown groups, Gladys Knight and the Pips might seem an unusual antidote to the adult-ness of Pure Smokey, but Nitty Gritty catches that quartet in a pleasingly rambunctious mood. While carbon copies of "Cloud Nine" and "I'm Losing You" will make no one forget The Temptations, and funked up versions of "The Nitty Gritty" and "Keep an Eye", will do the same for Shirley Ellis and The Supremes, respectively, the fun temper of these tracks is still refreshing. Other peppy numbers like "Runnin' Out", "Got Myself a Good Man","The Stranger", and "I Want Him to Say It Again" keep the record boiling without inviting any unflattering comparisons.

And speaking of comparisons, this latest batch of vinyl reissues is the first that allowed me to make a direct comparison between one of Elemental's new reissues and a vintage piece of Motown plastic, as I already had a stereo copy of Reflections in my collection. So I can say that Elemental's reissue is a bit more dynamic and present with slightly thicker bass than my Motown disc from 1968. The other records sound strong too, and the vinyl continues to be flat, quiet, and distortion-free.