Tracklist:

1. Stevie Wonder - I Was Made To Love Her 2:38
2. Brenton Wood - Gimme Little Sign 2:18
3. The Grass Roots - Let's Live For Today 2:51
4. Sam & Dave - Soul Man 2:37
5. Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl 3:09
6. Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - Your Precious Love 3:02
7. The Hollies - Carrie-Anne 2:56
8. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Jimmy Mack 2:44
9. The Lovin' Spoonful - Nashville Cats 2:36
10. The Buckinghams - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy 2:49
11. Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman 2:44
12. Soul Survivors - Expressway To Your Heart 2:23
13. The Temptations - You're My Everything 3:00
14. The Five Americans - Western Union 2:28
15. The Esquires - Get On Up 2:23
16. Blues Magoos - (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet 2:17
17. The Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday 3:16
18. The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin' 2:55
19. Paul Revere & The Raiders - Him Or Me, What's It Gonna Be? 2:42
20. Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels - Sock It To Me Baby 2:59
21. The Supremes - The Happening 2:50
22. The Monkees - A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You 2:46

Media Condition: Mint (M)
Sleeve Condition: Mint (M)

Cat # : 2CLR-10, OPCD-2565

Barcode :

Rock, Funk / Soul / Folk Rock, Rock & Roll, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Funk

Notes:

Volume 10 of a 30 volume set.

Track durations obtained from software.

Complete liner notes:

In the summer of 1967, Tammi Terrell fainted into the arms of Marvin Gaye on a concert stage in Virginia during their performance of Your Precious Love. Terrell's collapse marked the beginning of the end for perhaps the most scintillating male-female vocal duo in pop history. She was diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumor and died in 1970 at the age of 24. Before her death, she recorded a number of sumptuously romantic duets with Gaye in which the two achieved such a passionate rapport that listeners could only conclude they were lovers. Actually, Terrell was involved with David Ruffin of the Temptations, not Gaye.

Tammi Terrell (then Montgomery) began recording in 1961 and by 1963 was a member of James Brown's soul revue. In 1965, after her marriage to heavyweight boxing contender Ernie Terrell, she signed with Motown. When Gaye and Tammi were first paired on the devotional Ain't No Mountain High Enough, it was apparent that her kittenish sexuality and husky timbre were perfect foils for Gaye's erotic image and voice. Kim Weston, an earlier duet partner of Gaye's, summed up Terrell's appeal, calling her "a free spirit - wild, raw and beautiful." 

Unfortunately, after six hits in 1967 and 1968, all penned by Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Terrell's health deteriorated rapidly. In fact, many of the vocals on the last Gaye-Terrell album, Easy, were sung by Simpson. Terrell's illness and death had a profound impact on Gaye and he later admitted: "My heart was broken. My own marriage to Anna [Gordy had proven to be a lie. I could no longer pretend to sing love songs for people. I couldn't perform. When Tammi became ill, I refused to sing in public." 

Though 1967 was a banner year for Motown as the company produced 14 top-10 hits (the most in its history), it was also a year of significant change. The Happening would be the Supremes' last chart topper written by Holland-Dozier-Holland (who soon left Motown) and their final record as the Supremes. The switch to "Diana Ross and the Supremes" was the first step toward Ross's eventual departure for a solo career. Martha and the Vandellas' Jimmy Mack would be the last big hit for Martha Reeves, who many believe was unjustly ignored by Berry Gordy Jr. in favor of his pet project, Diana Ross. 

One constant at Motown was Stevie Wonder's continuing artistic maturation. His breathlessly urgent vocal on I Was Made to Love Her resulted in perhaps his most exciting single of the '60s. In You're My Everything, producer Norman Whitfield came up with another top-10 song for the Temptations by effectively contrasting Eddie Kendricks' silky falsetto with David Ruffin's leathery hoarseness. Ruffin, now anxious for a bigger paycheck and more recognition, wanted the group billed as "David Ruffin and the Temptations," a demand that led to his split from the Temps in 1968. 

Nineteen sixty-seven was the year that "soul" became a permanent part of our cultural lexicon. Isaac Hayes and David Porter outlined its essence in Soul Man, Sam and Dave delivered the song with gritty authenticity, and white and black music fans alike found the groove irresistible. In March 1967, a revue of soul acts associated with the Stax label in Memphis (Sam and Dave and Otis Redding, among others) took England by storm. The Beatles, then in the midst of recording Sgt. Pepper, even sent a limo to pick up the stars after they landed in London. In 1979, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi of Saturday Night Live formed the Blues Brothers and released a hit remake of Soul Man, a version Sam Moore refused to take seriously: "I looked at it the way you look at the Coasters. It was a parody from a comedy team." 

The Memphis soul sound was heavily dependent on studio musicians operating primarily in Memphis but also out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In fact, when Aretha Franklin recorded (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman in New York City, Atlantic Records flew in the Muscle Shoals band to make sure the record had that down-home flavor. Many white groups also emulated this style, including the Soul Survivors, whose horn-heavy Expressway to Your Heart was written and produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, architects of the Philly sound. In Chicago, the Buckinghams took the Cannonball Adderley hit Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, an instrumental penned by Joe Zawinul (later keyboardist of the jazz-rock fusion group Weather Report), and scored again with a vocal version. 

The premier blue-eyed soul act of the day was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, who turned in another pile-driving performance with their earthy demand, Sock It to Me Baby. A second version of the single had to be released when radio stations complained that the lyric "hits me like a punch" sounded like "hits me like a f**k." In mid-1967, Ryder shifted musical gears dramatically and made an ill-fated (some would say ludicrous) stab at becoming a Vegas-style crooner. Neither a big band nor a tuxedo, however, could redeem Ryder's tame covers of What Now My Love and You Are My Sunshine. England, too, had raised a generation of rockers who found inspiration in R & B and soul music. Perhaps the greatest of the new breed was Van Morrison, the visionary Irish singer-songwriter. In 1965, his group Them had a hit with Here Comes the Night written and produced by American Bert Berns. When Morrison left Them in 1967, Berns sent him money to come to the States, where he produced Morrison's stirring recollection of adolescence, Brown Eyed Girl (originally titled Brown Skinned Girl). Morrison has since sustained a long solo career that has yielded some of rock's most brilliant and enduring albums, beginning with Astral Weeks (1968) and Moondance (1970). 

Another disciple of R & B (especially the music of Ray Charles) was Stevie Winwood, the gifted singer and keyboard player for England's Spencer Davis Group. Winwood was only 18 when he, his brother Muff and Spencer Davis wrote their biggest stateside hit, Gimme Some Lovin', with vocal assistance provided by Dave Mason. In early 1967, Winwood left Davis and joined Mason to form the great progressive rock band Traffic. Winwood eventually segued into the solo spotlight and earned a Grammy in 1987, more than 20 years after turning pro. 

Like most British beat groups, Manchester's Hollies started out recording covers of hits like Doris Troy's Just One Look. By the mid-'60s, however, the Hollies' soaring three-part harmonies on Stop! Stop! Stop!, On a Carousel and Carrie-Anne helped create one or the most distinctive vocal sounds in pop music. The Hollies, whose tight harmonies were obviously indebted to the Everly Brothers, got a major surprise in 1967 when Phil and Don invited them to contribute five songs to their Two Yanks in England album. 

By 1967, New York's Greenwich Village, long a folkie haven, had succumbed to the burgeoning hippie culture as head shops and rock clubs such as the Nite Owl and Cafe Wha prospered. The most successful alumni or the Village scene were the Lovin' Spoonful, who achieved their seventh consecutive top-10 hit with John Sebastian's tribute to Music City, U.S.A., Nashville Cats. The Village's reigning psychedelicists were the Blues Magoos, famous for their battery-operated electric suits. Along with the hit (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet the band was responsible for such barely disguised drug paeans as Pipe Dream and Love Seems Doomed (LSD). 

The "artistic seriousness" accompanying the psychedelic revolution demanded that bands write and play their own material. After having earlier hits penned by others, producer Terry Melcher and Paul Revere and the Raiders' lead singer Mark Lindsay collaborated on many or the band's best songs such as Good Thing and Him or Me, What's It Gonna Be? The Grass Roots, at first a fictitious group name representing the studio efforts of writer-producers P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri, became "real" when Sloan and Barri gave the name to an L.A. group, the Thirteenth Floor. Let's Live for Today, the Grass Roots' first top-10 record, was originally recorded by an Italian band, the Rokes. 

No group struggled harder for artistic integrity than the Monkees, who in 1967 finally wrestled creative control away from musical director Don Kirshner. Not only had Kirshner released the Monkees' second album without their knowledge, he had Davy Jones record Neil Diamond's A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You without the rest of the band even being present. These were the last straws; Kirshner was ousted, and suddenly the Monkees were their own chimps. 

- Joe Sasfy