Price: $95.98

Hip-O Select presents the next volume in its acclaimed continuing series of every Motown single (A- and B- side) of the Detroit era. The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 4: 1964, with 163 songs on six compact discs, focuses on the year the company becomes an international phenomenon: “My Guy,” “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “The Way You Do The Things You Do,” “Dancing In The Street,” “Every Little Bit Hurts,” “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” scale the charts… the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha & The Vandellas, Brenda Holloway and Marvin Gaye are everywhere… the Holland-Dozier-Holland writing and production team define “The Motown Sound”… Jr. Walker & The All Stars debut on the new Soul label; the veteran Four Tops get a hit; Miss Wells turns 21, and leaves. The Funk Brothers band is given a single release, with bandleader Earl Van Dyke’s name on the label.

And yet… even as the Motown machine began to click founder Berry Gordy continued to hedge his bets: listen for odd novelties like the seasonal “Randy, The Newspaper Boy” by Ray Oddis, and “Set Me Free” by radio personality Lee Alan. Motown kept active its country label, Mel-O-Dy, from Gene Henslee’s weeper “Shambles” to Howard Crockett’s passable Johnny Cash impersonation on “My Lil’s Run Off.” There’s even Bruce Channel, hot from his smash pop hit, “Hey! Baby,” trying out a Snakepit groove on his R&B-country update of “Satisfied Mind.” Marvin Gaye is given a long leash to test his jazz sensibilities. Sammy Ward has a last shot at the blues.

Every detail is here, in a package keeping with the series that also boasts an expanded 132-page booklet. The Supremes’ first of three No. 1 hits that year, “Where Did Our Love Go” b/w “He Means The World To Me,” is the true vinyl single in the box set’s cover page. Inside, page after page features rare photographs. There are faithful reproductions of classic (and some not so classic) picture sleeves and record labels, some seen for the first time since they were first released.

Janie Bradford, a Motown songwriter who was the company’s front desk receptionist that year, wrote an introductory essay for The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 4. Her observations from behind that desk are poetic and often funny; she offers an insider’s look at Motown climbing on a rocketship. Dr. Todd Boyd, a Detroit native and today the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture at the USC School of Cinema-Television, is the author of this year’s overview; he places Motown and the music in a broiling historical context that includes Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali), the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Malcolm X, Freedom Summer, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thanks to associate producer Keith Hughes and author Bill Dahl, each track gets a story, with the usual songwriters and producers, now with recording dates where available, and extraordinary research that has uncovered long-lost – or never before revealed – insights about the music and the people who made it.

As with previous volumes, The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 4: 1964 is a limited-edition set. Several of the songs contained on it are unavailable anywhere else; many had never been re-released on vinyl, let alone on compact disc. When the edition is sold out, it’s gone for good, so act now.

Volumes 5 and 6 are being prepared for release during 2006.

Motortown Revue bandleader Walter “Choker” Campbell, who has his lone Motown single in this volume, was also a recording artist in the fifties. He recorded for several labels including Atlantic Records, where he shared billing on a few singles with blues icon – and rock & roll godfather – Joe Turner.

To purchase The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 1: 1959-1961, click here

To purchase The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 2: 1962, click here

To purchase The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 3: 1963, click here

Price: $95.98