|
Martha Reeves
Martha Reeves
***Preliminary liner notes, subject to change. ***
A FAN’S NOTES
It was supposed to be the album that would launch Martha Reeves as a solo superstar. The voice that had been responsible for a string of Motown hits — from 1963’s “Come And Get These Memories” to 1972’s “Tear It On Down” (the last charted single from Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) — was finally going to be acknowledged front-and-center thanks to a deal with MCA Records. Signed to the L.A.-based company in early 1973 and teamed with pop hitmaker Richard Perry to produce her much-anticipated solo debut, Martha Reeves was ready for a change in fortune and the self-titled LP was meant to provide just that. Recorded in Los Angeles over the course of a year with the cream of pop and rock musicians, the best of the best in session singers and a local church choir to boot, Martha Reeves was a musical triumph but, mysteriously, a sales disappointment. The real whys and wherefores surrounding the 1974 release’s modest performance are lost in the mythology (or the revisionist history) of the music biz. Some said it was mistake to put a soulful singer like Martha with a producer so closely associated with such pop superstars as Barbra Streisand and Carly Simon (and even Ringo Starr!). Others claimed the material — written by Van Morrison, Carole King, Hoyt Axton and Jimmy Cliff, among others — just didn’t work for a black audience who had grown up on Martha’s stridently distinctive vocal style. Or perhaps MCA may not have known how best to capitalize on the Motown star’s appearance in such an obviously dissimilar musical setting. Thirty-one years on, it matters little, for we have the original album available once more — along with three bonus tracks — and it sure sounds good! In truth, it always did: as part of an interview I conducted with Martha just weeks after its summer ’74 release for Britain’s Blues & Soul magazine, I waxed lyrical about the album, exclaiming that Martha was “headed for super-stardom all over again!” For her part, Martha was thrilled. Even though she acknowledged the difficulty of having the sessions extend over almost eighteen months from her original signing to MCA, she stated in our 1974 Blues & Soul interview, “I’m so excited about all the wonderful reaction the album’s getting… Usually, I’m the last one to get excited about product — maybe that’s because I’ve never been so involved in a project before.” The latter comment was a veiled reference to what Martha had previously claimed was a lack of creative input during her decade with Motown. Martha Reeves was fresh, exciting, a heady mix of pop, rock, soul and gospel. Martha had done a track-by-track review of the disc as part of our 1974 chat shedding light on its contents. “Wild Night,” written by Van Morrison (who had a 1971 hit with it), was released as the album’s second single in the autumn of ’74; it featured such high profile players as Motown bassist James Jamerson, guitarist Arthur Adams and renowned Rolling Stones sideman Nicky Hopkins on piano, along with Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff (best known for their ground-breaking work with Stevie Wonder) on synthesizers. For Martha, it was simply “a different kind of thing for me to tackle.” The soul-oriented “You’ve Got Me For Company,” written by Billy Preston (who would also play on the track “Dixie Highway”), was a song Reeves found on one of Preston’s A&M albums. Martha was understandably proud of “Facsimile,” one of two compositions she wrote for the Perry sessions (the other being “Stand By Me,” issued as the “B” side of the two MCA singles). “Facsimilie” was done with backing from Creation, a group (composed of Leon Patillo, Jimmie Calhoun, Travis Fullerton, Lennie Lee Goldsmith and Carol Kafi) whom Martha had met when they were her opening act. Commenting on the opportunity to have one of her own songs on the album, Martha said she had been writing for “quite some time but [the songs] never got released before! And . . . all my writing is based on personal experiences.” With a nod to her Motown days, Martha chose Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar,” using guitarist Dennis Coffey (who had played on many a Motown session) and Jamerson to anchor the recording. “I’ve dug the lyrics since the first time I heard them,” Martha said in 1974, noting “my version is different [from Marvin’s]. . . .” “Dixie Highway,” a Carole King original that made its debut here, featured Billy Preston on organ and bassist Klaus Voorman along with the Avalon Carver Community Choir. Joe Simon’s 1972 hit “Power Of Love” (written by Simon with Philly hitmakers Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff) was another all-star cover affair featuring horns arranged and conducted by James Taylor, percussionist Ralph MacDonald, then-Crusader Joe Sample on piano and session superstar Clydie King on backup vocals. The album’s biggest power ballad was “My Man (You Changed My Tune)” which, for Martha, was an opportunity to be seen “in a different light.” The same could have been said about Hoyt Axton’s “Sweet Misery,” a standout track that featured the composer on guitar. Of particular interest is Martha’s slowed-down version of “I’ve Got To Use My Imagination”: her reading of the song was cut before Gladys Knight & The Pips’ version hit the streets in November 1973. “We recorded the track at one of the very first sessions we did,” she explained, “and MCA had intended to go with it as a single.” The final two tracks on Martha Reeves had a decidedly gospel feel. “Storm In My Soul” is a rousing jam that was co-written by Vini Poncia, credited for providing production assistance for the album, while Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers To Cross” (with accompaniment from The Avalon Carver Community Choir) was a given a heartfelt workout by Martha who said she had heard the song in the movie The Harder They Come. For the sometimes feisty Ms Reeves who had been through her share of personal and emotional challenges, the tune was “more of a spiritual than just a song.” “Many Rivers To Cross” provided a glorious musical ending for the album. Two additional tracks never made the final cut: a pleasant version of Ruby & The Romantics’ 1963 classic “Our Day Will Come” and the quirky “I Sure Do Love You,” both of which add a new dimension to the Reeves-Perry sessions. On working with Perry, Martha commented: “Working with Richard was an incredible experience…he’s almost like a scientist and he does everything possible to get each track right.” Perry’s purportedly obsessive approach to recording is well-known among L.A. musicians, but despite Perry’s studio wizardry, we are left today with a record that just may have been ahead of its time. In the aftermath of its lackluster sales, Martha would express her personal disappointment, but in hindsight it remains a unique and classic ’70s album that showcased Martha’s ability to explore diverse musical terrain while still retaining the innate soulful quality that has made her one of the voices in contemporary popular music. David Nathan (a/k/a “The British Ambassador Of Soul”)
|