MARVIN GAYE: TOGETHER (1964) (w. Mary Wells)
1) Once Upon A Time; 2) Deed I
Do; 3) Until I Met You; 4) Together; 5) (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons;
6) The Late, Late Show; 7) After The Lights Go Down Low; 8) Just Squeeze Me
(But Don't Tease Me); 9) What's The Matter With You
Baby; 10) You Came A Long Way From St. Louis.
General verdict: Some potential
here, but hard to strike a brand new R&B fire with rusty old standards.
The first of Marvin's many duet albums with
Motown's little ladies, Together is
usually looked upon as a rather lackluster commencement, because (a) he did not
have much time to strike up any real chemistry with Mary Wells, who was on her
way out from Motown anyway, and (b) they might have had the clever idea, but in
the hurry to realize it they forgot to provide the duo with any good songs —
and had to fall back on the same old standards that made Marvin's early LP
career such a boring chore to sit through.
Both of these reasons are true enough, but
still, one should not underestimate the relative freshness of this approach — indirectly
reflected in the album's relative commercial success (#42 on the US charts may
not seem like much, but it turned out to be one of Marvin's biggest sellers in
the Sixties). There can be no doubt about who was the real top dog here: Wells had scored at least three more top 10
singles than Marvin by 1964, and her ʽMy Guyʼ was a steady #1 and one of the
biggest songs of 1964, whereas Marvin was still struggling. Nevertheless, for
male chauvinistic reasons, it still feels more like a Marvin than a Mary
album: not only because the material is taken largely from the same pool as the
songs on When I'm Alone I Cry, but
also because Marvin takes the lead on most of the tracks, and because Mary
Wells was no Aretha Franklin — sounding powerful and dominant was never her
thing.
Still, what the heck, when the songs are lively
enough, they do sound good together. Only one single (with two A-sides) was
newly written for them by a Motown team led by Clarence Paul and Mickey
Stevenson: ʽOnce Upon A Timeʼ is an unremarkable mid-tempo ballad for boring prom
nights, but ʽWhat's The Matter With You Babyʼ is catchy fun. Hopping along its
ʽShakin' All Overʼ-ish rhythm guitar, it is delightfully nervous and paints a
convincing picture of Marvin and Mary as a nagging couple — he cheats on her,
goes away, comes back, she still loves him but is in no hurry to forgive him,
you know the typical Sixties drill: subtly poignant, but generally harmless and
playful. Were there significantly more songs like that on the album, it might
have accidentally become a minor masterpiece of the realtion-building variety.
As it is, too much space on this already way
too short record is given over to material such as ʽ(I Love You) For
Sentimental Reasonsʼ and the title track, which goes all the way back to rusty
1928. Admittedly, some of the oldies are given fun, lively new coatings — for
instance, Roy Alfred's and Murray Berlin's ʽThe Late, Late Showʼ is not only sped
up, but decorated with actual smooching
between the protagonists that later turns into slapping... oh, my. In short, it is not completely true that Marvin
and Mary could not really get it on: it is more likely that they just did not
get enough time and creative freedom to really get it on. But they did the best
they could under the circumstances; and while of all of Motown's female
superstars, Mary Wells tends to be the most forgotten today — largely because
her career ended so soon, but also because she never tried to go for the
«self-empowering» female image that is so much more relevant for present times
— she has a certain old-school classy charm here that none of Marvin's future
partners possessed. This is not necessarily a good thing (to many people, that
old-school classy charm will translate as reserved stiffness), but at least it
explains why listening to Together
might not be such a complete waste of time if you already have all those
critically acclaimed Gaye / Terrell collaborations.
Forgive me if I missed it, George, but what do the colors of the "General Verdict" text mean?
ReplyDeleteOff my own intuition:
DeleteRed = very good-masterpiece
Yellow = average-good
Green = mediocre-bad
Grey = "unrateable" (like the early John/Yoko albums or "Metal Machine Music")
Red = masterpiece/excelent
DeleteOrange = very good
Yellow = good
Green = passable
Blue = bad
Grey = horrible/non music
Red is good, grey is bad, and yellow is impossible to read.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for your "What's Going On" and "Let's Get It On" takes! Which reminds me, you never reviewed Sly's "There's a Riot Goin On" (or did you?). I hope you tackle more funk/soul albums in the future. Parliament awaits!
ReplyDelete