Discovering Motown No.51

We'll never know for sure - Marvin said it was Valerie, Valerie says it wasn't, Nickolas Ashford was non-committal. The only person left alive who was in a position to say either way is Valerie Simpson and she's absolutely clear on the subject (“I’ve heard that so many times, but it’s not really true. To the extent that yes, when she was sick, I would stand in for her initially. But after we got Marvin’s part down, we would painstakingly bring her in and do her in a different kind of way because, at that juncture, she really wasn’t well. I’ve heard this all along, but I’m just not that good. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”) The most likely theory - and we'll get into this on Motown Junkies in a few years' time - is that Marvin correctly remembers duetting with Valerie as a placeholder/demo/guide, Valerie correctly remembers painstakingly bringing Tammi in to do piecemeal recording work, and Motown used whichever vocal worked best on each given cut, possibly without either Marvin OR Valerie knowing which one was actually used. I want to believe that they're all Tammi (besides Valerie's flat-out denial when directly asked the question, the "Easy" female vocals may not sound that much like Tammi's earlier efforts, but they don't really sound like Valerie's later ones either, and the difference would easily be explained by Tammi's being terminally ill), but we can't ever be sure.

Plenty more left where that came from!

Thanks Ian, I appreciate it! There are still plenty of big hits left in the kitty, but now we're 51 hours in, there are going to be more classy rarities and deep cuts going forward too.

Thanks Kevin, always glad to have you listening! Let me know if you've got any requests for future shows.