But as the 1960s turned into the 1970s, Reeves and the Vandellas weren't given the top songs written by Motown's songwriters. Motown basically self-destructed in the early 1970s anyway, especially due to the terrible decision to move the company from Detroit to Los Angeles to make movies (which generally didn't materialize). So Reeves managed to get out of her Motown contract in 1972, and broke up the Vandellas to pursue a solo career.
Unfortunately, her solo career never took off like it should have. She was signed by M.C.A. records, and they literally spared no expense with her debut album, the cleverly titled "Martha Reeves." I say they "spared no expense" because it cost $250,000 to record, which was one of the most expensive record productions ever up until that time. But the record didn't take advantage of her talents, being overproduced, and it didn't sell well. Her next couple of albums suffered the same fate. Then she became a born-again Christian in 1977. She also directed more of her energy to acting, letting her music career slide for several years.
Given all that, I didn't have high expectations when listening to this. But I was really impressed. It seems the songs from her debut album were given new life when performed live. It helped that she had a crack band. I was especially interested to find out that the bass player was none other than James Jamerson, one of the greatest bass players of all time. He was part of the Motown house band (nicknamed the Funk Brothers) in the 1960s and early 1970s, but he rarely performed live in a band like this. But, listening to his playing here, you can hear why he's so highly praised.
Since the main performance from "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" is rather short, at only 22 minutes, I searched to see if I could add a few more songs at the end. There wasn't much. This seems to be the only concert appearance from this era more than a song or two, and they were usually songs already included here. But I did find two songs performed on the "Saturday Night Live" T.V. show in 1975, and one song on the "Midnight Special" T.V. show in 1976. That one, by the way, featured Barry Manilow on piano, since he performed a song right before her, and another one right after.
The first song, "Wild Night," has "[Edit]" in its title because there was an emcee voice-over for about the first 15 seconds. I got rid of that in the usual way, using the MVSEP program. By the way, speaking of that song, how the heck was this not a hit?! It sure sounds like a winner to me. It only made it to Number 75 on the R&B singles chart, and didn't make the main U.S. singles chart at all. Van Morrison's original version in 1971 also had trouble. It was a minor hit, but not the big smash it deserved to be. It took John Mellancamp and Meshell Ndegeocello to finally give the song the success it deserved all along, making it to Number Three in the U.S. singles chart in 1994.
One final aside. I'm not actually sure of the location of this concert. Most episodes of the "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" were filmed in this location in 1974, so that's why I went with it. But some episodes were filmed elsewhere. So this is a best guess, until I can hear something definitive.
Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 30 minutes long.
01 Wild Night [Edit] (Martha Reeves)
02 [I've Got to Use] My Imagination (Martha Reeves)
03 There's a Storm in My Soul (Martha Reeves)
04 Ain't That Peculiar (Martha Reeves)
05 Love [Makes Me Do Foolish Things] (Martha Reeves)
06 Power of Love (Martha Reeves)
07 Silver Bells (Martha Reeves)
08 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Martha Reeves)
09 Dancing in the Street (Martha Reeves)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/3k8Sb9Dj
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/sCsDKFGyxtCi69F/file
The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert.
Thank you
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