Details
Track Listing
DISC 1:
1. Come On - (with Otis Williams & The Distants)
2. Oh Mother of Mine
3. Romance Without Finance
4. Check Yourself
5. Dream Come True
6. Mind Over Matter (I'm Gonna Make You Mine) - (with The Pirates)
7. I'll Love You 'Till I Die - (with The Pirates)
8. Paradise
9. Slow Down Heart
10. I Couldn't Cry If I Wanted To
11. Witchcraft (For Your Love) - (previously unreleased)
12. I Want a Love I Can See
13. Further You Look, The Less You See, The
14. Farewell My Love
15. Tear From a Woman's Eyes, A
16. Way You Do the Things You Do, The
17. I'll Be in Trouble
18. Girl's Alright With Me, The
19. Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)
20. Baby, Baby I Need You
21. My Girl
22. Nobody But My Baby, (Talking 'Bout)
23. It's Growing
24. You'll Lose a Precious Love
25. Since I Lost My Baby
26. You've Got to Earn It
27. My Baby
28. Don't Look Back
DISC 2:
1. Get Ready
2. Fading Away
3. Ain't Too Proud to Beg
4. Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
5. Who You Gonna Run To
6. Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
7. I Got Heaven Right Here on Earth - (previously unreleased)
8. I'm Losing You, (I Know)
9. All I Need
10. Sorry Is a Sorry Word
11. I'm Doing It All - (previously unreleased)
12. No More Water in the Well
13. You're My Everything
14. Just One Last Look
15. Angel Doll - (previously unreleased)
16. It's You That I Need, (Loneliness Made Me Realize)
17. Don't Send Me Away
18. Hello Young Lovers
19. Ol' Man River - (previously unreleased, alternate version)
20. I Wish It Would Rain
21. I Truly, Truly Believe
22. I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)
23. Please Return Your Love to Me
24. How Can I Forget
25. For Once in My Life
26. (Untitled) - (hidden track)
DISC 3:
1. Cloud Nine
2. Why Did She Have to Leave Me (Why Did She Have to Go)
3. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me - (with Diana Ross & The Supremes)
4. I'll Try Something New - (with Diana Ross & The Supremes)
5. Runaway Child, Running Wild
6. Don't Let the Joneses Get You Down
7. I Can't Get Next to You
8. Message From a Black Man
9. War
10. Psychedelic Shack
11. Hum Along and Dance
12. Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)
13. Ungena Za Ulimwengu :: Unite The World
14. Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
15. Take a Look Around
16. It's Summer
17. Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)
18. I Ain't Got Nothin'
19. Mother Nature
20. Papa Was a Rolling Stone
DISC 4:
1. Masterpiece
2. Plastic Man
3. Hey Girl (I Like Your Style)
4. Law of the Land - (alternate mix, previously unreleased)
5. Let Your Hair Down
6. Heavenly
7. You've Got My Soul on Fire
8. Happy People
9. Shakey Ground
10. Glasshouse
11. Song For You, A
12. Memories
13. Keep Holdin' On
14. Darling, Stand by Me (Song For My Woman)
15. Who Are You
16. In a Lifetime
17. Power
18. Isn't the Night Fantastic
19. Aiming at Your Heart
DISC 5:
1. Standing on the Top Pt. 1 - (with Rick James)
2. Sail Away
3. Treat Her Like a Lady
4. My Love Is True (Truly For You)
5. Do You Really Love Your Baby
6. Magic
7. Lady Soul
8. I Wonder Who She's Seeing Now
9. Look What You Started
10. Soul to Soul
11. Special
12. My Kind of Woman - (previously unreleased)
13. Hoops of Fire
14. Error of Our Ways - (1994)
15. Givin' U the Best - (1994)
16. Elevator Eyes - (1994)
17. Blueprint For Love - (1994)
Album Notes
The Temptations: Melvin Franklin, Otis Williams, Eldridge Bryant, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, David Ruffin, Dennis Edwards, Ricky Owens, Richard Street, Damon Harris, Glenn Leonard, Louis Price, Ron Tyson, Ali-Ollie Woodson, Theo Peoples.
Additional personnel includes: Eddie Willis (guitar); Detroit Symphony Orchetra (strings); Danya Hartwick (flute, piccolo); Andrew "Mike" Terry (saxophone); Marcus Belgrave (trumpet); Paul Riser (trombone); Johnny Griffith (piano, organ, keyboards); Earl Van Dyke (piano, keyboards); Richard "Pocorn" Wylie (piano); Jack Ashford (vibraphone, marimba, percussion); James Jamerson (acoustic & electric bass); Robert Finch (drums); Norman Whitfield (tambourine); Eddie "Bongo" Brown (congas, bongos, percussion); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion).
Producers include: Dre-Mic, Berry Gordy, Clarence Paul, Smokey Robinson, Norman Whitfield.
Compilation producer: Harry Weinger.
Recorded between 1959 and 1994. Includes liner notes by Harry Weinger and Nelson George.
Digitally remastered by Joseph P. Palmaccio (PolyGram Studios).
This is part of the Motown Master series.
EMPERORS OF SOUL contains 110 songs, including 10 previously unreleased tracks, 4 brand new recordings, and 7 tracks never found on any album. Also included is an 80-page booklet with detailed track by track annotations, rare photos and interviews, and a complete discography.
The Temptations became one of the most successful singles groups of the '60s--ever, actually--by making hearstopping, doo-wop influenced soul ballads and emotionally raw dance music, but also by adapting to the times. In their earliest incarnation, David Ruffin's scratchy soul voice (as heard in "Ain't Too Proud To Beg"), Eddie Kendricks' high creamy croon ("My Girl") and some of Smokey Robinson's best songs (he was their first producer) gave the Temptations appeal to both hardcore rhythm and blues and mainstream pop audiences. When Ruffin and then Kendricks left, the band, now under the auspices of writer-producer Norman Whitfield, soldiered on and, with new lead singer Dennis Edwards, made some of the most funky and socially conscious--and still marvelously commercial--singles of the late '60s and early '70s, including "Ball Of Confusion" and "Papa Was A Rolling Stone."
Because they were almost strictly a singles group, their career was loaded with album tracks and B-sides--some of which would have made ace singles themselves--which history has left on the relics pile and which huge box sets like EMPERORS OF SOUL were created to rescue. The Motown-meets-Stax tune "You've Got To Earn It," which was stuck on the B-side of "Since I Lost My Baby," is about as fine a throwaway as you can bury in such a location; "No More Water In The Well" features a deep-soul vocal by Ruffin that resonates with all the rhythm and blues that came before. There are later treasures too, including such minor '70s singles as "Take A Look Around," a cinematically-orchestrated Norman Whitfield-Barrett Strong ballad about the drug-ravaged inner city. Not surprisingly, that one still resonates, too.
Industry Reviews
5 Stars - Classic - ...Not only was the group able to maintain its identity as it moved from doo-wop to soul harmony to psychedelia and on to funk, but it kept cranking out hits....A document to [The Temptations'] incredible mutability...
4 Stars - Excellent - ...It all adds up: The Temptations are the greatest vocal harmony group ever. EMPERORS OF SOUL goes most of the way to proving the point...
Q (11/01/1994)
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