A Whole Lotta Ground: “Motown Unreleased 1969” Features Supremes, Temptations, Smokey, Marvin Gaye, Kiki Dee, More
This weekend, Motown fans and alumni are descending on Detroit for the ultimate celebration of Hitsville, USA’s 60 years of music and memories culminating in the Hitsville Honors gala. But the label doesn’t want fans elsewhere to be left out in the cold. In a surprise, the annual digital collection of Motown Unreleased won’t be arriving in December, but instead is available now.
To mark 60 years, Motown Unreleased 1969 boasts 60 tracks, all recorded in 1969 and left unheard – until now. The label’s heaviest hitters are all here, including Diana Ross and The Supremes with their rendition of the Ron Miller/Orlando Murden standard “For Once in My Life,” Gladys Knight and The Pips (“You Took Me This Far (Take Me All the Way)),” Jackson 5 (“What’s So Good About Goodbye”), and Marvin Gaye (“I’ll Take Care of Business”). Three tracks each can be heard from The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and Jr. Walker and The All-Stars, and four each from Edwin Starr and Bobby Taylor.
That’s far from all. This volume also features debuts from Kiki Dee, Valerie Simpson, The Spinners, Rare Earth, Chris Clark, The Originals, The Fantastic Four, and The Volumes, as well as a clutch of tracks from renowned songwriter-producer Ivy Jo Hunter and Funk Brother Earl Van Dyke. Hitsville enthusiasts will also be happy to see tracks from such overlooked artists as The Rustix, Hearts of Stone, Michael Denton (with a medley of songs written by Motown alumnus Jimmy Webb), Terry Johnson, The Stylists, and The Volumes.
Motown Unreleased 1969 looks to be another treasure trove from one of the most legendary labels of all time. Motown 60 is heating up; don’t miss out on this collection along with other previously announced titles from Marvin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Blinky, and “The Women of Motown.” You’ll find the full track listing for the new digital collection below, and it’s available for streaming/download now at all digital service providers!
Various Artists, Motown Unreleased 1969 (Motown/UMe, 2019) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)
- For Once in My Life – Diana Ross & The Supremes
- Can’t Do Without Your Love – Stevie Wonder
- It’s Love I Need – Ivy Jo
- My World Is Empty Without You – Chris Clark
- Pretty Little Brown Skin Girl – The Temptations
- Forever I’ll Love You – Volumes
- (Baby) I Need You – Jr. Walker & The All-Stars featuring Stevie Wonder
- Look Out Your Window – Frank Wilson
- I’ll Always Love You – Edwin Starr
- Stone Soul Booster – Earl Van Dyke
- You Took Me This Far (Take Me All the Way) – Gladys Knight & The Pips
- Won’t You Come and Fly with Me – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
- Born Just to Be That Way – Edwin Starr
- What About Me – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
- Too Many Fish in the Sea – Jonah Jones
- Fan the Flame – Edwin Starr
- The Last Thing on My Mind – Chris Clark
- Backfire (Version 1) – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
- I Had a Dream (Opus 1) – Gladys Knight & The Pips
- Why (Must We Fall in Love) – The Temptations
- What Becomes of the Brokenhearted – The Fantastic Four
- Ask the Lonely – Ivy Jo
- Yesterday’s Dreams – Ivy Jo
- I Got to Get to California – Ivy Jo
- Blame It on War – The Originals
- The Jackpot – Stylists
- Don’t Think It’s Me – The Spinners
- MacArthur Park/Didn’t We – Michael Denton
- Someone for My Own – Michael Denton
- One Lucky Day I Found You – Volumes
- Generation – The Rustix
- Country Girl – Jr. Walker & The All-Stars
- Something You Got (Studio Version) – Jr. Walker & The All-Stars
- At Last (I Found a Love) – Bobby Taylor
- Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone – Bobby Taylor
- What’s So Good About Goodbye – The Jackson 5
- You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me – Bobby Taylor feat. The Jackson 5
- The Stranger – Earl Van Dyke
- I Wish It Would Rain – Earl Van Dyke
- Start Out a New Day – Stevie Wonder
- All the Many Shades in Between – Gordon Staples & The Motown Strings
- You Ain’t Livin’ Till You’re Lovin’ – Valerie Simpson
- Pain from My Loneliness – Edwin Starr
- All I Could Do Was Cry – Yvonne Fair
- Home Is Where the Heart Is – The Temptations
- Moon – Stevie Wonder
- Your Heartaches I Can Surely Heal – Rare Earth
- Dancing in the Street – Ivy Jo
- I’ll Take Care of Business – Marvin Gaye
- Pride, Foolish Pride – Ivy Jo
- Moratorium – Earl Van Dyke
- While They Watch – Kiki Dee
- This Is the Beginning – Terry Johnson
- I Blew My Mind – Terry Johnson
- Chicken Little 69 – Earl Van Dyke
- You’re My World – Kiki Dee
- Touched by Love – Bobby Taylor
- When Push Comes to Shove – Hearts of Stone
- I Gotta Cover a Whole Lotta Ground – Jimmy Ruffin
- Tomorrow’s Child – Terry Johnson
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15 thoughts on “A Whole Lotta Ground: “Motown Unreleased 1969” Features Supremes, Temptations, Smokey, Marvin Gaye, Kiki Dee, More”
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! DIGITAL !
In 1988, I owned close to 3,000 vinyl recordings, from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany. That same year, I finally switched to the CD format, vowing to replace as much of my vinyl as possible to CD, whenever the titles got released. By 2001, I owned more than 2,000 CD titles. Obviously, there’s a lot more now, coming from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany AND Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and Japan.
There’s no way I’ll start again, for the digital, MP3 format. Besides, I like reading the liner notes, lyrics, production notes, appreciating the photography and anything else you get with CD.
This is another Motown product I’ll never own.
While i agree with you that I would prefer CD’s and I loath lossy audio (such as MP3 and AAC), there are lossless editions of “Motown Unreleased 1969”, though, for unknown reasons, the lossless versions are available to U.S.A. consumers only from unofficial Free sites (The official sellers of the 44.1Khz/16-bit & 96Khz/24-bit versions are prohibited by Universal to sell them to consumers in the U.S.A.). If consumers in the U.S.A. get the lossless versions from unofficial sites, Universal Music is hardly suffering. The whole point of “Copyright Extension” sets such as the “Motown Unreleased” series wasn’t to sell lots of “units”(and make lots of money), but rather to extend the UK/Europe copyright protection on the recordings for another 20 years.
By the way, you don’t have to risk the existence of a collection of downloaded music on the potential instability or crashes of a computer or music server. Burn the music to CD-R. That’s what I do . And there are programs available that will enable you to burn High Resolution audio to disc in the DVD-Audio format.
But you can’t download booklets!
The 1966 box was super and it gets good money on Ebay so it sold out quickly. I hate that they don’t release the others on CD too. Digital is a hard pass for me always.
I own that box set. I ordered it, the same day it was issued. I knew better than to wait!
This might surprise many of the readers to this site, but I also have a serious passion for Alternative/Indie bands and recording artists, of this decade and the last. To my regret, some of these bands stopped issuing their music on CD, selecting MP3 files and vinyl, exclusively. Or, they’re only issuing their music on vinyl/MP3 format. I decided, I’ll only support those artists who realize, not everyone wants vinyl, which eventually or quickly reveals surface noise. Alternatively, MP3 will never happen, for me. So, I’m no longer buying tickets to see these people in concert.
Is this available on CD?
This is a digital-only release. To date, only “Motown Unreleased 1966” has been made available in a physical format.
This is great news and a total surprise. Usually I have to wait until December to get these annual “Unreleased” releases.
When this hit my e-mail on Monday, it totally made my week. As the ultimate Ross-O-Phile and Motown freak, this early drop was a happy surprise!
It appears that, for now, that the 44.1Khz/16-bit and 96Khz/24-bit versions are (officially) available only to consumers in Japan & Germany, while one U.S.A. seller is offering a lossy (AAC) version. I don’t want a lossy version. Of course, unofficial free sites wil cheerfully supply the 44.1Khz/16-bit & 96Khz/24 bit versions. On the plus side, no previous “Motown Unreleased” volume has been offered as 96Khz/24-bit audio, though given the low fidelity nature of many 1960’s Motown recordings, I doubt that 24-bit audio will offer any audible benefit.
If you go to us.7digital.com, you can purchase the lossless 44.1Khz/16-bit & 96Khz/24 bit versions–plus the 320kbps MP3 or M4A versions, too.
I initially looked at 7Digital’s site, and it wasn’t available at the time.
Does a booklet accompany this MP3 issue? Are there marvelous historic photographs, too? Are there liner notes, or interviews with any of the singers, producers, musicians, songwriters? Can you discover what dates the recordings were made, or what take these songs are? Will you know the names of any backup singers, or the producer’s name, or songwriter’s name, or names? Will you gain insight as to why these songs weren’t released? Will your MP3 file release provide answers to these questions?
If not, it’s a significant loss of information, and knowledgeable appreciation for the label, the music, the recording artists, the people who made it all possible. Your MP3 file will be a promotion of ignorance.
Why are you giving me a hard time about the fact that this set is only available digitally? My response was to Phil Cohen asking about purchasing lossless digital copies of the music and I gave him a site option. Direct your anger about digital vs. physical release at Universal–not at me.
Anyone notice the price difference? USA $11.49, UK £26.69 .. great set but not good for UK buyers ..