Reviews

UPDATED DECEMBER 2020: Kiki Dee rocketed to worldwide stardom (no pun intended) on Elton John’s Rocket Records in 1976, imploring “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” to John on the chart-topping duet.  She had been recording for Rocket since 1973, scoring such U.K. hits as “Amoreuse” and “I’ve Got the Music in Me,” the latter of which also went to the top 20 of the U.S. Hot 100, as well.  Anyone familiar with Dee’s Rocket recordings knows her to be a singer of both power and sensitivity, and last year, Edsel collected that period of her discography on the box set The Rocket Years.  This fall, the label has turned the clock further back with a companion volume curated in cooperation with the artist herself: a 3-CD compendium of The Fontana and Motown Years.

Kiki signed to Fontana when she was just sixteen, shedding her birth name of Pauline Matthews at the label’s behest.  Discovered by songwriter Mitch Murray (“I’m Telling You Now,” “How Do You Do It,” “I Like It”), she remained at Fontana through 1968, cutting a series of exceptional (and exceptionally catchy) pop-soul sides and working with producers such as Les Reed, Arthur Greenslade, and Mike Vickers, and recording songs by Reed and Barry Mason (“Small Town,” “Baby, I Don’t Care”), Carole King and Gerry Goffin (“I Was Only Kidding”), Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley (“Don’t Put Your Heart in His Hand”), Bert Berns (“Why Don’t I Run Away from You”), The Addrisi Brothers (“Excuse Me”), Paul Anka (the irresistible “When We Get There”), Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio (“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”), Teddy Randazzo and Victoria Pike (Northern Soul favorite “On a Magic Carpet Ride”), and other luminaries.

The first two discs of Edsel’s new set present all of her Fontana recordings including numerous single and EP-only releases; the full album I’m Kiki Dee (which was culled from her 1966-67 single releases) in its stereo debut on CD; and ten ultra-rare recordings in which she sings in Italian, French, German and Spanish.  Seven of these ten international tracks are new to CD.  Taken collectively, these recordings are a mini-history of the various sounds that informed ’60s pop with strains of rock-and-roll, country, R&B, and soul intertwined throughout.  Kiki’s versatility (a skill which served her well as an in-demand background vocalist, too) saw her deftly navigate these often-disparate styles and productions with aplomb.

Like many of her contemporaries, Kiki was heavily influenced by the American sound coming out of Detroit, Michigan’s Motown Records.  The label was actively seeking to diversify its roster and shore up its position as The Sound of Young America.  In mid-1969, Kiki he became the first white British artist to be signed to Berry Gordy’s pioneering label, and her first single for Motown was issued the following year.  Motown recorded Kiki in Hitsville’s famed Studio A, and gave her access to its top producers and arrangers including Clay McMurray, Frank Wilson, Paul Riser, David Van De Pitte, and Tom Baird.  At Motown, she followed the company tradition of recording songs introduced by others at the label and also tackled outside material popularized by her contemporaries like “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” and “Walk on By.”  She also was on the receiving end of the Motown practice of recycling backing tracks once intended for other artists, but regardless of the circumstance, she brought her own spirit and distinctive sound to the compositions.

The title of her Motown debut reflected the company’s hopes for her: Great Expectations.  The LP (produced by Frank Wilson with a couple notable exceptions) was issued in both the U.K. and U.S. in dramatically different sleeves, with the U.S. issue colorfully draped in the Union Jack and proudly trumpeting her Britishness.  Kiki toured the U.S. but the album didn’t catch on despite its quality and such strong cuts as Clay McMurray’s storming production of Pam Sawyer and Joe Hinton’s “The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday;” Brian Holland, Nick Ashford, and Valerie Simpson’s “I Can’t Give Back the Love I Feel for You;” and Ron Miller and Orlando Murden’s Motown staple “For Once in My Life.”  She even went toe-to-toe with the label’s most renowned voices with reinventions of the David Ruffin hit “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)” and Smokey Robinson’s “I Second That Emotion.”  Motown briefly transferred Kiki to the rock-oriented Rare Earth label before artist and label quietly parted ways.

The third disc of the new box has the complete Great Expectations album plus nine bonus tracks – the two songs that premiered on a mid-1970s budget compilation, four more outtakes that were first released on Tamla Motown in 2005, and most excitingly, three tracks making their debuts on CD.  Henry Cosby and James Dean’s dramatic “While They Watch” and a restrained cover of the Cilla Black hit “You’re My World” premiered on the digital-only release of Motown Unreleased 1969, while an unreleased mix of her moody reading of Bacharach and David’s “Walk on By” debuts here.  (Completists might take note that the Rare Earth single release of Great Expectations‘ “Love Makes the World Go Round” featured a different vocal than the album version included here; both that original single version and an alternate mix of the 45 were issued on The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 11A: 1971 box set, now available on digital services.)

The Fontana and Motown Years is packaged in the same attractive mediabook format as The Rocket Years.  The three discs are accompanied by a 28-page book featuring new liner notes by Alan Robinson (drawing on a fresh interview with Kiki) as well as a load of rare photos from the artist’s own archives.  This set won’t go breaking your heart: The Fontana and Motown Years is the most comprehensive look yet at Kiki Dee’s pre-Rocket recordings and as such, represents a key component of the beloved artist’s legacy.

Kiki Dee, The Fontana and Motown Years (Edsel, 2020) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Exclusive Signed Edition at Amazon U.K.)

CD 1

1. Early Night
2. Lucky High Heels
3. Don’t Put Your Heart in His Hands
4. I Was Only Kidding
5. Miracles
6. That’s Right, Walk On By
7. (You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am
8. Baby I Don’t Care
9. Runnin’ Out of Fools
10. There He Goes
11. Excuse Me
12. Sunshine
13. Patterns
14. With a Kiss
15. When We Get There
16. Why Don’t I Run Away from You?
17. I
18. We’ve Got Everything Going for Us
19. I Dig You Baby
20. Stop and Think
21. Don’t Destroy Me
22. I’m Going Out (The Same Way I Came In)

CD 2

1. Small Town
2. Doctor in Clover
3. Take a Look at Me
4. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
5. Hungry Heart
6. Now the Flowers Cry
7. On a Magic Carpet Ride
8. Aspetta Domani
9. Senza Te (Baby I Don’t Care)
10. Come Ti Amo (You Don’t Know [how Glad I Am])
11. Favole (Miracles)
12. Warte Bis Morgen (Aspetta Domani)
13. Johnny’s Kuss (With a Kiss)
14. Nein, Ich Weiss Nicht Mehr Was Ich Tu’l (Why Don’t I Run Away from You)
15. Je Vais Partir Loin De Toi (Why Don’t I Run Away from You)
16. C’est Bien Mieus, Baby (I Dig You Baby)
17. Espera a Manana (Aspetta Domani)

CD 3

1. The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday
2. Johnny Raven
3. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing
4. Jimmy
5. I Can’t Give Back the Love I Feel for You
6. More Today Than Yesterday
7. Love Makes the World Go Round
8. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
9. Love Is a Warm Kind of Sorrow
10. For Once in My Life
11. My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)
12. I Second That Emotion
13. Oh Be My Love
14. I’ll Try Something New
15. Walk On By
16. Loneliness
17. I’ll Have You, You’ll Have Me
18. Put a Little Love in Your Heart
19. While They Watch
20. You’re My World
21. Walk On By (Mix 2)

CD 1, Tracks 1-2 from Fontana single TF 394, 1963
CD 1, Tracks 3-4 from Fontana single TF 414, 1963
CD 1, Tracks 5-6 from Fontana single TF 443, 1964
CD 1, Tracks 7-8 from Fontana single TF 490, 1964
CD 1, Tracks 9-10 from Fontana single TF 596, 1965
CD 1, Tracks 11-22 from I’m Kiki Dee, Fontana LP STL 5455, 1968
CD 2, Track 1 from Fontana single TF 669, 1966
CD 2, Tracks 2-3 from Kiki in Clover, Fontana EP TE 17470, 1966
CD 2, Tracks 4-5 from Fontana single TF 926, 1968
CD 2, Tracks 6-7 from Fontana single TF 983, 1968
CD 2, Tracks 8-9 from Fontana (Italy) single 270 698 XF, 1965
CD 2, Tracks 10-11 from Fontana (Italy) single TF 227 443, 1965
CD 2, Track 12 from Fontana (Germany) single 267 437 TF, 1965
CD 2, Tracks 13-14 from Fontana (Germany) single 267 631 TF, 1966
CD 3, Tracks 1-12 from Great Expectations, Tamla TS 303, 1970 (U.S.) / Tamla Motown STML 11158 (U.K.), 1970
CD 3, Tracks 13-14 from Kiki Dee, Sounds Superb/MFP SPR 90030, 1974
CD 3, Tracks 15-16 from Fontana (France) EP 465.323 ME, 1966
CD 3, Track 17 from Fontana (Spain) EP 465 271 TE, 1965
CD 3, Tracks 15-18 from Love Makes the World Go Round: The Motown Years, Tamla Motown/Spectrum 983 179-5, 2005
CD 3, Tracks 19-20 from Motown Unreleased 1969, digital release, 2019
CD 3, Track 21 previously unreleased