Produced and arranged by Jimmy Webb for Canopy Productions.
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johnnyhotspur 3rd Nov 2023
| | So, they took the 'Crazy' out of track A5 for the US Motown release. |
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RogerFoster 28th Feb 2015
| | Well PhilMH .. Jim Webb had been a Motown staff-writer in the mid/late 1960s, as mentioned in this Nashville Songwriters link.
This accounts for records like "Do What You Gotta Do" by the Four Tops which was a big U.K. hit in 1969 and the various Motown versions of songs like "MacArthur Park", "By the time I Get To Phoenix" and "Little Green Apples". And if I look at the publishers of some of the songs on this collection I see that Jobete gets mentioned on some of the tracks, and Jobete was Motown's publishing company.
Presumably Motown had some "claim" to this L.P. from day one through the Jim Webb connection and so no doubt the legal technicalities of buying it outright from ABC/Dunhill were relatively simple once Thelma started to have some big sellers for Motown. |
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Neil Forbes 28th Feb 2015
| | At my guess, Phil, even through that period you suggested, the words EMI Records Ltd. would still be appearing on the labels. I've seen it there on 1977-vintage 45s(I have two Stevie Wonder singles of that vintage, British too! I've seen it printed on them) so I don't think Motown International shook off its dependency on EMI that easily! |
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PhilMH 28th Feb 2015
| | Hi Neil, yes, Motown did have an office in the UK - to be really precise, I think it was called Motown International - but they didn't really operate independently of EMI or their subsequent licensees, though I believe that they did coordinate Motown's releases worldwide (there was apparently a brief few months int the mid-to-late 70's where they separated from EMI and self-distributed as "Motown Records Limited", before deciding to return to EMI, but I'm not sure if that name ever appeared on records - I've never seen it.) |
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Neil Forbes 28th Feb 2015
| | Hi, PhilMH! Your reply contained the words "Motown UK" which prompted me to click for a close-up and scrutinise the labels "with extreme scrute!"(ha-ha) and noted the words "EMI Records Ltd." at the beginning of the copyright warning. Are you suggesting that Motown had started operating in England, independently of EMI? |
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PhilMH 28th Feb 2015
| | Hi Neil, your comment wasn't there when I started typing! I beleive it was Motown UK, rather than EMI, who decided to go back to Tamla Motown for any reissues of pre-October 1976 material (that being the date that the blue label was introduced internationally). When the Motown licence for the UK moved to RCA in October 1981, RCA continued that practice. |
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PhilMH 28th Feb 2015
| | Hi Roger, Motown in the US reissued this as well, in about June 1981. I never found out all the whys and wherefores, but Motown purchased this album from ABC, or from MCA (who bought ABC in 1979). Note the subtle difference in the copyright wording on the back cover and labels - "original sound recordings owned by Motown Record Corporation" rather than the usual "..made by..". |
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Neil Forbes 28th Feb 2015
| | It's also curious that EMI reverted to the Black-label Tamla/Motown after 5-6 years of the blue and white "fan" design(best word I could think of) with the US Motown logo. A backward step, ay? |
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RogerFoster 28th Feb 2015
| | It is curious that EMI issued this on the "Tamla-Motown" label as originally it wasn't a Motown release at all but came out on ABC/Dunhill in The U.S. and Stateside in The U.K.
I remember when it first came out in 1969 her version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" got a lot of play on BBC Radio 1.
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