Search - Martha Reeves & Vandellas :: Natural Resources / Black Magic

Features Martha Reeves at her vocal peak

05/20/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Martha Reeves & The Vandellas always had a loyal cult following in Britain, so it's not surprising that Motown UK has finally reissued all their original albums as twofers in CD format. The good news is that they're all given the royal treatment (similar to the Supremes reissue), with annotated track listings, bonus tracks including alternative takes, glorious colour pictures on the covers and booklets and above all. great audio quality from digital remastering. The not-so-good news is that the albums themselves are of variable qaulity and not always essential to all but hardcore fans. The best of the 3 later releases is to my ears "Natural Resources/Black Magic", the weakest and least essential being "Riding High/Sugar & Spice". "Dance Party/Watchout" is worth buying if only for the dance set.Released in the early 70s when the group was considered to have passed its sell by date, "Natural Resources/Black Magic" contained surprisingly some of the most accomplished and mature work Martha ever did with Motown. By then, the music scene had changed and the practice of loosely throwing together a bunch of familiar covers for an album release was considered passe for artistes who wanted to be taken seriously. So, with these two albums, Motown tried to upgrade the group's image a bit by getting them to record more contemporary material. The results were mixed. But vocally, Martha was in peak form. She never sounded better. On gems like "I Should Be Proud", she lets rip with a new confidence, allowing her gorgeous voice to soar and her passionate vibrato to convey emotions that must have registered on the richter scale. Her phrasing on some of her earlier recordings could be sloppy occasionally, but by the early 70s, she had tightened up professionally and was hitting the sweet spot with deadly accuracy.The release of "Natural Resource" went virtually unnoticed. It yielded no hits. But even with its fair share of fillers, it was memorable for the half dozen songs that genuinely worked and showcased Martha's growing prowess as a vocalist. Aside from the devastating "I Should Be Proud" - a high watermark of the group's latter day work with Motown - Martha also experimented with jazz and come up with the goods on Jimmy Webb's "Didn't We" and a searing performance on "Love, Guess Who". Another particular highlight for me was the raunchy "Easily Persuaded" featuring some of the most impressive and soulful singing Martha ever did. Unfortunately, their covers of the Beatles ("Something"), Nilsson ("Everybody's Talking"), Jackie de Shannon ("Put A Little Love In Your Heart") and the Rascals ("People Got To Be Free"), though respectable, didn't work so well, reflecting Motown's own A & R limitations.Nevertheless, the group went out in style with "Black Magic", which like its predecessor, wasn't perfect but delivered some truly good stuff. By 1972, the Jackson 5 was Motown's priority act, so Martha & the girls benefited from the spillover effect. "Bless You", written and produced by The Corporation, was their most catchy number in a long while and a modest sized Top 40 hit for them. Their cover of the Jacksons' "I Want You Back" was also different and interesting. But the piece de resistance was "Benjamin", an emotional ballad which showed off Martha's vocal dexterity to great effect. There was also Ashford & Simpson's "Tear It On Down", which once again distinguished Martha's choices from Diana's when they were picking from the same songbook. Martha always went for the heavier, grittier, though less tuneful stuff. The non-album single "I Gotta Let You Go" was a good bonus track. "Natural Resources/Black Magic" is my own personal favourite and the most satisfying of the 3 later twofers."

They Saved the Best for Last

Peter Durward Harris | 06/20/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After criminally neglecting Martha Reeves in his obssessive quest to make Diana Ross the greatest star who ever lived, Berry Gordy Jr. began having second thoughts. In "Natural Resources" the Vandellas were allowed to move beyond albums of random tracks to something a little more ambitious mixing Motown originals with important material from outside the company and the orchestrators were given the go-ahead to be experimental and imaginative. "Natural Resources" glows with this freedom for the group, as does the cover which frees them from evening gowns and girl groupiness and lands the trio squarely in the middle of the back to nature movement. The album is terrific start to finish (the harmonies on "Something" are something!) and Martha finally is allowed to show she can do more than be a Vandella, that she can do ballads, showtype tunes, whatever, but the release went barely noticed as Motown was frying other fish. "Black Magic," with the best cover the Vandellas ever got, was strictly the result of Martha's own enterprise. The company had moved to L.A. and left her behind in Detroit but, again, had second thoughts. The idea was to put her on the new MoWest label out of L.A. working with the Jackson Five's producers the Corporation. That project never got completed, but some of the tracks ended up on this album. Beyond that, Martha got attention from George Gordy, resulting in one of her greatest records, "In and Out of My Life;" Ashford and Simpson for "Tear It on Down" and somehow got the gorgeous ballad "No One There," which opened the album and should have been a #1 single but--guess what--never got out AS a single in the U.S. Martha herself found some of the tracks at Motown and managed to get herself recorded with them and from this total botched mess comes surprisingly a beautiful piece of work. "Benjamin" is particularly noteworthy, showing Martha way, way beyond her shout days to being a thoughtful, deep singing actress. Meanwhile, Motown, mysterious as usual, repeated "Something" from the previous album while leaving off two amazing tracks, "Baby Don't Leave Me" and the followup to "In and Out of My Life," "I Won't Be Fooled The Way I Was Before." They appeared 30 years later. This album (originally to have been titled "Black Lace") got zip promotion and was hard to find. But together on C.D. these two albums represent a revelation--here is a truly great singer truly ignored by the record company she helped raise to success and, despite it all, she ends up triumphant. And doing better than ever now, thank you very much."

Martha's best!!!!!!

acshore | Seattle, WA USA | 03/30/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These two albums are by far the best of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. It is so refreshing to finally see them on CD. 'Natural Resources' is far better than 'Black Magic.' The best song I feel on the album is 'The Hurt is Over,' which would have skyrocketed to No.1 had it been released. Another standing out is 'Easily Persuaded,' which Reeves has said she thought could have been a No.1. Too bad Diana Ross squatted Berry Gordy. It's sad to say that sex gets you farther than talent, that of which Ross had very little of, if none at all. I also love the track 'Something,' which is filled soul, and 'Didn't We' which shows Martha can sing standards like the best of 'em. In fact ...all of the tracks not used on the album, were issued on the 'Spellbound: Lost & Found' 2-CD set. Those tracks are 'Talking 'Bout Love,' 'Build Your Love on a Strong Foundation,' 'Earthquake [stereo mix],' and 'There's Love in the World,' just to name a few. "Black Magic,' boasted two fine tracks, the highly collected 'No One There,' now a cult classic, and a very emotional 'Benjamin.'"