Kent 355 CDTOP - The Monitors - Say You! - The Motown Anthology 1963-1968 (2011) + Booklet (FLAC) - Rare Soul

I,ve been asked many times who were my fave artists on motown..well marvin is top man for me but THE MONITORS have been a close second, and i was going to post this up the other day.Lost it,searched everywhere still no luck!!..So i bought it again as its the best kent release ever to my ears!..The Monitors were long in the making. In the early 1960s, Richard Street a member of the Distants in the late ‘50s with school friends and future Temptations Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin  joins the new label Thelma Records as both the A&R director and an occasional recording artist, first leading a new version of the Distants and then a group called the Majestics. Street soon moves to Motown taking a job in the Quality Control Department, writing songs, producing and doing studio work. The Majestics, who include Warren Harris and the husband wife duo of John “Maurice” Fagin and his spouse Sandra, soon follow Street to Motown. The four record a few tracks that remain in the vault. The Majestics continue recording without a release until they take on “Say You,” a track intended first for the Four Tops and then the Spinners, in mid-1965. It becomes the A-side of their first V.I.P. single, but it is quickly withdrawn when Motown realizes a West Coast group named the Majestics has been releasing singles. The single is re-issued with a new name on the label, The Monitors. It reaches Number 38 on the R&B chart. The same track is used shortly after by the Temptations, who record their own popular version of “Say You” for their Gettin’ Ready LP.  As the Vietnam War escalates in early 1966 and more servicemen are drafted, Motown dusts off its 1961 hit “Greetings (This You have to feel for those artists that didn’t get the breaks at Motown. Most that didn’t were every bit as good as those that did. Their lack of success was the result of being some way down a pecking order dominated by acts such as the Temptations, Four Tops and Supremes. Even the second wave of higher profile acts had to battle to be heard above the big noise made by the hits of those groups. With hindsight, the Monitors hardly stood a chance. Their lack of real success is no reflection of how excellent Richard Street, Warren Harris and Maurice and Sandra Fagin were as a group. Richard Street’s pleadingly soulful lead was good enough to win him a gig with the Temptations in 1971, where he replaced the group’s original lead singer Paul Williams. The material the Monitors recorded, some of which Street co-wrote, was frequently supplied by some of Motown’s biggest names, including Smokey Robinson and Mickey Stevenson. They were recorded under the same conditions as their bigger counterparts, and the end results were invariably as satisfying. That their discography can boast merely a couple of modest soul chart hits is a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes would be at pains to unravel.Chart hits or not, the Monitors have always been revered by the Motown collectors and soul fans, and a CD devoted to their extremely fine recordings has long been overdue. The album is an extensive overview of the group’s time at the company. Their one album, “Greetings! We’re The Monitors”, is featured in its entirety. The album is joined here by two exceptional non LP flipsides and a staggering 12 previously unissued tracks spanning the group’s entire tenure with Motown. Ten of these have never been issued before in any shape or form. Whatever it was that caused Motown to pass over these tracks for release in the 1960s, it wasn’t a lack of excellence.Say You!” is a superb addition to any soul fans collection and one of kents best issues! Sad to say that these great records got lost amid all the greatness existing else where at that time, only finding their audience long after they had disbanded.mainly via UK collectors....THIS IS A DANCERS DELIGHT!

AMM

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