Customer Reviews

Essential Collection

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Very few CDs contain anything by Tammi Terrell other than her duets with Marvin Gaye. But this collection goes beyond the tip of the iceberg. It chronicles her entire career at Motown; the duets are represented in the final track with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Rare tracks like "Slow Down" are a boon to die-hard fans like me.

According to Tammi's sister Ludie, Tammi was never married to anyone, much less to boxer Ernie Terrell. However, she was the niece of another boxer, Bob Montgomery. She assumed the stage name Terrell simply because it was shorter than her birth name, Montgomery.

Thanks to this CD, Tammi finally gets her due not just as Marvin's duet partner, but as a solo artist who died before she could realize her full potential.

When "I Can't Believe You Love Me" was released as a single in 1965 with its flowing arrangement and bad bass line, I became hooked on the soulful sound of Tammi Terrell! This is the collection to have as the sound and selection show what a great singer this little lady was and what a sad thing it was that she went too soon. The stirring "That's What Boys Are Made For" is a great Terrell vocal and the hit single "Come On And See Me" is a true motown classic with a great vocal and cooking arrangement that should have been a much bigger hit that it was!!! Funky and unusual is "What A Good Man He Is" followed by the buoyant and majestic "Tears At The End Of A Love Affair" which flows in the cooking "This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)" that has a great driving arrangement. All of Tammi's album "Irresistible" which is aptly titled is featured here plus newly discovered gems such as the stunning "Lone Lonely Town" and the hauntingly gorgeous "Slow Down". When Mary Wells left Motown, Tammi became Marvin's new duet partner and was extraordinary as shown in the classic "Ain't Mountain High Enough" which is a Motown Masterpiece...if you love classic 60's Motown don't miss the great set as this foxy little lady is smooth and very soulful and will grow on you and have a lasting effect!!! Thank you Tammi and God Bless You!!!

It's an ongoing pity that Motown domestically continues to give little attention to the music in the vaults while across the water you can buy unreleased Marvelettes and now unreleased Tammi Terrell. "Lone Lonely Town," also unreleased by Martha and the Vandellas (whose scheduled album of unreleased singles has disappeared from the release lists, naturally), is a wonderful record. "Slow Down," also unreleased by the Supremes, is delicious. Tammi was a wonderful singer who never moved from the back burner at Motown. The original plan was to have her succeed Miss Ross in the Supremes but because of her fatal illness that didn't happen. She found great duet success with Marvin Gaye but deserved a big solo career. As this album shows, she was topnotch.
It's amazing that Marvin and Tammi's best album, "You're All I Need," actually consisted mostly of old, unreleased Tammi solos overdubbed by Marvin with in some cases rerecorded instrumental accompaniment. The best of what Tammi recorded had been held back and, had she not fallen ill, we never may have heard it. Even "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" began as a Tammi solo. This is a wonderful C.D. and don't miss "The Complete Duets" as, miraculously, the original solo versions of what became duets with Marvin have survived and are included.

Although Thomasina Montgomery, better known as Tammi Terrell, was only 20 when Berry Gordy signed her to Motown in 1965, she had already been recording singles for five years at Scepter/Wand under the aegis of James Brown. At Motown She made one solo album, called Irresistible, and three singles, but went on to achieve more notable success in a musical partnership with Marvin Gaye, producing several hit singles and a couple of albums.
Tragically she died on 16 March 1970 of a brain tumour, having collapsed onstage in Virginia into Marvin Gaye's arms on 14 October 1968.
Thirty years later this first collection of solo recordings shows the extent of our loss. The entire Irresistible album is included, mostly produced by Johnny Bristol and Harvey Fuqua, together with the complete singles, both sides, and some rare and previously unreleased tracks of no lesser quality. Two well known songs are This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You), recorded a year earlier by the Isley Brothers, and an early version of I Gotta Find A Way (To Get You Back), later recorded by the Temptations (her boyfriend was their lead singer David Ruffin). The album closes with her first single with Marvin Gaye, the transcendental Ain't No Mountain High Enough.
Not included are her solo versions of material recorded with Marvin Gaye, which have found a home as bonus tracks on the compilation The Complete Duets

18 original recordings including a never before issued track "Slow Down" previously only issued on the Supremes on their Never Before Released Masters set. This collection is only budget price yet it takes all the one off tracks issued on obscure compilations over the years...so now in one format, we have "Two Can Have A Party", "Lone Lonely Town" and "I Gotta Find A Way To Get You Back". It is just a little sad that Tammi's solo version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was not used instead of the duet version with Marvin Gaye...but hey, at that low price, we shouldn't complain... Of course, there is "The Complete Duets" to be issued in the US in September which is gonna take Tammi to a new and improved level...... ........and maybe the official truth will come out about what Tammi DID and DID NOT record! ...or is it "Just Too Much Too Hope For"

what a Prize Talent Tammi Terrell was. you are so blown away by all the Great duets with Marvin Gaye that it's often overlooked what a Rock Solid Career She had going before Hooking with Marvin on those Classic Duets. her Vocal range just had so much spark&soul."there are things","Come&see me" are some of the tight cuts. Musicianship&Arrangements truly compliment Her range.

In Elizabethan London, such was the atmosphere's creative charge, even the less distinguished poets could be pretty amazing. So with the pressure-cooker environment of Motown's golden era: it's disconcerting to realize that these mid-1960s tracks would've been considered by their creators to have been second-division repertoire, not to be spoken of in the same breath as Martha Reeves's or Gladys Knight's output, let alone Diana Ross's. Sure enough, the two greatest Motown songwriting teams - Ashford-Simpson and Holland-Dozier-Holland - are sparsely represented on this issue. When a Holland or a Smokey Robinson appears suddenly in the songwriting credits, extra sparks are struck.

Still, the bargain-priced ESSENTIAL COLLECTION's sample of "ordinary" Motown music-making is mostly delightful, and pays Miss Terrell long-overdue homage. Yes, a few clinkers mar proceedings here, notably THERE ARE THINGS, in which an inherently vapid effort is worsened by a deranged obbligato from what sounds like a bouzouki (!?!?). But much of the rest bestrides the decades with frenetic assurance. Except whilst duetting with Marvin Gaye - and not always then - TT appears to have eschewed slow speeds, even when songs enjoy [sic] such lachrymose titles as TEARS AT THE END OF A LOVE AFFAIR.

Why I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LOVE ME, I CAN'T GO ON WITHOUT YOU, JUST TOO MUCH TO HOPE FOR, and in particular the obsessively memorable COME UP AND SEE ME had such problems leaving an impact on the charts in both America and England is uncertain. Some have called Miss T's material unduly conservative for mid-1960s tastes. I'd have thought this material suffered from the exact opposite problem; by its explosive vitality it must've shocked Eisenhower's spiritual heirs in a way that the ill-fated Mary Wells, for instance, couldn't have done. (LONE LONELY TOWN is an honorable harmonic progenitor to the Bruce Springsteen / Natalie Cole 1988 hit PINK CADILLAC.)

Though the tracks rescued from the vaults certainly sound their age in terms of hi-fi, most other songs benefit from skilled CD remastering, admirable in its sonic simplicity - drums and percussion on the right, keyboards on the left, punchy brass approximately 15 degrees right of center - and should make us marvel at how we put up for ages with Motown's scratch-prone vinyl. (Or worse, its hissy cassettes, which made all but the noisiest passages sound like a short-wave broadcast from western Sumatra at the tsunami's height.)

As CD booklet-note writer Paul Nixon comments, a particular preciousness marks the legacy of those musicians who died far too young. The current decrepitude of Diana Ross - we won't even discuss Michael Jackson - shows that dying young is by no means a musician's worst possible fate; meanwhile, R.I.P. Thomasina Montgomery (her real name).

Tammi Terrell, Kim Weston, Chris Clark and The Velvelettes were all Motown artists who were more talented than they were lucky. Thanks to Amazon and UK spectrum the talents of these seemingly forgotten artists can now be appreciated once again - this time on cd.

Of course Tammi Terrell will always be remembered for her duets with Marvin Gaye. In referring to her as forgotten I am thinking of her solo work, recorded at Motown between 1965 and 1968. I vividly recall taking the bus and subway downtown to buy my soul singles during the mid sixties. There were two relatively large stores (by the limited standards of those days - no music "megastores" existed!) that stocked Motown, Atlantic and Stax-Volt. Often the stores would have to place special orders for me. Listening again, after all these years, to I Can't Believe You Love Me and Come On And See Me, I am bewildered, just as I was forty years ago, that they hardly made a dent in the charts.

This cd contains the two aforementioned singles along with sixteen other songs, several previously unreleased. The sound, instrumentation, lyrics and vocals are, generally speaking, reminiscent of Motown sound of 1960-65 than 66-68. Perhaps this explains Tammi Terrell's relative lack of singles success.

This cd was a rare find in my opinion and a treasured piece of my collection. I was thrilled to have found it. Would buy from this ebayer again for sure. It arrived on time and in perfect condition!

Very few people have heard any of Tammi Terrell's recordings beyond her hit singles with Marvin Gaye, and even less have heard (or even been aware of) her 1969 solo album "Irresistible". Made up of tracks released and recorded between 1965 and 1967, and issued while Terrell was ailing from brain cancer (she would eventually die of a brain tumor at age 24 in March 1970), "Irresistible" is easily one of the best "classic Motown" albums from the company's Detroit era.

It features Terrell's minor R&B charting singles "I Can't Believe You Love Me" (with its killer guitar lick) and the exquisite "Come On and See Me", plus quite a few other standouts: "That's What Boys Are Made For", "I Can't Go On Without You", and my favorite, "Can't Stop Now (Love is Calling)". All show Terrell, the Funk Brothers studio band, and the Andantes backing vocalists at the peak of their game. It's almost criminal this album has received so little attention over the years.

"Tammi Terrell: The Essential Collection" features all eleven tracks from "Irresistible", plus two B-sides ("Baby Don't You Worry" and "Two Can Have a Party", both later overdubbed by Marvin Gaye to create album filler for the second Gaye/Terrell duets album, "You're All I Need"), plus a few unreleased gems, of which the melancholy "Slow Down" is the finest. And just in case you don't already have it elsewhere, Gaye and Terrell's best known duet, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", closes out the one-disc set.

This set is definitely worth importing from England (where it seems they respect the Motown artists more than we do in America sometimes) to hear the work of a talented Motown singer who passed away far before her time.