Thirty-nine unreleased tracks from Motown Record's biggest acts -- including the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Martha and the Vandellas -- will make their debut next week on A Cellarful of Motown!, a two-CD compilation due out July 30th.

According to Universal Music's Harry Weinger, who directed the project, the rarities collection began as a response to bootlegging in the U.K. "The fans there are very passionate," he says, "and they just found anyway to get a hold of this stuff -- from old listening acetates, tapes that had been thrown out, stolen, anything. So my suggestion was that we could put a stop to it by putting the tracks out for real."

According to Weinger, the track listing for the collection was partly dictated by collector demand -- as in the case of the leadoff song, Barbara McNair's 1966 recording "Baby a Go-Go." "It's a great track -- clearly an Austin Powers-type record," he says, "and a song that easily could have been a hit for the Supremes or Martha and the Vandellas. In the last few years, it leaked out and became a smash in the underground. So we had to have that."

But just as often, Weinger simply stumbled on an undiscovered classic while researching something else. "I was working on the Stevie Wonder box set a couple years ago," he says, "and I knew that the original version of his song 'All I Do,' from his Hotter Than July, was copyrighted in 1966, even though he recorded in 1980. And it turns out, in 1966 Tammi Terrell recorded it as 'All I Do Is Think About You.'"

Weinger calls that song, along with Temptations 1966 recording "There's a Definite Change in You," the two knockouts on the collection: "They're just so strong, and such surprises," he says. "When you listen to this collection you think, 'Wait a minute, I have this already,' just because it's all so good. But that's just the strength of the performers and producers."

Also included are Marvin Gaye's "I Wish I Liked You (As Much as I Love You)"; two tracks from Gladys Knight and the Pips, "If You Ever Get Your Hands On Love" and "Here Are the Pieces of My Broken Heart"; Stevie Wonder's "Are You Sure Love Is the Name of This Game"; Martha and the Vandellas' "(It's Easy to Fall in Love) With a Guy Like You"; three Jimmy Ruffin tracks, including "On the Avenue (In the Neighborhood)"; five from Brenda Holloway; three from the Contours; and the Isley Brothers' "A Weakspot in My Heart."

How these tracks all fell through the cracks in the first place is, according to Weinger, anybody's guess. "At the time, Motown had an assembly line," he explains. "They were recording all day, and they had weekly meetings to decide what would be realized. [Motown founder] Berry Gordy's famous line is, 'If you had a dollar, and you were hungry, would you buy this record or would you buy that sandwich?' That was the criteria: If the record was so good you'd go hungry, they'd put it out. So if Smokey Robinson comes in with a track, but there's a Temptations track that's smokin', Smokey loses that week. It just depended on timing, who was in the doghouse, who was on the A-list.

The result of that competitiveness is a tape archive full of hits-in-waiting -- and A Cellarful of Motown! only scratches the surface. "We already have more tracks for Volume Two than you can imagine," says Weinger. "I found an alternate take of 'Baby a Go-Go': Talk about a rare track of a rare track. To go back in the vault and find a version with a different vocal, that's beyond what we first imagined."

AUGUSTIN SEDGEWICK
(July 23, 2002)