A Cellarful Of Motown

Motown can certainly be taken to task for issuing the same old stuff over and over again — no matter how great it is, how many versions of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On" or of Motown's Top 20 singles does anybody really need? — even if it is as important as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (or anybody else's, for that matter). Not so in this case. Cellarful of Motown is a double CD chock-full of soul classics that have remained virtually unheard since they were first recorded — or, in some cases, relegated to the cutting room floor — by Motown's front line artists, and many that should have been. We can thank the Northern soul underground in the U.K. for this issue in a sense, due to their constant demand for rare Motown soul issues and the massive bootlegging that goes with it — and a collector's market that is out of control price-wise at the dawn of the 21st century. Here are 40 tracks that were recorded in the glory days of the Detroit soul scene, but never issued at the time due to Berry Gordy's near-fascistic quality control.