AMG Review of Trojan Motor City Reggae [Box Set]

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

American R&B and soul had a huge influence on Jamaican popular music in the late 1960s, with artists like Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, James Brown and others playing a hand through their releases on the unique development of late period ska into rocksteady. Jamaican singers and musicians were particularly taken by the material coming out on Detroit's Motown Records, and as this three-disc, 50-track collection shows, Motown's influence was deep and pervasive. The tracks collected here certainly sound familiar, featuring songs made famous by the Four Tops, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and other Motown stars, but at the same time these versions feel eerily shifted into a parallel universe that places Motown' s studios in Kingston instead of Detroit. It's as if everything in the world has been turned upside down by the peculiar Jamaican approach to rhythm (which would eventually codify into true reggae), and songs like the Miracles' "You Really Got a Hold on Me" (sung here by Derrick Harriott), while they manage to retain the feel and tone of the original American version, also sound strikingly different. It all makes for a fascinating journey through a sort of alternative Motown universe. Clear highlights include "The Way You Do the Things You Do" by Jackie Edwards, Slim Smith's poignant "My Girl," Busty Brown's "Don't Look Back," the Heptones' airy "Born to Love You," Delroy Wilson's ragged, garage-sounding "Ain't That Peculiar," Pat Kelly's pretty take on "I Wish It Would Rain," and Alton Ellis' stirring "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)." Not everything works translated into a Jamaican approach, obviously (Lloyd Charmers' try at Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On," for instance, sounds more odd than anything else; it really is difficult to imagine anyone but Gaye singing it), but this set is never anything less than interesting, and at times it's downright fascinating.