AMG Review of 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Eddie Kendricks

Andrew Hamilton
All Music Guide

Recommended for easily satisfied casual fans only, diehard Eddie Kendricks janissaries won't find much satisfaction with this scanty run-down of Kendricks' solo career, which found the ex-Temptation constantly on the R&B charts and no stranger to pop chart success. Sadly, his two biggest pop darts ("Keep on Truckin'" and "Boogie Down") are not the lengthy album tracks but the short radio edits. Just when "Keep on Truckin'" starts kicking you're rollin' into "Boogie Down," which turns out to be a shortie too. Miraculously, his disco thumper "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" runs its full 7:33. A saving point is the inclusion of both title tracks from his overlooked albums done in Philadelphia under Norman Harris; you usually get "He's a Friend of Mine" in compilations but almost never "Going up in Smoke." The beautiful "Tell Her Love Has Felt the Need" is a majestically executed weeper. "Can I," the ballad most identified with Kendricks (other than "Just My Imagination"), didn't make the cut -- another bummer.