Tamla Motown Presents

AMG Review of Tamla Motown Presents

Quint Kik
All Music Guide

Hooking up with Motown proved a short-lived marriage for the Isley Brothers. Trying yet for a third time to assert their talents turned out another false start. The potential of Ronald Isley might have been overlooked, or their arrival was simply a case of bad timing. For a start, all Motown acts had to stand patiently in line as the label's famed writing and production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland busied itself with the Supremes and the Four Tops. Since the Isley Brothers were never a priority at the label, the content of their few albums suggest a case of cashing in on the coincidental chart success of This Old Heart of Mine. As the album of the same name leaned on Supremes and Martha & the Vandellas repertoire, so the follow-up Soul on the Rocks sounded too much like territory well covered by other Motown acts. Tamla Motown Presents the Isley Brothers is part reissue, part leftover. Released after their departure from the label, it revisits "Got to Have You Back" and some less memorable selections that don't really stay with the listener even after repeated plays. Worse: the reissue company took the liberty of omitting the Isley Brothers' dramatic masterpiece, the Verdi-prefaced "Behind a Painted Smile." Among the other half of the album is the beautiful "My Love Is Your Love (Forever)," oddly reminiscent of "This Old Heart of Mine." Attentive listeners may recognize a true gem in the tearjerker "Greetings," with its hilarious climax: a sobbing Ronald Isley, brutally interrupted by a nightmarish drill instructor, urging him to "Come oooon boy, we're gonna make a maaaan out of you." A devastating antiwar statement, showing the Isley Brothers were at the right label at the wrong time. Addressing social issues had yet to come with the Temptations' Cloud Nine and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. In the end, the Isley Brothers left to resurrect their label T-Neck, building a respectable career on their own terms.