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The Temptations - Lost and Found: You've Got to Earn It (1962-1968) Audio CD

A fair review of the The Temptations "Lost and Found: You've Got to Earn It (1962-1968)" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Temptations reviews here, or go back to the The Temptations tabs.

The Temptations Band: The Temptations
Title: Lost and Found: You've Got to Earn It (1962-1968)
Rating:
Release Date: 1999-09-28
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: What Am I Gonna Do Without You 2: Happy Landing 3: Love Is What You Make It 4: No Time 5: Last One Out Is Brokenhearted 6: I Can't Think of a Thing at All 7: Camouflage [Version 1] 8: My Pillow 9: Tear-Stained Letter 10: Forever in My Heart 11: You've Got to Earn It 12: I Know She's Not a Mannequin 13: Dinah 14: I Now See You Clear Through My Eyes 15: Only a Lonely Man Would Know 16: Camouflage [Version 2] 17: Ain't Too Proud to Beg 18: That'll Be the Day 19: We'll Be Satisfied 20: My Girl [Live]

Ratings don't mean much with this magic
Not only do fans deserve more but the great original Temptations need to be honored and revered as the geniuses they were and will always be. What a travesty! That these unpublished gems by the great Temptations have languished away for many years says a lot about Motown and its lack of respect for these geniuses of American music.

Let's have more CD's. . . more DVD's of their performances of the composers and arrangers and choreographers etc of this great epoch in American musical traditions. . . so that the new generations can be awed once again by these performances.


Prequel to Fame
A must for Temptations fans -- a trip to a time when the orignal Tempts were younng,talented, and on the brink of fame and before the time when superstardom tore the group apart.


Hits from a parallel world

This Temptations collection is no exception to that rule. The Lost And Found series has featured unreleased masters by the Four Tops (a complete debut album of standards in a wholly different style from their norm), Marvin Gaye, the Miracles and others, all demonstrating the same thing - that the Motown machine was a mighty force that threw up far more goodies than it could handle. The period between 1962 and 1968 had them quickly rising to fame and fortune with the relatively stable line-up featuring Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams and David Ruffin (who joined in 1963) as lead and harmony tenor vocalists, with Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin adding baritone and bass.
After a few plays, some of the tracks here already sound so much a part of the Temptations repertoire that is almost impossible to believe that they have languished in a vault unheard for all this time, and one cannot escape the suspicion that some of these would have made better album tracks than those that made the final track-list. Perhaps some internal politics came into play; producer pressure, or a ruling from Berry Gordy on high.
There are two versions of one song written and produced by Berry Gordy. Camouflage is first heard in a recording from February 1962, the earliest recording on the disc, and then in a supercharged version from March 1967.
Three of the songs are familiar from other versions. You've Got To Earn It is known from Temptin' Temptations, but turns up here in an alternative fast version. Ain't Too Proud To Beg is one of their best known songs, a US Top Twenty hit in 1966, but minus the seductive but possibly inappropriate string section that fascinatingly adorns it here. Their magnificent signature tune, My Girl, closes the album in an on-stage version performed without ceremony just 10 days after its release as a single.
One star is lost as all but three have been mastered from mono mixes.
Maybe there is a parallel world where some of these tunes were singles and were part of the fabric of everyday life as they so easily could have been here.


Historically Valuable-Musically Marginal

With that said, In my humble opinion, most of the items on this CD are "Grade B". Remembering the days back in '66 when I would sit for hours and sing along with the Tempts as that purple Gordy label spun endlessly on the turntable, I can lay some claim to being a serious fan. It's historically interesting, since we've not heard them before, but they don't measure up to the stuff that made them legends. With a few exceptions, the melodies are poorly defined, and the lyrics are often a "force-fit" to the music (e. g. "Happy Landing"). Also, the additional strings on "Ain't Too Proud. . . " are a bit too "schmaltzy". The execs. at Hitsville knew what they were doing when they kept these in the can.

On the positive side, who would have guessed that the guys singing "My Pillow" were the Temptations? Great doo-wop!
And, "What am I Gonna Do Without You?" could well have been a hit.

Buy this disk for the history. Listen to it for a while, then quickly pop in their Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and watch the smile come on your face. This disk is interesting, but it isn't "Get Ready", "The Way You Do. . . " or "My Girl".


The Best
The late great Paul Williams is truly an underated singer on "Tear Stained Letter and "I Can't Think of a Thing At All". Great CD! The alternate versions are priceless! I wonder why some of these tracks didn't make it out of the can? "Dinah" is an excellent track as well as "What am I Gonna Do Without You". And you also get to hear Eddie Kendrick's raw tenor in "Camouflage Version 1". Truly a CD to put in your collection!.


You can see a complete list of all The Temptations discography, or go back to the The Temptations tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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