CD1
1 Darling Baby (stereo)
2 In The Midnight Hour
3 Heaven Must Have Sent You (stereo)
4 I Understand My Man (stereo)
5 Good Lovin’
6 It’s Gonna Be Hard Times (stereo)
7 Put Yourself In My Place (stereo)
8 634-5789
9 No Time For Tears
10 How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
11 Stay In My Lonely Arms (stereo)
12 When A Man Loves A Woman
13 It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World (But It
wouldn’t be without a woman)* (mono)
14 For Your Precious Love*
15 I Still Love You* (mono)
16 That’s The Night The Love Died* (mono)
17 Love (Is The Answer)* (mono)
18 It’s Been A Long Long Time
(A long time) (stereo)
19 All For Just Lovin’ You* (mono)
20 My 2 Arms – You = Tears
(Cellarful Of Motown Version – mono)
21 Thank You Love* (mono)
22 Let’s Give Love Another Chance* (mono)
23 Another Hurt Like This* (mono)
24 When You Are Available* (mono)
25 Life Can Be Beautiful
When You’re In Love* (mono)
26 My Love For Your Love* (mono)
27 Love Where Are You Hiding*
CD2
1 Request Of A Fool The Downbeats (mono)
2 Don't You Know I Love You Baby
The Downbeats (mono)
3 Your Baby's Back The Downbeats (Alternate Mix – mono)
4 All I Got saundra mallett (mono)
5 Boo Hoo (You got me cryin’ over you)
saundra mallett (mono)
6 First Try At Love saundra mallett (mono)
7 Party Time The Downbeats (mono)
8 Until I Lost You The Downbeats (mono)
9 Camel Walk saundra mallett & The Vandellas (mono)
10 It's Gonna Be Hard Times
saundra mallett & The Vandellas (mono)
11 Lonely Boy The Downbeats (mono)
12 I Feel So Fine The Downbeats (mono)
13 I Want To Be With You The Downbeats (mono)
14 Let The Groove Roll On The Downbeats (mono)
15 You Say You Love Me The Downbeats (mono)
16 They Say You Don't Care The Downbeats (mono)
17 Do You Know What I'm Talking About
The Downbeats (mono)
18 PUT YOURSELF IN MY PLACE
The elgins - Single Version (mono)
19 DARLING BABY The elgins - Single Version (mono)
20 HEAVEN MUST HAVE SENT YOU
The elgins - Single Version (mono)
21 STAY IN MY LONELY ARMS
The elgins - Single Version (mono)
22 I UNDERSTAND MY MAN
The elgins - Single Version (mono)
23 IT'S BEEN A LONG LONG TIME (A long time) The elgins - Single Version
(mono)
Robert Fleming, Johnny Dawson, Cleotha Duke Miller and Tommy Salisbury collectively knew Motown label boss Berry Gordy, as did their manager at the time, Robert West, the owner of the Lupine set-up, where further recordings are also rumoured to have taken place. Between them they set up an audition with Mr Gordy, who signed them to a contract as The Downbeats, recording their debut single ‘Your Baby’s Back’ on 5th November 1961, released with its B-side ‘Request Of A Fool’ (recorded 19th September 1961) in February 1962.
The 45, despite being one of the most soulful sides of its time, did little to dent the charts. For many years, certain discographies have persisted naming two releases for these sides. Catalogue numbers have been stated as 54026 and 54056. Given that the Ärst listed reference falls some two years before the songs were recorded, it would app-ear this listing is an-other Motown Myth and indeed, no one involved in this compilation has ever seen a genuine 54026 pressing (or label scans for that matter) showing these two tracks. If 54026 does exist with these titles then the most likely explanation is a simple label misprint.
This obviously didn’t deter either the group members or label bosses as the group went onto record around a further dozen unreleased tracks. Rumours of an early LP planned for the Tamla label have yet to be proven. However, recent research has revealed that another release by The Downbeats in the all-male formation was contemplated for the VIP label in 1964. ‘Do You Know What I’m Talking About’ b/w ‘You Say You Love Me’ was originally scheduled for VIP-25007, a catalogue number later allocated to a certain girl group masterpiece. The majority of those vaulted recordings (including the two above) are to be found here.
At the same point, a solo female artist Saundra Mallett, aka Saundra Edwards, was recording her very own debut 45 in the studio with Berry Gordy, who drafted in Martha And The Vandellas to add weight to his quirky self-written and produced dance number ‘Camel Walk’. Saundra recalled many years later how she and Berry were sitting in the studio one day and he had this little tune running through his head. “He started playing around with it, he said one thing, I said another, and before I knew what was happening he had set up a recording session”.
How could that record not have been a huge hit? Marvin Gaye was on piano and the groove was tight. Its Åipside, the soulful ‘Its Gonna Be Hard Times’, would later resurface on The Elgins VIP long player ‘Darling Baby’. A further three recordings by the solo Saundra, locked away in the Motown Vaults, feature here.
With The Downbeats struggling for hits, Robert Fleming and Tommy Salisbury had departed. Saundra was too young to go out on the road to promote recordings on her own, so a get-together and change of name was suggested. The group re-emerged now including Norbert (aka Norman) McClean, a long-time pal of Dawson from their gospel days, and Saundra, using her married name of Edwards. Johnny Dawson came up with the name The Elgins which The Temptations had used, albeit brieÅy, prior to recording for Gordy’s Miracle label. According to Johnny, the name, which is pronounced El-jins (and not with a hard ‘g’!), was adopted from his favourite brand of wristwatch.
United in the studio, the group now came under the watchful eye and production regime of Holland/Dozier/ Holland – the Hit Factory – how could they fail?
Their debut 45 under the new line-up was the now timeless Motown classic ‘Darling Baby’ (a track that took just 15 minutes and two takes to complete), coupled with ‘Put Yourself In My Place’, on the VIP imprint in December 1965. Things were moving apace – Ärst pressings of this disc were credited to ‘The Downbeats’ then hurriedly over-labelled ‘The Elgins’.
With session musicians including Earl Van Dyke, James Jamerson and Benny Benjamin in the house, and the trio with the Midas touch at the helm, this 45 should have been a massive hit. Although both sides sold well regionally in the US, stardom didn’t beckon. Sandwiched between The Monitors ‘Say You’ and The Velvelettes ‘A Bird In The Hand’, both sides became Ärm UK favourites, but it was to be their next single ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You’ that was to ultimately to become an all-time Motown evergreen. Released here in the UK on TMG 583 in November 1966, the track was not an instant success to say the least.
Almost seven months later, TMG 615, one of my favourite Elgins tracks ‘It’s Been A Long, Long Time’ did little to put their name up in lights, but the UK Motown ofÄce were not giving up that easily. Early 1968 saw their Ärst UK single on TMG 551 become TMG 642 with the re-release of ‘Put Yourself In My Place’ and ‘Darling Baby’, again to little or no success.
By now Saundra Mallett was in the process of leaving the group. She had decided that it was time to leave the business and concentrate on raising her family. She did not return to the recording studios until the Motorcity project in the late 1980s.
Three barren years passed until Tamla Motown UK decided it was time for one more push with the 1971 re-release on TMG 771 of ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You’, which Änally grabbed the UK record buying public’s attention and shot up the British charts, prompting US Motown to re-release the track in a remixed form in America, and also prompting the hurried reformation of the group with Yvonne Vernee Allen (a former Donay) to tour and promote the single and its UK follow-up on TMG 787, yet another airing of ‘Put Yourself In My Place’, this time with ‘It’s Gonna Be Hard Times’ on the Åip.
Despite high hopes for the new line-up, no further hits were to follow. The new Elgins toured the UK successfully several times, and in the 1980s were tracked down by Ian Levine for the Motorcity project, recording two LPs and several singles.
It has always been suspected that new recordings of The Elgins took place after Saundra had left the group, and here for the very Ärst time we present three such tracks, the scrumptious typically Motown, ‘Life Can Be Beautiful When You Are In Love’, the delightful ‘My Love For Your Love’, and a version of ‘Love Where Are You Hiding’ so eloquently recorded by Martha Reeves And The Vandellas and recently released on their ‘Lost And Found’ album.
Along with two Shorty Long covers, where Johnny Dawson conÄrms the group provided the backing vocals, a trio of tracks that have circulated for years on poor sounding tapes, the whole of the stereo ‘Darling Baby’ LP and the mono alternates, this collection substantially represents the Motown recordings from one of its longest surviving groups.
Paul Nixon, 2007.