1966- "Season's Greetings From Motown"

.....In 1966 Motown had a Stevie Wonder single in the works for Christmas (see next post), but the rest of their holiday music catalog consisted of two single-artist albums, one redundant single and a fistful of out-of-print and unreleased songs. To the less savvy, the obvious answer would be to get use out of the non-album recordings by collecting them together as a various artists album, throwing in some choice tracks from the Miracles' and Supremes' albums to sweeten the pot. But we are not Berry Gordy.

.....Whatever else was going on in Gordy's life, what those of us who didn't know him personally knew for certain amounted to three things: he had an ear for what worked as pop music; he loved making money; and he wanted to project a positive, assimilationist image of African-Americans that countered images he saw growing up. More than anything he wanted black Americans to control their own image and not have it controlled by everyone else. If Mitch Miller and Bing Crosby sold Christmas albums, Motown would sell Christmas albums. But he wasn't going to be selling dated material. From this point on, for the foreseeable future, the only item prior to the Supremes' album to be returned to print would be the original Miracles song "CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY". The album it came from would sell through its remaining stock and eventually return to print years later, but the emphasis would be on new recordings. Eventually there would be a holiday product that could project the whole Motown brand identity and not just a single act. Inching towards that end, Motown released a promotional single with spoken greetings from Motown artists. Many of them hadn't recorded, and wouldn't record, Christmas songs for Motown. Some never recorded Christmas material ever. The single shipped only to radio stations and was known to be pressed on red vinyl. I wouldn't be surprised if plans existed to press it on green vinyl as well.

.....Except for Shorty Long every act was represented by two greetings. One greeting would specifically mention Christmas and/or New Year's and the other greeting would be deliberately vague so that it could apply to different holidays as well. Everything ranged from five to ten seconds in length. Below I'm going to transcribe the texts, which are generally spoken by a single person. Where another group member interjects, their part will be marked by parentheses. Where an entire group speaks, that part will be marked by double brackets, i.e., {{, }}.

.....7" EP SEASONS GREETINGS FROM MOTOWN Motown 2482 (US) 11/66 [promo]

• 1-) "Hi, this is Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a glorious New Year."
• 1A) "Hi, this is Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas sending season's greetings to everyone everywhere."
• 2-) "Hi, this is Eddie of The Temptations speaking for the rest of the guys wishing you a Merry, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."
• 2A) "Hi, this is Eddie of The Temptations wishing you the best holiday season ever."
• 3-) "Hi, this is Smokey Robinson (and Bobby of the Miracles) wishing you all a Merry Christmas (and a Happy New Year)."
• 3A) "Hi this is Smokey (and Bobby of the Miracles) and we'd like to extend a season's greeting to all."
• 4-) "This is Bad Shorty wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."
• 5-) "Hi, this is Carolyn of the Velvelettes wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from all of us."
• 5A) "Hi, this is Carolyn of the Velvelettes extending season's greetings from all of us."
• 6-) "{{Hello, we're The Spinners}} and we'd like to take this occasion to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."
• 6A) "{{Hello, we're The Spinners}} and we'd like to take this occasion to wish everyone the best of season's greetings."
• 7-) "Hi, this is Duke of The Four Tops. I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of The Four Tops."
• 7A) "Hi there, this is Duke of The Four Tops. I'd like to wish you the very best of season's greetings from all of The Four Tops."
• 8-) "{{Merry Christmas}} and a Happy New Year from The Elgins."
  
• 8A) "{{Season's greetings}} from The Elgins."
• 9-) "{{Hi, we're The Supremes wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.}}"
• 9A) "{{Hi, we're The Supremes wishing everyone a pleasant holiday.}}"

.....Tracks 1-5 are on side A, tracks 6-9 are on side B. The entire contents above appear as an unlisted fifteenth track on VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS VOLUME 2 Motown/Universal 440 016 364-2 (US) 11/06/01, plus a Michael Jackson greeting from 1973. The order of the artists speaking is the same as the order on label scans of the original single, but I'm only assuming that on the original single that the Christmas-specific greetings always precede the general greetings for each artist as they do on the CD track. Although there was no picture sleeve, label scans can be found intermittently on resale and auction sites, both general ones like eBay and music-only sites, for however long it takes that copy to sell.

.....There are no details on the single itself to identify speakers who don't explicitly identify themselves. I also don't know exactly when during 1966 these were recorded. I've identified below what could have been the line-ups of the various groups during 1966, with the groups alphabetical but numbered by their respective track on the single.

• 8) THE ELGINS: Sandra (Mallet) Edwards, Johnny Dawson, Cleo 'Duke' Miller, Robert Fleming
• 7) THE FOUR TOPS: Levi Stubbs, Lawrence Payton, Abdul 'Duke' Fakir, Renaldo 'Obie' Benson
• 4) SHORTY (FREDERICK) LONG
• 3) THE MIRACLES: William 'Smokey' Robinson, Ronnie White, Bobby Rogers, Claudette Rogers-Robinson, Warren 'Pete' Moore, Marv Tarplin
• 6) THE SPINNERS: Henry Fembrough, Billy Henderson, Pervis Jackson, Bobbie Smith, (?)George W. Dixon
• 9) THE SUPREMES: Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard
• 2) THE TEMPTATIONS: Otis Williams (or Otis Miles?), Melvin Franklin (or David English?), David Ruffin, Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks
• 1) MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: Martha Reeves, Rosalind Ashford, Betty Kelly
• 5) THE VELVELETTES: Betty Kelly, Sandra Tilley, Carolyn Gill

.....Since 1990, these greetings and the ones from a similar 1973 single have been used as 'bumpers' between tracks on label compilations. The two tracks from The Supremes appear, again unlisted, five seconds after the ending of the bonus track "SILENT NIGHT" on the 1999 remaster of their MERRY CHRISTMAS album (see two posts back). If you know of any unmarked uses of these tracks, please leave the details in the comments section. Thank you.