Elemental, My Dear Watson
DETECTIVE WORK IN REISSUING MOTOWN ALBUMS ON VINYL
Rare Earth’s Get Ready is not necessarily the LP you’d expect to launch what has now become a well-regarded and expanding Motown vinyl reissue programme. As well as marking the record company’s venture into album rock almost 45 years ago, it was cheap to record ($5,000) and finished in about a week, with covers of “Tobacco Road” and “Feelin’ Alright” as well as the 21-minute remake of the Temptations’ midrange hit of 1966.
OK, so Get Ready made the Top 20 of the U.S. album charts, as well as the Top 5 of the Billboard R&B listings. But even so…
“We just loved that title track,” explains Jordi Soley, “and their cover was often used in DJ Kool Herc’s ‘turntablism’ routine and was a popular track with break-dancers in New York. An interesting nugget of Motown history that was deserving of a reissue!” And as the packaging of the Rare Earth re-release observes, “It is remembered as the first song longer than 16 minutes to be a dance hit in European discotheques.”
Remembering Sam on vinyl once more, out May 10
The European connection is relevant. Soley is the founder of Elemental Music, the 14-year-old, Barcelona-based business blessed mainly for its blue-chip jazz and blues reissues. Beginning in March 2022 with the limited-edition (1,200 copies), 180-gram vinyl offer of Get Ready, Elemental spent the rest of that year delivering other Motown re-releases – all under license from the catalogue’s owner, Universal Music Group (UMG) – such as Edwin Starr’s War & Peace, Tammi Terrell’s Irresistible and the Jackson 5’s Diana Ross Presents… and ABC. Three of those sold out.
For Record Store Day’s U.S. “Black Friday” event in November ’22, Elemental reissued Martha & the Vandellas’ Dance Party (2,500 copies), the Four Tops’ Second Album (3,000), Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ Going To A Go-Go (3,000) and the Supremes’ Where Did Our Love Go (3,500). (There was one Motown LP re-released earlier by the Spanish firm. In 2017, Elemental produced 1,000 vinyl units of a remastered Masterpiece by the Temptations. It, too, sold out.)
This year and into next, Soley’s operation is planning to ship a further 29 vinyl Motown titles, beginning with the Temptations’ Wish It Would Rain and the Supremes’ We Remember Sam Cooke. These two will be available in the U.S. from next Friday (May 10), when the Temptations’ Psychedelic Shack also comes out in Spain. The company divides its output between the United States and Spain, under license from Universal Music Enterprises and UMG’s local subsidiary.
“Unfortunately, we do not have access to the original analogue tapes for the mastering,” Soley told me, “but Universal had all the music digitised in high-res files that are the ones we use for LP mastering. All of the masters are cut from high-res digital files, and we obtain a top-quality sound.” Elemental’s European releases are manufactured at GZ Vinyl in the Czech Republic (it claims to be the largest producer of vinyl records worldwide), while the U.S. editions are pressed by Anagram Music in Delaware.
DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM JAZZ
“As a rule of thumb,” Soley says, “we always try to reissue the music that we love. After that, we have to assess that music’s availability, the quality of the master tapes, licensing and all the boring legal stuff that no one ever seems to tell you about.
“With the Motown series, we wanted to take a deep dive into the label’s history and to reissue some of the more obscure titles. For a lot of the albums that we’ll be putting out throughout 2024 and into 2025, it will be their first reissue since their original release.” Due from Elemental later this year are LPs by the Supremes (A Bit Of Liverpool), Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells (Together), Eddie Kendricks (People…Hold On), The Undisputed Truth (their first) and – on blue vinyl, no less – Smokey Robinson’s Smokey.
Elemental Music’s Jordi Soley: a ‘deep’ dive into Motown history
Elemental has a small team – as do most reissue labels – numbering around 15 people, with no satellite offices, but it does work closely with Washington-based Zev Feldman (known as the “jazz detective”) for licensing and curating, “especially for our U.S. and Canada exclusives,” adds Soley. Feldman has collaborated with him, and the Spanish company’s Carlos Agustin, on Elemental reissues by jazz pianist/composer Bill Evans, among others.
“Although Elemental is primarily a jazz label,” Soley continues, “it’s difficult to ignore the historical connections that jazz and Motown have within popular music history. Jazz and blues set the stage for Motown’s distinctive sound and Motown, in turn, drew inspiration from jazz.” He adds that many of the original musicians at Hitsville U.S.A. had such roots. “James Jamerson started on double bass, Earl Van Dyke recorded for Blue Note, Benny Benjamin drummed in big bands, and Joe Messina played with Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and the like.”
Elemental Music’s work has been praised by critics. Of the 2023 return of The Supremes A’ Go-Go, Goldmine writer Tone Scott noted, “They have given this brilliant album a high-quality, 180-gram, virgin vinyl, limited edition reissue in the original ‘mono’ mix (which has long been sonically revered as the best copy over the stereo mix). This comes as one of the most highly-recommended reissued releases on our list this year.”
Jordi Soley is reasonably upbeat about what lies ahead. “The future of reissues? It’s difficult to say. Not too long ago, people thought vinyl was a thing of the past. Now vinyl manufacturers are at full capacity and a lot of small labels are really struggling to get their titles pressed.
“The current popularity of music biopics and films like Bohemian Rhapsody and The Beatles: Get Back, and the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, have created a whole new demographic of people looking to engage with artists’ legacies on a deeper level. Vinyl reissues are perfect in that they provide some historical context for a lot of these artists. In particular, fans are looking for more obscure information and performances from these artists.”
Such enthusiasm might even require a vinyl reissue of Rare Earth’s second Motown album, Ecology, complete with its near-11 minute reimagining of “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” produced by Norman Whitfield.
I know, I know…