While the original documentary soundtrack reconstructing Motown's glory years was fascinating enough, the expanded version goes one better. Not content with matching the renowned house musicians the Funk Brothers with modern singers, including Chaka Khan and Ben Harper, its producers, Harry Weinger and Allan Slutsky, have assembled a priceless store of the original, vocal-less studio backing tracks. James Jamerson's bass dances all over Stevie Wonder's I Was Made to Love Her. Most devastating of all is the basic version of I Can't Get Next to You, which - even without the soon-to-be-added voices of the Temptations - trounces just about anything coming out of modern, de-fanged and homogenised R&B. This is the sound of real musicians playing real tunes in real time. A must for Tamla aficionados.
Hip-O