Give Me Just A Little More Time/In Session

This single disc collects the first two Chairmen of the Board albums in their entirety. The flagship group for Holland-Dozier-Holland's Invictus label after leaving Motown, this quartet's influence cannot be overstated. Four radically different vocalists -- General Johnson, Eddie Custis, Danny Woods, and Harrison Kennedy -- broke the Berry Gordy Motown mold for male vocal quartets. Stacking up both recordings together, the listener can perceive how amazing the diversity in strength and vision this group and their label bosses held. Should a group like this try to exert itself today, it would be discouraged as too unfocused. With Holland-Dozier-Holland, the word was "ambitious." The first album features the classics: "Give Me Just a Little More Time"; the original, pre-Clarence Carter version of "Patches"; Kennedy's killer read of "Come Together'; "I'll Come Crawling"; and "You've Got Me Dangling on a String." On In Session, a more adventurous outing than the group's debut -- and the last on which the original quartet would appear -- the quartet's theme kicks it off with the amazing "Hanging on to a Memory"; "Pay to the Piper," a beefed-up version of "Patches," and the wonderful "Everything's Tuesday," are the more familiar highlights, though there isn't anything here that is less than top-notch. Sound quality is very good, if not pristine; the liner notes by British soul-o-phile Howard Priestley are exhaustive and insightful; and the price is a steal. So what are you waiting for? ~ Thom Jurek|