Motown Strings

Our long-awaited Motown Strings library. Perfect for your recordings that need string sounds from that magic era.

Our long-awaited Motown Strings library. Perfect for your recordings that need string sounds from that magic era

Our long-awaited Motown Strings library. Perfect for your recordings that need string sounds from that magic era.

Our long-awaited Motown Strings library. Perfect for your recordings that need string sounds from that magic era.

Cardboard sleeve reissue from Diana Ross featuring the high-fidelity SHM-CD format. Part of a ten-album Diana Ross SHM-CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Everything Is Everything", "Surrender", "Touch Me In The Morning", "Last Time I Saw Him", "Diana Ross", "Baby It's Me", "Ross", "The Boss" and "Diana".

The vaults at Hitsville U.S.A. continue to surrender their secrets. Motown Unreleased 1967 is a new digital offering from Universal Music, with 89 tracks by many of the record company’s major stars, including the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the Temptations, Jr. Walker & the All Stars and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. In addition, the package has previously-unavailable tracks by less-renowned acts who are, nonetheless, revered by Motown fans everywhere, such as Brenda Holloway, Chris Clark, the Marvelettes and the Velvelettes. Marvin Gaye is also strongly represented on Motown Unreleased 1967, which is available now on digital services worldwide.

The Soulful Strings were without a doubt the hippest project ever to emerge from the 60s with the word Strings in its name. Brainchild of producer/arranger/bassist/songwriter (and genius) Richard Evans, the group was a far cry from the interchangeable outfits that flourished during the beautiful music era; instead, The Soulful Strings were actually composed of members of the Chess/Cadet label house band, including flautist Lennie Druss, guitarist Phil Upchurch, bassist/cellist Cleveland Eaton and harpist Dorothy Ashby, who laid down a tasty electric groove into which Evans stirred lush strings and unusual instrumentation like the kalimba and sitar. The result was a sound that resided at the crossroads of easy listening, jazz, R&B and exotica and, as one might expect from that description, every Soulful Strings release (they made seven albums) is treasured by cratediggers worldwide. This 1968 release was their highest-charting record at #35 on the charts, and appears on CD for the first time anywhere in the world, with liner notes by Gene Sculatti. The soundtrack to many a swingin 60s Christmas party.

A stellar cast of musicians take the spotlight on this collection of soul, jazz, funk and other groovy Motown instrumentals which features six cuts otherwise available only as digital downloads and five masters previously unissued in any format.
Compiled by the guys behind our popular “Motown Girls” and “Motown Guys” series, the CD opens with three certified crowd-pleasers: the San Remo Golden Strings’ ‘Festival Time’, a Northern Soul favourite that reached the UK charts in 1971, five years after its original release in the USA; a version of the Supremes’ ‘Come See About Me’ by Choker Campbell’s Big Band; and ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’ by Earl Van Dyke & the Soul Brothers, an outfit known behind the scenes as the Funk Brothers.