West Grand has been set up to mine the deep vaults of mighty Motown, courtesy of a license deal with Universal Music.The first West Grand LP fuses two musical religions, Motown and Northern Soul.In some ways they are unlikely bedfellows. Motown became known as Hitsville by churning out hit after hit, while Northern Soul passion is fired by a constant search for the unknown and the obscure.The 16 tracks here - on the first Motown various artists vinyl album released worldwide for 40 years - join the dots. All of them were recorded in the 1960s. None of them were released at the time, despite being prime examples of the sublime magic conjured up by Berry Gordy's genius-like team of singers, writers, producers, arrangers and musicians at that tiny little snakepit of a recording studio on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit.Motown authority Adam White's album sleeve notes confirm just how productive that studio was. It often ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result, lots of the most sublime music ever made was somehow rejected for release. It would have stayed unknown and unloved in tape boxes if it had not been for detective work by Soul aficionados turned detectives. That's Northern Soul power. Many were DJs and collectors tracking down cassette copies or acetates (some of them found in rubbish skips and about to be destroyed). Others, notably Paul Nixon, the founder of the CD series 'A Cellarful Of Motown!' which inspired this album, badgered the Motown gatekeepers so much they were eventually granted access to the forbidden kingdom.Over recent years all the tracks contained here have been released-some bootlegged, some on legitimate seven-inch issues, some on CD, one download-only. The album proudly boasts debut vinyl release for some in the collection. All have been remastered and have never sounded better.
