Motley Moose – Archive

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

ART NOTES – an exhibition entitled Papier Français: French Works on Paper is at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Museum of Art to May 25th.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the guitarist Bob Casale, from the band Devo who has died at the age of 61 …. next, to the veteran NBC News reporter/anchor Garrick Utley at age 74 … and finally, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient who came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944, Walter Ehlers at age 92.

BUSINESS NOTES – since the end of the telegram era, Western Union has specialized in small international cash remittances … and has endured constant regulatory scrutiny as a result.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Pickles the Cat – a twenty-one lb. kitteh (nicknamed Catasaurus Rex) who was adopted by a young Massachusetts couple chosen (from around 50 people who had applied to adopt Pickles).

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

LEST YOU THINK that only the US has budgetary battles … Canada has to jump through hoops to pass one, as well.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Abby the Cat – a Michigan kitteh reunited with her family after going missing for fourteen months … due to her microchip.

CONTINUING a series of essays during the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I … assigning culpability is one of the more contentious aspects of reflection.

SEPARATED at BIRTH – “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer and comedian Louis “C.K.” Szekely.

   

…..and finally, for a song of the week …………… the history of American popular music in the post-war era is replete with tragedy and early deaths but – along with Buddy Holly – there may be no greater tragedy than the fate of Tammi Terrell the soul singer. Musically talented, photogenic and intelligent, her future seemed limitless before a cruel illness took her life (a few weeks shy of her 25th birthday) forty years ago. Mercifully, she left an amazing body of work in only a short time.

Born as Thomasina Montgomery in Philadelphia, she won some talent shows in her youth and by age thirteen in 1958 was a regular opening act for singers such as Gary “U.S.” Bonds and Patti Labelle. She was signed in 1961 to the local Scepter label and released songs such as “The Voice of Experience”. James Brown caught her live act and signed her to his Try Me Records label as an eighteen year-old in 1963, where she released “I Cried” and “If I Would Marry You“. And if that wasn’t enough: she did all this while a pre-med student at the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania.

But she left Penn after two years 1965 when she was discovered by Motown’s Berry Gordy while performing with Jerry Butler. At first, she recorded solo as Tammi Montgomery, after the 1957 Debbie Reynolds song Tammy – releasing tunes such as “I Can’t Believe You Love Me” and “Come On and See Me”. And it’s quite possible she could have had a successful solo career over the long haul, but her Motown recordings were not big-sellers …. and Gordy had a different idea in mind, that catapulted her into stardom.

And this was her pairing with Marvin Gaye as a duet singer (as well as Gordy’s switching Montgomery to Terrell as a stage name). They clicked right away and – especially with the Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson husband-and-wife songwriting team on their side – released songs you may well remember. “Your Precious Love” and “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You” made the Top Ten …. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing was a hit before it became a Coke advertising jingle ….. and their best-known tune Ain’t No Mountain High Enough spawned numerous cover versions by others.

Tammi had a tempestuous romance with singer David Ruffin (as shown in the Temptations Forever mini-series) that ended due to his drug use. All along though, Tammi Terrell began to suffer severe migraine headaches – which nonetheless failed to prepare everyone for what lay ahead.

While the two performed at the October, 1967 homecoming concert at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, Tammi Terrell collapsed in Marvin Gaye’s arms, and an examination at a nearby hospital revealed that she was suffering from a brain tumor. And it was all downhill for here from there (for the remaining 2-1/2 years of her life) as she underwent eight operations, enduring some loss of memory as well as being confined to a wheelchair.

But though she never performed live again, Tammi was determined to record what she could. For their first full duets album United – in some cases, Marvin Gaye overdubbed his voice onto some previous solo recordings of Terrell’s. In others, he and the band worked to complete the basic recording, and it was she who grafted her vocals later.

One controversy arose over the recording of their final duets album Easy in 1969. Valerie Simpson maintains that she had been brought in to provide guide vocals (temporary, not intended for final release) but Marvin Gaye later told his biographer David Ritz that Valerie Simpson’s vocals were in fact used (and merely uncredited) at the suggestion of Berry Gordy when Terrell’s condition had deteriorated to a certain point. Tammi Terrell’s sister wrote a book siding with Simpson’s account, claiming it was in fact her sister’s voice.

Tammi Terrell finally succumbed to that brain tumor in March, 1970 (just a few weeks short of her 25th birthday). Marvin Gaye was so distraught that he left touring for two years, and that the turmoil that was an integral part of his landmark 1971 album What’s Going On was in part a reaction to the loss of Tammi Terrell.

She has several compilation albums of note: one a personal retrospective that leans more heavily on her solo recordings …. another featuring the best-known of her duets with Marvin Gaye and – for completists – a comprehensive album of Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell duet recordings. All are fitting tributes.

   

Of all of their work, I’m partial to You’re All I Need to Get By – another Ashford & Simpson composition. It was recorded in July, 1968 when Terrell was recovering from her first few brain surgeries and – since it was produced by Ashford & Simpson themselves – it featured a more mature, soulful sound than a traditional Motown youthful pop arrangement.

It has been covered by everyone from Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin to Michael McDonald, and a duet version by Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams in 1978 reached #47 on the charts. And below you can listen to it.