The Very Best Of The Velvelettes

Eleven songs from their 1963-66 singles, plus four previously unreleased tracks. The swaggering “He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’” and the handclapping soul dance stomper “Needle in a Haystack” are the undoubted highlights; another single that grazed the charts, “These Things Will Keep Me Loving You,” is also on hand, and a young Stevie Wonder — then still “Little” Stevie Wonder — plays harmonica on their first single, “There He Goes”/”That’s the Reason Why.” This is pleasant and competent mid-’60s Motown girl-group soul, but it often variously recalls other, bigger Motown acts — the Temptations on “Lonely Lonely Girl Am I,” Martha & the Vandellas on “I Know His Name (Only His Name),” Mary Wells on “Think of the Time,” the Miracles on “A Bird in the Hand (Is Worth Two in the Bush)” — more than it does the Velvelettes themselves. The generic Motown sound of the ’60s was a lot better than the best sound achieved by lots of other labels, though, and the disc fills a long-standing gap in the Motown reissue discography. – Richie Unterberger