Barrett Strong - The Complete Motown Collection (2004)

It said something about the status of Motown Records in America in 2004 that U.S. listeners had a 12-song compilation of Barrett Strong material, while in England Universal released this 22-song collection -- ten of the tracks previously unreleased anywhere in any form -- covering his complete Motown history. This CD was the result of a thorough vault search, and those ten previously unreleased songs aren't second-rate -- indeed, "Tell All Your Friends" and "Believe It or Not" (the latter an excellent guitar showcase, incidentally) may well strike some listeners as lost potential singles, and most of the rest isn't far behind. The audio quality is excellent and the annotation thorough within the limits of what is actually known about these sides (and that isn't much -- early Motown session records having vanished).