David Ruffin
David Unreleased LP & More As many of you know, Hip-OSelect.com recently moved from one fulfillment house to another, which caused a momentary hiccup in our shipments, for which we are truly sorry. One good thing came out of the move, however: we discovered 80 copies of "David," David Ruffin's long-thought sold-out unreleased album with bonus tracks. We have been receiving a steady flow of pleading inquiries about this piece, so we are happy to say that the 80 copies of the 23-track collection will be again available from March 2nd on our site on a first come, first served basis. Sorry, only one to a customer.
*****David Ruffin is one of the greatest soul singers of all time.
If you know that, you need to get this album.
If you don’t, you really need to get this album.
David, David Ruffin’s extraordinary, unreleased third solo album, was finally unleashed from deep in the Motown vault in the early days of Hip-oSelect.com. With rave reviews and a limited run, the album quickly sold out, the first sold-out title in the Select catalog. Now, for a brief and very limited time only, David is here again.
This is the original release, not a re-press; included are the original 12 tracks scheduled for release as Motown 733, plus seven amazing bonus tracks from the album sessions, and the mono single mixes of the four songs issued as singles in 1971.
It’s the great David Ruffin in his prime, with Motown’s Funk Bothers band in full flower and the company’s producers and arrangers on their gameleft behind, until now.
Sorry, orders limited to one per customer.
*****
In late 1969, David Ruffin was having a good year; his solo career was doing well, after a tumultuous period at the end of his otherwise successful tenure with the Temptations. His album and single, “My Whole World Ended,” were smash hits. A second album, appropriately titled Feeling Good, was about to be released.
Ruffin, then 28 years old, began work on a third album, with Motown producers Smokey Robinson, Clay McMurray, Johnny Bristol, Henry Cosby, Ivy Jo Hunter and Duke Browner, who deliver originals like “Each Day Is A Lifetime,” the proposed album’s first single; the dramatic “I Can’t Be Hurt Anymore”; the upbeat “Anything That You Ask For”; the mournful “Let Somebody Love Me”; the intensely exciting “It’s Gonna Take A Whole Lot Of Doing”; and stunning covers of recent hits, “I Want You Back,” “Rainy Night In Georgia” and, with a swaying choir, “Heaven Help Us All.”
Ruffin was simultaneously recording duet tracks with his brother, Jimmy, for the eventual 1970 LP release, I Am My Brother’s Keeper. Jimmy would have his own third solo album, Groove Governor, released in the fall of 1970. Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin’s high tenor counterpart in the Temptations, was making plans to leave the group, just as “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” hit #1. Eddie’s solo album All By Myself, and the Temptations’ Sky’s The Limit, were released April 1971.
David was scheduled for release a few months later, late spring/early summer 1971. “Don’t Stop Lovin’ Me,” Browner’s B-side to Cosby’s “Each Day Is A Lifetime,” got some airplay, hit the lower rung of the Pop charts. “You Can Come Right Back To Me” b/w “Dinah,” both Smokey co-productions, are issued as a second single.
And then, in a move that ranks high among the many Motown mysteries, David was never released. The performances, many of them new compositions, are never heard again, not even as filler for future albums. David Ruffin’s next solo album was released in 1973, meaning he had four years between official LP releases.
Yet the tapes survived. The stories remain fresh. The sound of David Ruffin at the height of his powers can now be heard. The packaging faithfully reproduces artwork of the era, including rare photographs, an essay detailing the sessions and the moment, and full track annotations.
But hurry – David will soon be gone again.
Original LP
1. Each Day Is A Lifetime
2. I Want You Back
3. Out In The Country
4. You Can Come Right Back To Me
5. I Can't Be Hurt Anymore
6. Rainy Night In Georgia
7. I've Got A Need For You
8. Anything That You Ask For
9. Let Somebody Love Me
10. For The Shelter Of Your Love
11. Dinah
12. Don't Stop Lovin Me
Bonus Tracks
1. Its Gonna Take A Whole Lot Of Doin
2. I Want Her To Say It Again
3. Your Heartaches I Can Surely Heal
4. Get Away Heartbreak (Keep On Moving)
5. You Make Me Do Things I Don't Want To Do
6. Mountain Of Memories
7. Heaven Help Us All
Mono Single Mixes
1. Each Day Is A Lifetime
2. Don't Stop Lovin Me
3. You Can Come Right Back To Me
4. Dinah
http://hip-oselect.com/scr.public.produ ... 1D5081D913{EDITED TO ADD UPDATED INFORMATION FROM HIP-O SELECT WEBSITE ON WAREHOUSE FIND, COURTESY OF "classicyesfan." ~ Jay}