... SINGS MOTOWN
This compilation of Motown covers spans the 1960s to the present day and features: Paul Weller and Amy Winehouse with I Heard It Through the Grapevine on Jools's Hootenanny, Roberta Flack's version of Stevie Wonder's Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer from an early edition of the OGWT, early adopter Dusty Springfield with Nowhere to Run on her 60s BBC TV show and The Flying Lizards with Barrett Strong's Money (That's What I Want) from Top of the Pops in 1979.
Of course, there are quite a few 80s hit covers from the decade that rediscovered Motown as a hitmaking machine, many of them from Top of the Pops including Kim Wilde's You Keep Me Hangin' On and Paul Young's 1983 Number 1 with Marvin Gaye's 1962 B-side, Wherever I Lay My Hat.
Then it's on into the 90s with Mercy Mercy Me from the late lamented Robert Palmer and Mariah Carey's take on The Jackson Five's I'll Be There. Plus of course, Phil Collins but, rightly or wrongly, not with You Can't Hurry Love but with his 21st-century reading of Stevie Wonder's Blame It on the Sun from Later with Jools. (00:58:32)
Dusty Springfield ~ Nowhere To Run
Faces ~ (I Know) I'm Losing You
Roberta Flack ~ I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer
Freda Payne & Jimmy Helms ~ Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Lulu ~ Baby Love
Gloria Gaynor ~ Reach Out I'll Be There
The Manhattan Transfer ~ Where Did Our Love Go
The Flying Lizards ~ Money
The Beat ~ Tears Of A Clown
Dave Stewart & Colin Blunstone ~ What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted
Bananarama & Fun Boy Three ~ Really Saying Something
Paul Young ~ Wherever I Lay My Hat
Kim Wilde ~ You Keep Me Hangin' On
The Communards ~ Never Can Say Goodbye
Robert Palmer ~ Mercy Mercy Me - I Want You
Mariah Carey ~ I'll Be There
The Blind Boys of Alabama ~ Higher Ground
Phil Collins ~ Blame It On The Sun
Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller & Jools Holland ~ I Heard It Through The Grapevine