Motown Anthologies

As part of my building a music collection, I've sometimes you have to choose between buying whole individual albums and buying recordings that only hits such as compilations either because of economics (albums may be very expensive if out of print) or many of their hit recordings were not on the albums.
For many Motown artists from the 60's, albums were a secondary consideration to the 45's typically containing a couple of hits, their reverse sides and then 8 cover versions so in many ways the compilation if chosen with care makes more sense.

This is a trade advertisement for one of a series released around 1973 and 1974, a 33 track retrospective by Marvin Gaye starting with his hit 45 Stubborn Kind of Fellow from 1963 to his then last studio album Let's Get It On featuring his duets with Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Tammi Terrell and Diana Ross. Like the ad, my copy is the UK edition.

I also have the Gladys Knight and the Pips, Stevie Wonder and Junior Walker and the All Stars volumes although I don't own the Diana Ross & the Supremes (have both UK volumes of "Greatest Hits" instead), Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Temptations volumes also issued at the time.

 Junior Walker's Anthology is desert island material for me being very distinctive borrowing a lot from jazz.

That one wasn't out for long as Stevie Wonder didn't care much for it issuing Looking Back on November 30th 1977 instead although I feel it's the best selection of his pre Talking book output.It wasn't issued in the UK but imported especially for that market in its three lp plus booklet form.

Also in the series is the Temptations one covering from The Way You Do The Things You Do to 1972's All Directions album.

My copy is the US edition. I also own the 1973 1990 album in a UK pressing STMA 8006

This was issued in late 1973 but not officially part of the Anthology series although in many respects being a double album with all the Four Tops hits up to 1972 on it it almost certainly should be.
Apart from find good stereo recordings, each set has a full colour insert with background capsule, essay and exclusive pictures.

I have the two UK single lps of Diana Ross and the Supremes Greatest Hits as issued in 1968 and 1970 that have most of the tracks featured in the 1974 Anthology set as well as the 1974 'new' Supremes Greatest Hits covering the Ross less recordings from 1970 thru 1973 such as Up The Ladder  To Roof, Nathan Jones, Floy Joy and Bad Weather.