This was prepared as Part One of a two-part entry for my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Neither part is in the book's current shorter blueprint. If Volume 1 happens, I would aim to include this chapter and its Part Two brother in a Volume 2. Part Two will post here next week.
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
Written by Ricky Matthews [Rick James], John Taylor, Mike Valvano, and R. Dean Taylor
Produced by R. Dean Taylor and Mike Valvano
Recorded in 1966, originally unreleased; included on the various-artists collection Motown Unreleased: 1966, Motown Records, 2016
The Mynah Birds' story is one of pop music's most intriguing almost/what-ifs. The group included both Rick James and Neil Young, and they were set to release a single of "It's My Time"/"Go On And Cry" on Motown in 1966. We can debate genre labels, but I think the Mynah Birds would have been Motown's first rock group. Instead, the single's release was cancelled when James was arrested for being AWOL from the Navy. The Mynah Birds ended, Young and fellow group member Bruce Palmer wound up joining Buffalo Springfield, and Rick James went on to craft '70s and '80s punk funk of his own after leaving the hoosegow.
What might have been? "It's My Time" is a strong pop single, and while there's no guarantee it would have been a hit even if it had been released, one wonders how things could have played out differently. The handful of Mynah Birds tracks that surfaced decades after the fact are intriguing, and I wish we could have been enjoying those tracks, along with more that were never made, over all these years that have passed. I wouldn't want to sacrifice Buffalo Springfield. But the Mynah Birds coulda been something.
That "something" is particularly evident in the track "I Got You (In My Soul)." A bluesy number that would not have sounded at all out of place on an early Yardbirds or Stones album, "I Got You (In My Soul)" could have brought the vintage sound of Chess Records to Motown, infused with the energy of the R 'n' B faction of the British Invasion. Instead, circumstances consigned it to the vault for decades. All four of the Mynah Birds tracks that Motown eventually exhumed for compilations in the 21st century have been fascinating; if there's more stuff still to be unearthed, I would be delighted to give Motown some of my hard-earned cash in exchange for a Mynah Birds album.
NEXT WEEK: Part Two, about a very kinky girl.
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