Kim Weston – Helpless
Kim Weston
Listen/Download Kim Weston – Helpless
Greetings all
The middle of the week is upon us, and I don’t know about you but I could certainly do with a little uplift right about now.
Kim Weston may not be the best known of Motown’s great female singers, but she had a very respectable run with the label, scoring five hits for various Motown labels between 1963 and 1967, two of them duets with Marvin Gaye.
The tune I bring you today, ‘Helpless’ is by far my favorite side she recorded for the organization (he had 45s released on both Tamla and Gordy), and while it wasn’t her biggest hit, it did skirt the R&B Top 10 in 1965.
Written and produced by Holland, Dozier and Holland, ‘Helpless’ is an upbeat dancer, with and interesting melody and an exceptional arrangement.
The guitar and percussion are fairly standard mid-period Motown (thus, amazing) but the horns deserve special mention.
‘Helpless’ opens up fairly quietly, but when the horns come in, they push the song forward, giving it rhythmic propulsion before the drums enter the mix.
The backing vocals are especially interesting as well.
When the baritone sax solo comes in, the package is complete.
Weston was – like so many of the female singers at Motown not named Diana Ross – underused/underappreciated by the label, which no doubt contributed to she and her husband, composer/producer/A&R man Mickey Stevenson leaving and moving on to a deal with MGM.
Weston would record a few LPs and a number of 45s for MGM before moving on to record for Volt, People, and eventually her own, Volt-distributed custom label Mikim.
I hope you dig the track and I’ll see you all on Friday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
I haven’t heard a lot of her stuff, but Kim Weston is one of my faves. Thanks!
Seems like The Gibb brothers channeled the essence of this track into ‘Chain Reaction’ for Diana Ross.