The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup. The Complete Pye Collection (@320)

 

The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup. The Complete Pye Collection

Build Me Up Buttercup: The Complete Pye Collection Review by Richie Unterberger.

Whoever thought the day would come when the Foundations would be honored with a three-CD set? Now that it's found us, though, the job's certainly been done with admirable completeness, the 60 songs including everything they did for Pye -- a period that covers virtually everything of interest the band recorded, mostly dating from 1967-1970. That means there's not only everything from their singles and albums (including the whole of the late-'60s live LP Rockin' the Foundations), but also five solo tracks (most or all of them from the early '70s) recorded by original Foundations lead singer Clem Curtis; the mid-'70s single by the New Foundations, led by Curtis; and an unnecessary 12" 1989 remix of "Baby Now That I've Found You." Like many such vault-cleaning anthologies of bands with one or two big hits, though, it's musically erratic. At their best, the Foundations credibly emulated horn-backed American vocal group soul, often mixed with mainstream British pop influences, flecked with a hint of ska/bluebeat and Georgie Fame here and there. But it's those one or two big hits -- in their case, "Baby Now That I've Found You" and "Build Me Up Buttercup" -- that are easily the best items here. Too many of the other songs have lesser echoes of those two hits, which may be unsurprising given that so many of their recordings were written by the Tony Macaulay-John MacLeod team who wrote "Baby Now That I've Found You" (Macaulay co-wrote "Build Me Up Buttercup" too, though with Mike d'Abo, not MacLeod). For those inclined to dig this deep, there are indications of unusual and interestingly different dimensions to the group on some of the relatively infrequent original compositions, like the ominous psychedelic-influenced "New Direction," Curtis' Sam Cooke-like "Tomorrow," Colin Young's funky "Give Me Love," and the mighty progressive funk of the instrumental workouts "In the Beginning" and "Where the Fire Burns." Pat Burke's "A Walk Through the Trees," moving the latter's tenor sax into a rare center-stage spot, is also worth hearing, and this group's version of "That Same Old Feeling" (later a hit for their Pye labelmates Pickettywitch) is also worth hearing, if only for the relative prominence of Alan Warner's chiming rhythm guitar. Most admirers of the group will be content with a single-disc greatest-hits collection, but for more serious fans this roundup is a valuable service, and the live album -- promised for reissue on CD in the late '90s -- comes off better here and more credible than most of us remember it. The absence of original release date information (except for the year of issue) for each track is unfortunate, however, and the annotation is a bit disappointing -- on most of these Castle/Sanctuary vault raids of the Pye vaults, there's almost too much information, but here there's too little.

Tracklist:

Disc 1:

01. Baby, Now That I Found You

02. Come On Back to Me

03. Back On My Feet Again

04. I Can Take or Leave Your Loving

05. Hold Me Just a Little While Longer

06. Love Is a Five Letter Word

07. Call Me

08. Show Me

09. Jerkin' the Dog

10. A Whole New Thing

11. The Writing's On the Wall

12. Mr. Personality Man

13. Any Old Time (You're Lonely and Sad)

14. (We Are) Happy People

15. It's All Right

16. Build Me Up Buttercup (Mono)

17. New Direction

18. Am I Groovin' You

19. Harlem Shuffle (Alternate Take)

20. Tomorrow (Alternate Version)

21. Give Me Love

 

Disc 2:

 

22. My Little Chickadee

23. Till Night Brought Day

24. Waiting On the Shores of Nowhere

25. In the Bad, Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me)

26. A Penny, Sir

27. I Can Feel It

28. Take the Emptiness Away

29. Let the Heartaches Begin

30. A Walk Through the Trees

31. That Same Old Feeling

32. Solomon Grundy

33. Born to Live Born to Die

34. Why Did You Cry

35. Baby I Couldn't See

36. Take a Girl Like You

37. I'm Gonna Be a Rich Man

38. In the Beginning

39. Where the Fire Burns

40. Baby Now That I've Found You ('89 Remix)

 

Disc 3:

 

41. I've Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)

42. Mountain Over the Hill

43. Point of No Return

44. Stand By Your Man

45. Time Alone Will Tell

46. I Need Your Love

47. Something for My Baby

48. Love Is Alright (The Horse) (Live)

49. People Are Funny (Live)

50. Harlem Shuffle

51. Comin' Home Baby (Live)

52. Tomorrow

53. Am I Groovin' You (Live)

54. Back On My Feet Again (Alternate Version)

55. Any Old Time (You're Lonely and Sad) (Alternate Version)

56. Things Get Better (Live)

57. The Look of Love (Live)

58. Stop Her On Sight

59. (We Are) Happy People (Live)

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