Music : Jimmy Ruffin - Motown's Greatest Hits

Rating: - More than just What becomes of the broken hearted
Jimmy Ruffin's brother David was a member of the Temptations, so talent was obviously in the blood. However, Jimmy was somewhat fortunate to hit big with What becomes of the broken hearted. Diana Ross and the Supremes had recorded it and their version was intended for release as a single. Jimmy heard their version soon after it was recorded and begged Motown to let him record it, and to hold the Supremes version until they heard his. The rest is history. The original Supremes version, which is excellent and would have been a huge hit for them, appeared on one of their albums, but Jimmy's version, which is even better, was released as a single and became a huge hit in Britain, America and elsewhere.

The Supremes could afford to lose the competition for What becomes of the broken hearted, but it turned out to be the biggest hit Jimmy ever had. Jimmy had a few minor hits in America but was more successful in Britain where I'll say forever my love and It's wonderful proved that he was more than a one-hit wonder.

All those hits are to be found here, together with many other great songs that Jimmy recorded for Motown. These include covers of Stand by me, on which his brother David joins Jimmy, and This guy's in love with you.

Jimmy Ruffin was not Motown's most important singer, but he recorded some great music and this is the most comprehensive collection available. More recent collections have been re-mastered with better sound quality, but the sound here is plenty good enough and a lot of these tracks are not available on any other CD.

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Rating: - All the Motown hits, anyway
This U.K. Motown issue CD collection is the first Jimmy Ruffin to contain ALL his top-100 pop hits from his Soul label days. Considering he had (only) seven, it's odd that none of the other JR compilations include them all. The recently released domestic Millennium Collection neglected his last Soul label charter, "Maria (You Were The Only One)". The much darker tone of this tune, considerably different most of his earlier sides, may have been the reason for its neglect. The Spectrum import, although containing 18 tracks, leaves off two of his hits. From the standpoint of completeness along with the most number of tracks then, this is the best choice. Sound quality-wise however, the Millennium collection would take an edge. The sound quality on this piece is pretty good overall but there is notable distortion in the beginning parts of track three and substantial sandiness on track 16. On the plus side is that all tracks except two are stereo versions, unlike the Millennium CD. The major fault in all these collections is the omission of Ruffin's 1980 top-10 hit, "Hold On To My Love". At least this piece admits this limitation in that it titles itself as his Motown hits. Considering that song was done on RSO and all these labels are now under Universal's music belt, it should not have been an obstacle to include that track in this collection. The liner notes here are limited to a listing of the included tracks and again, the Millenium CD is a bit better in that respect. While "hits" make up only seven of the twenty tracks here, many of these sides are well-constructed tunes, most with a single-issue quality making the disc enjoyable for Ruffin fans all the way through. Although pricier, this CD has nearly twice as many tracks and overall would get the edge over the Millennium piece unless one is satisfied with the much more abbreviated repertoire provided there.