The Bells. The Originals. 1970. Motown.

In our current time, as the conceit of self-empowerment is being proselytized with the fervor of a religious doctrine, it’s almost refreshing to be reminded of the theme of vulnerability. Produced by Marvin Gaye, The Bells is about those crises of anxiety and paranoia that can attack and annihilate reason when you find yourself so infatuated with someone that you begin to question or doubt that person’s depth of feeling for you. The record exudes a pathos that’s wildly expressive. The two lead vocalists, Henry Dixon and C.P. Spencer, push their voices wonderfully to stylized extremes in order to capture a sense of an overburdened lover’s intensity of feeling. Gaye then mixes in a chorus of  backing vocals that sound like a throwback to the great vocal stylists of the doo wop fifties. The kaleidoscoping harmonies are a virtuoso rendering of the routine alternating cycle of adult love’s comfort and worry. I wish there existed video footage of Gaye exhorting his studio mentees to drive themselves further and further across the threshold of romantic ecstasy before being lowered back to earth by the gentle yet mighty spoken voice of Freddie Gorman, the man who co-wrote Please Mr Postman while carrying mail for the United States Postal Service. There’s a maturity to The Bells that Gaye helped to score for both the Originals, and for Motown, with the single, and that he’d take to even greater heights on his own forthcoming opus, hints of which can already be heard in Eli Fontaine’s alto sax heard throughout The Bells’ backing track. It was this maturity that also prompted Gaye to privately reconsider his values, and to begin to move in another, radically different direction. After a lapse into creative paralysis he was ready once again to help alter the course of the States’ pop culture.

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