Very Best of
Rare Earth were an oddity at Motown: a white rock group, led by a singing drummer named Peter Rivera, playing covers of Motown standards (their first big hit was a stinging take on theTemptations' "Get Ready") in a variation on a house style that had more to do withGrand Funk Railroadthan funk. But they had a string of moderate hits at the beginning of the '70s (and one final gasp in 1978, with theBee Gees-written disco number "Warm Ride"), the best of them penned and produced by the ingenious Norman Whitfield. Their psychedelic shoogity-boogity brought out the jam-worthy side of the Sound of Young America--in fact, several of the hits included here are edited down from much longer workouts.--Douglas Wolk