A reissue of the live album that topped U.S. charts in early 1969, T.C.B. intersperses some serious pleasures with an approximately equal number of bona fide bummers.
On the one hand, the Supremes deliver spirited readings of evergreens like “Stop! In the Name of Love” and “Come See About Me”; the Temptations, meanwhile, apply their patented vocal gymnastics to such classics as “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Much of the other material, however, sounds enough like mere product to suggest why the album’s moniker stands for Taking Care of Business. Thanks to Motown’s late 60s effort to sell a universally appealing “Sound of Young America,” the overall ambiance here seems more suited to Vegas than to Detroit; and the program is marred by enervated, homogenized schlock like “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “The Impossible Dream.”