DAVID RUFFIN -“I CAN’T BE HURT ANYMORE“ (1971)

It’s well known that Motown recorded more material than it could release, but its reasons for shelving material remain a mystery to this day. Ever since the CD reissue boom of the late ’80s, this unreleased material has begun to trickle out of the vaults, and when it does surface in such forms as the dynamite double-disc set A Cellarful of Motown!, the music is so good it’s hard to believe that it never was released at the time. Knowing this, it should not come as a complete surprise that former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin had a full, completed album shelved in 1971, but hearing Hip-O Select’s excavation of that album on the 2004 release David: The Unreleased Album, it’s still a wonder that this record sat in the vaults for over three decades, with very few of the songs recorded during the sessions appearing on other records and compilations over the years. Far from being unreleasable, David (titled as such because the album was never given a proper title -- it was given a cat