David Ruffin: The Unreleased Album (Motown/UMG).

Initially released as a download-only product through ITunes, The Unreleased Album was recently issued on CD and is thankfully available to a much wider audience. The 19 songs comprising the album came from several Ruffin projects that were aborted during his legal and personal troubles with the label following his firing from the Temptations in 1968 and his solo career that began the following year. Rather than being a thrown together mish-mosh of inferior tracks that should have never seen the light of day, Unreleased is filled with covers (most notably the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" and Brook Benton's "Rainy Night in Georgia") and originals ("I've Got A Need For You," "Let Somebody Love Me") that feature performances as strong as Ruffin's Temptations-era leads. It has a forward-looking intensity and inspiration that mirrors his work on My Whole World Ended (1969), the classic early and 1975's Walk Away From Love. Serving as a bridge of sorts over the period between the aforementioned LPs, Unreleased provides a bittersweet glimpse at what might have been, as well as what might not.

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Juba Kalamka is a founding member of the queer hip-hop group Deep Dickollective and creator of the label Sugartruck Recordings. Send suggestions for review to [e-mail].