1. Need Your Lovin 7:33
2. Behind The Groove 6:05
3. Now That I Have You 5:32
4. Irons In The Fire 3:34				play
5. Portuguese Love 7:50
6. Youg Love 5:31
7. It Must Be Magic 6:10
8. Aladdins Lamp 4:52				play
9. Square Biz 6:27
10. Im A Sucker For Your Love 5:53
11. Deja Vu (Ive Been Here Before) 7:38
12. Fire And Desire (Feat. Rick James) 7:16

A collection of the BIGGEST Motown tracks from one of our best-loved artists. Developed before her untimely death, this album features Teena's top ten R&B hits "I'm A Sucker For Your Love" (a duet with her mentor Rick James), "Behind The Groove" and "Square Biz". Also included is her classic ballad with Rick, "Fire And Desire". We miss you, Teena! ---Editorial Reviews

Singer-songwriter, accomplished musician and producer Teena Marie was born Mary Christine Brockert in California in 1956. She is a successful and acclaimed R&B performer, also known as Lady T.

Marie began her career at Motown in a group as well as backing singer for Smokey Robinson, moving on to work with Rick James for her debut album Wild and Peaceful. The album was the start of a run of commercially and critically successful releases. Following the Lady Talbum, which went gold, It Must Be Magic went platinum, promoted by the single "Square Biz" which is notable in that it provides an early example of rapping. This was followed by Starchild which was her best selling album and gave her a top five hit in the Pop charts with "Lovergirl".

After a detour in to rock n' roll, with the concept album Emerald City, which failed to sell well, she returned to form with Naked to the World. The album provided her with her only No.1 single in "Ooo La La La" which was later covered successfully by the Fugees.

Marie set up her own label, Sarat for the release of Passion Play in 1994, and then took a break of 10 years. She made her come back with La Dona in 2004. The gold-selling album got to No.6 on the Billboard 200 and the single "Still in Love" was nominated for the Grammy for Best hip-hop/R&B Female Vocal Performance.

Her work has been sampled by a long list of performers including Ludacris, Snoop Dogg and Ne-Yo. In addition to providing a new generation of R&B artists with beats and samples, musicians owe Marie another debt. In 1982 she took her record label Motown to court over unpaid royalties. She won the case, and the subsequent judgement, which limits the length of an artist's contract, was referred to as the Brockert Initiative or the Teena Marie Law. ---amazon.com

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CD1:
01 – First Class Love
02 – More Love
03 – Wasn’t I Good To You
04 – Love Just Wouldn’t Be Right
05 – You Got Away					play
06 – Oh Love duet with Ronnie McNeir
07 – Betcha I’ll Prove duet with Ronnie McNeir
08 – My Baby Loves Me – Ronnie McNeir with Teena Marie
09 – White Soul
10 – Can You Do It
11 – Why Can’t I Get Next To You
12 – Co-Pilot To Pilot
13 – Hey Boy					play
14 – Don’t Turn Your Back On Me
15 – Wasn’t I Good To You (1983 mix)
16 – Love Just Wouldn’t Be Right (1983 mix)
17 – You Got Away (1983 mix)
18 – Oh Love duet with Ronnie McNeir (1983 mix)

CD2:
01 – First Class Love (acoustic demo)
02 – Don’t Turn Your Back On Me (acoustic demo)
03 – God Has Created (acoustic demo)
04 – Wasn’t I Good To You (acoustic demo)
05 – Why Can’t I Get Next To You (acoustic demo)
06 – Happiness Is In Your Soul (acoustic demo)
07 – Make You Surrey (acoustic demo)
08 – The Greatest Love Of All Time (acoustic demo)

First Class Love: Rare Tee, a double-disc compilation of previously unreleased recordings, could be seen as a way to cash in on the tragic, early passing of Teena Marie. It could also be viewed a way for Motown and Hip-O Select to capitalize on Teena’s unremitting popularity; from 2004-2009, Teena released three Top Five R&B albums for different labels. However, Lady T, as documented in Brian Chin's liner notes, “proclaimed the music a gift to her long-standing fans.” Just as critical, no shortcuts were taken with the packaging. There are extensive quotes from those who were part of Teena’s personal and professional lives during her protracted incubation process with Motown, along with several archival photos (including a couple where she looks like a folk artist, nothing like a budding funk queen). A handful of these 26 tracks were scattered on compilations and reissues. The majority of them will be brand new to the hardcore fans. An album’s worth of material recorded in 1976 with Ronnie McNeir leads off disc one. These sessions featured Funkadelic’s Billy Nelson (bass) and top-tier session musicians Ray Parker, Jr. (guitar) and Ollie Brown (drums), with McNeir playing his typically lively keyboards while providing background and duet vocals. Certainly not developed as the material Wild and Peaceful, these songs nonetheless could have made for a decent release on Motown subsidiary Prodigal, where McNeir released a 1975 LP. What’s remarkable is how Teena had that voice, even at the age of 20. There are two songs from a later 1976 session with Winston Monseque, who produced Tata Vega's Full Speed Ahead (1976), an album featuring a song co-written by Teena. These are decent, self-written funk grooves that point toward “Behind the Groove” and “Square Biz”; “White Soul” even pays respects to her inspirations à la the rap in the latter. A four-song 1977 session with Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise (Gladys Knight & the Pips, Kiss) yields “Why Can’t I Get Next to You,” an elegant, laid-back number that could have been a minor hit. Four McNeir remixes, put together in 1983 for a shelved project, incorporates drum-machine overdubs and sound chintzy compared to the muscularity of Robbery, Teena’s 1983 album for Epic. Disc two consists of an eight-song acoustic demo session produced by Berry Gordy. If anything, these raw versions -- just Teena and her guitar -- make it apparent that she could have laid down a spectacular career-spanning Unplugged-type release. ---Andy Kellman, allmusic.com

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