Was HANK the 1st BN artist to cover a MOTOWN song?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

is hanks 1968 REACH OUT lp the 1st BN to feature a song/s made famous on the MOTOWN label?

[Chas]

No .

Offhand I can think of two earlier ones - Big John Patton did Ain't That Peculiar on Got A Good Thing Goin' in 1966 , and Stanley Turrentine did Ain't No Mountain High Enough in the summer of '67 ( first issued in 1979 on the lp New Time Shuffle ) . There are no doubt others .

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Blue Mitchell recorded "High heel sneakers" two months BEFORE Stevie Wonder had a hit with the song

I think if there had been any that Chas didn't find, they'd probably have showed up in my collection; there aren't any.

So it looks like Big John is the winner.

MG