Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, “Icon: Love Songs” (Motown, UMe). 3 ½ stars.

The Saw Doctors, “The Further Adventures of The Saw Doctors” CD/DVD Deluxe Limited Edition (Shamtown). 4 stars.

Rarities and Reissues

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, “Icon: Love Songs” (Motown, UMe). 3 ½ stars.

The chemistry between soul singers Marvin Gaye was something truly out of this world.
Listening to the pair sing classics on this album like “Your Precious Love,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” only serves as a beautiful, if bittersweet reminder of the bright shining hours of these two sadly deceased magnificent artists.

Their collaborations have been repackaged a number of times through the years, most comprehensively on “The Complete Duets,” a double CD issued a decade ago.
This is a trimmed down, 12-song budget-line single CD, but it’s still a nice bargain and a solid intro to the duo’s soulful splendor.

At their peak in 1967, Terrell collapsed as the result of brain tumor, while on stage with Gaye at a college in Virginia. She lived to sing again, but several surgeries later she died on March 16, 1970 at the age of 24. Gaye died on April 1, 1984 at the age of 44, after being shot by his father in a domestic dispute.

Tracks to download: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love.”

DVD Spotlight

The Saw Doctors, “The Further Adventures of The Saw Doctors” CD/DVD Deluxe Limited Edition (Shamtown). 4 stars.

One of Ireland’s greatest musical exports, the veteran rollicking Saw Doctors, have pumped up their most recent album with a deluxe, double-disc edition that includes a bonus DVD.

Live songs from a show at Kelly’s in Galway, Ireland last summer are included, starting with one of the hardest driving songs the band has done in years, “Takin’ The Train.”
Along with several other live selections, the DVD features multiple interviews with band members as well as footage of the Docs in the studio.

The album itself finds frontmen/founders Davy Carton and Leo Moran surrounded by one of the steadiest and strongest lineups they’ve had since they started. Drummer Eimhin Cradock delivers a jarring, energetic, rock-solid backbeat that the group has desperately needed, former Waterboy Anthony Thistlethwaite shines on a variety of instruments, and keyboardist Kevin Duffy provides some exceptional complementary textures, notably with his Al Kooper-like runs on the sweetly nostalgic “Indian Summer.”

Tracks to download: “Takin’ The Train,” “Songs and Stars.”

(ital) The Saw Doctors play the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. on Thursday and the Calvin Theatre in Northampton on Sunday, March 6.