Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
The Miracles
Hi... We're The Miracles
(Tamla, 1961)
A genius is announced.
The first of many exceptional groups lured to Berry Gordy's nascent Motown empire, The Miracles also housed arguably the very finest American songwriter of his generation. Smokey Robinson's melodic flair and facility with a metaphor would influence pop and rock writers on both sides of the Atlantic, and even on this first album his gifts gleam, from its surprising beginning to its heart-tugging close.
Kicking off the Miracles LP career, Who's Lovin' You had been a hit but doesn't sound like an album opener. A ballad of bereft emotion and a shattered heart, it nonetheless sets the mood. Track 2, Depend On Me delivers a message of solidity and reliability in almost exactly the same tone, at a very similar tempo and with the same warming effect. This would be one of Smokey's calling cards - the ability to wring equal measure of pain and pleasure from two almost identical pieces of (his own) material. The album only picks up tempo with track four, 1960's Number 2 US pop hit Shop Around, and even here the drummer's still using brushes.
Motown debuts tended to hark back to their prehistory and Hi... is no exception. Cause I Love You is a real throwback as Smokey and Ronnie White, who had recorded as Ron & Bill (there was a novelty Tamla single, It, in 1959, before the Miracles made wax under their own name) sing it as a duet, rather in the manner of Love Is Strange. Robinson's wife Claudette sings lead on After All and it's a great shame that debilitating shyness restricted her work because she had a strong voice: assertive, clear and emotional. But the abiding impression is of the strengths of Smokey's writing. Take Way Over There, a clever mixture of doo-wop and rock'n'roll adorned with gospel-suggestive imagery ("get to the other side"), all squeezed into under three minutes: another early masterpiece of Smokey Robinson concision.
Ten of the 11 songs on this record are Smokey's. For the Miracles, he would maintain that level of output throughout the decade, while writing hits of equal stature for Mary Wells, The Temptations, The Marvelettes and many others in the Detroit dynasty. "Don't mess with Bill," sang The Marvelettes, and with good reason.
Geoff Brown
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 28/09/2009
Further Listening
The Temptations - Meet The Temptations (Motown, 1965)
Four Tops - Four Tops (Motown, 1965)
Martha & The Vandellas - Come And Get These Memories (Motown, 1963)
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