![]() With Smokey’s songwriting and his distinctive lead vocal, the Miracles stood out. I’ll gather melodies from birdies that fly I will build you a castle with a tower so high Their songs always had a message, meaning or story and Smokey himself wrote (or co-wrote) all but a handful of the songs they recorded. In the period to 1965, the Miracles got into the US Pop Top 40 thirteen times but, in the same time, only once into the UK Top 40. ![]() The Miracles chart success differed greatly when comparing the US to the UK. Berry also played piano on that track and Marvin Gaye played the drums. It was written by Berry Gordy and Smokey. I initially heard The Miracles in 1961 with their first release in the UK, the wonderful Shop Around, which was a million seller and reached #2 in the US pop charts. After 1972, the Miracles continued Smokey-less, with some success, and Smokey himself embarked on a fruitful solo career. I am going to cover the period until around 1965 when they were just called The Miracles and Andrew is ‘taking up the baton’ for the period they were called Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1965-1972). My (hopefully informative) Howlin’ Wolf Toppermost #177 and Dave Stephens’ excellent Bobby Bland Toppermost #564 show what wonderful music those artists produced and now, in conjunction with Andrew, we are going to attempt to display the attributes of the Miracles up to 1972 when Smokey Robinson left the group. I did not analyse music, I just liked what I liked and music had no colour. Now, nearly sixty years on, these different strands of black music seem distinctly different from each other but I was only in my mid-teens. Loads.īy 1963, my favourite solo artists were Howlin’ Wolf and Bobby Bland, with my favourite group being the Miracles. It helped, too, if you were choosy with what you read in the music press and knew a good record shop or two, because there was a lot of good stuff to find. However, if you looked beyond the Top 30, ignored BBC radio and, instead, selectively listened to Radio Luxembourg as well as, if you could find it, AFN (American Forces Network) ‘the world was your oyster’, musically speaking. Not true – even though there was certainly a lot of dross at that time. Pop music in the very early 1960s, after rock ’n’ roll in the late 1950s and before the Beatles, Rolling Stones and all that followed came on the scene, is generally often looked at as being ‘in the doldrums’ – when nothing much happened.
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