The Miracles' First Records

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The Miracles' First Records; at last!
Topic Started: Aug 20 2009, 09:37 AM (27 Views)
panzer the great & terrible	Aug 20 2009, 09:37 AM Post #1
Mouth Breather Posts: 10,356 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	My introduction to the Motown Sound came a few years before the Supremes and the Four Tops cracked the Top 40. It was 1962, and at a party somebody played an album with an unfamiliar logo -- the word TAMLA arced above a globe -- and with the title Cookin' With the Miracles. The second song, "Everybody's Got to Pay Some Dues," electrified me with its sinuous, semi-Latin beat and worldly-wise lyric. I searched for the album and finally found it in D.C., along with its predecessor, Hi, We're the Miracles, which last yielded three classics, "You Can Depend On Me," "Shop Around," and "Money (That's What I Want)," but other than that wasn't nearly as good, and actually had a song as wretched as I had ever heard. But on Cookin' there was no filler. If Smokey hadn't written enough tunes, he threw in a Gershwin tune instead of some garbage. It wasn't long before my favorite Miracles album appeared, I'll Try Something New, with one side of Smokey originals, and a second side mostly well-chosen standards like "Speak Low" and "I've Got You Under My Skin." I played it until the first side was worn out and was unable to find another copy. Now, 55 years later, Hip-O Select.com has released a limited 2-CD edition of the first five Miracles albums (including a live one) plus three non-LP singles and two bonus tracks. The sound is impeccable, the material superior, and the performances...well, I don't have to tell anybody the Miracles were good. In the beginning there were six official Miracles: William "Smokey" Robinson, his wife Claudette, her cousin Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore, and electric guitarist Marv Tarplin. What they set out to do was what Motown kingpin Berry Gordy insisted his artists do: make records for everybody, not just the African-American public, and the Miracles laid the foundation for the sound that did just that, and that ultimately had as much to do with race relations as with music, because white teenagers bought these records; and because they had the foresight to use standards, their parents didn't object. A revolution had begun. I could argue that this cultural revolution had more effect that all the politics of the Civil Rights Movement, but there's no way to prove it. What can't be denied is that Motown put the Movement in a lot of homes all over the world where people were blissfully unaware of racial politics. Panzer's top recommendation. A dream come true. Jump on this, folks, it's a limited release, and when it's gone, it's gone. Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Aug 20 2009, 05:54 PM.
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