Customer Reviews

Early Classics

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A wonderful import album for the Motown Fan. This collection does give you different tracks than that of the also wonderful 35th anniversary box set. This disc features the ballad "Would I Love You" from 1964 which was left off the box set. Other cuts like "If You Mother Only Knew" and "Such Is Love, Such Is Life" give the listener a chance to experience the maturation of Smokey as a songwriter and singer. Recommended for the Motown fan like myself.

I own many albums by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, but out of all of the albums and collections, this is the one that I will listen to most often. The songs on here are all essential, and some of them are very difficult to find otherwise. This album comes with my highest recommendation, and if I had to own just one Miracles album, it would be this one.

Apart from acting as a useful sampler to newcomers to early Motown, the Early Classics series also serves the useful purpose of putting back into catalogue some B-sides and album tracks that cannot otherwise be found on CD, despite the lumbering re-issue programme currently underway.

More than any other performing artist, Smokey Robinson was responsible for getting the Motown imprints off the ground with founder Berry Gordy, his administrative and business skills being matched by his talents as singer, writer, producer and arranger. All of these are clearly evidenced by the 18 tracks on offer here, including eight A-sides, though all of these
are readily available elsewhere. The set begins with the timeless single Tracks Of My Tears and goes out with a bang on the fabulous Going To A Go-Go.

There are three non-album B-sides here: You Never Miss A Good Thing (B-side of I'll Try Something New), If Your Mother Only Knew (B-side of Way Over There) and Would I Love You (flip of That's What Love Is made Of). Would I Love You can be found on Lost And Found - Along Came Love in a longer mix, and in a new stereo mix on The Motown Box, but the others don't seem to be currently in catalogue. The other B-sides also appeared on albums, but not all of these are in print at the moment.

Therefore this album affords a unique opportunity to hear tracks from Cookin' With The Miracles, I'll Try Something New, The Fabulous Miracles and The Miracles Doin' Mickey's Monkey. I had never heard Determination before, knowing it only in a later version by the Contours. I was especially pleased to hear the three dance tracks from The Miracles Doin' Mickey's Monkey, in stereo mixes, these being Major Lance's Monkey Time, the Orlons' The Wah-Watusi, featuring a rare lead vocal from Claudette Robinson, and the Holland-Dozier-Holland original I Gotta Dance To Keep From Crying. Also in stereo are the five tracks from the album Going To A Go-Go, though this album is easy to obtain. Motown love their mono mixes and all the other tracks included are not in stereo.

The earlier tracks, both ballads and up-tempo rockers, have quite a raw quality, which is precisely what I like about them. They have a passion and a lack of inhibition that is far removed from the music Smokey and the Miracles were to make later in their careers. A recommended delve into a rich back catalogue, especially when available so inexpensively.