Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: The Bards of Motor City

Why Going to a Go-Go is Motown at its most poetic and pure

Welcome music lovers to a new edition of ‘Listening Sessions’!

Last time, I turned over this space to a great guest post by Tim Riley of the riley rock report on the Eagles’ Hotel California. I contributed my own reflection on the album as the lead essay to Tim’s Substack. If you didn’t catch it, it’s below and also includes Tim’s narration of his blistering essay.

The No-Fun Zone of Hotel California

This time around here, I have written about one of the great albums (maybe the greatest) of Motown’s first glorious era: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Going to a Go-Go. The album leads with four of the group’s most well-loved singles and follows with deeper gems such as the ballads ‘Choosey Beggar’ and ‘A Fork in the Road.’ I hope you enjoy it and will share your thoughts as well.

Coming next month will be a trio of essays. Up first will be a reflection of the work of Chips Moman and American Sound Studio focusing on the Box Tops, B.J. Thomas, Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield and others to be followed by pieces on Curtis Mayfield’s solo debut and a long-promised dive into the Beau Brummels, the sixties band above all others I wish more knew about.

Until next time, may good listening be with you all!

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In the liner notes that jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason penned for Simon & Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, he included a list of songwriters who were “putting feeling and truth and meaning into popular song” and turning around the perception “that the music of youth is at best only trivial rhymes and silly teenage noise, and at worse offensive.” Gleason was quick off the mark to realize that something important was happening in the mid sixties to pop music. Included on his list were the obvious choices: Dylan, Mick Jagger, Lennon and McCartney, and John Sebastian, as well as more prescient selections: Marty Balin, Phil Ochs and Tim Hardin. Twelve men in total were named. Notably absent was Brian Wilson but most astutely, Smokey Robinson was included.

In 1966, Robinson was not only fronting one of Motown’s top groups, the Miracles, he was also one of the label's most bankable songwriters and producers. If James Brown was the hardest working man in show business at the time, Robinson may well have been the hardest-working man at Motown.

He and the Miracles had met Berry Gordy, Jr. in 1957, two years before the impresario founded the Motown empire. The Miracles’ ‘Shop Around,’ issued at the end of 1960, was the first of many times that Gordy, Jr. would strike gold.

One of the reasons why Motown had such a hold on the imagination and record-buying habits of the music-loving public was, in my opinion, how each of its marquee groups occupied a niche within the production-team and Funk-Brothers framework under which everyone worked.

A record by the Temptations—Robinson was their primary producer and songwriter for most of the David Ruffin era—had a romantic, dreamy sheen that contrasted with the Four Tops—guided by Holland - Dozier - Holland until they left the Motown fold in 1967—who plumbed the urgent and existential stakes of love. A Miracles side (Robinson’s name would be front and centre starting in 1965) was often clever or poignantly beautiful. They also tangibly sounded different in several key ways.

Robinson’s voice had a weightlessness to it that would make a lyrical phrase soar. He could a caress a ballad like the most attentive of lovers but still drive a rhythmic number without sacrificing his innately pretty and brittle timbre. He also alighted perfectly on the high-end of the wide harmony of his groupmates: Claudette Robinson—who was married to Smokey from 1959 to 1986—Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore and Ronnie White.

As good a song as any to hear this unique sound is ‘That’s What Love Is Made Of’ which squeezed onto the Billboard Top 40 in 1964. Before Robinson and the rest of the group begin a classic call-and-response, there is a brief introduction played by Marv Tarplin, the group’s guitarist and a frequent songwriting partner of Robinson.

Each verse illustrates the dichotomy of romance with the first cleverly interpolating the nursery rhymes What Are Little Boys Made Of and What Are Little Girls Made Of. In some ways, the song is a rehash of the rhythm and cadence of ‘I Like It Like That,’ the Miracles’ previous single. ‘That’s What Love Is Made Of’ sticks a bit more because it returns over and over again to the sound of Smokey on the high end, Moore on the low end with Claudette sweetening things similar to how Zola Taylor did with the Platters. A lot of territory is covered in that blend and that Moore’s bass comes through as solidly as it does adds heft and gospel soul to the sound. Handclaps as well as foot stomps fatten the Funk Brothers’ backbeat. ‘That’s What Love Is Made Of’ is an ecstatic listen, brimming with the confidence and brio of a group and label on the rise.

A big reason for this ascension was the songs of Smokey Robinson. He had a way with words like few others at the time.

Consider ‘The Tears of a Clown.’ Amid a big-top bacchanalia—the music was written by Stevie Wonder (discovered by White of the Miracles) and Henry Cosby—Robinson wrote lines like “now if I appear to be carefree / it’s only to camouflage my sadness / in order to shield my pride, I try / to cover this hurt with a show of gladness.” A bit later there is a reference to Pagliacci. There’s a lot of multisyllabic words in the song and Robinson makes them all flow naturally to fuel the muscular groove of the backing track. Soul music in Robinson's hands emphasized that it was a poetic music.

Once asked what his favourite Robinson lyric was, Elvis Costello cited these lines from Martha & The Vandellas’ ‘No More Tearstained Makeup’: “and no sponge has the power / to absorb the constant shower / of what pancake and powder could never cover.” Here’s another, this time from ‘Ooo Baby Baby’: “I’m just about at the end of my rope / but I can’t stop trying / I can’t give up hope.”

‘Ooo Baby Baby’ was a top 20 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in 1965 and was the third track on their seventh LP, Going to a Go-Go. Efforts to create a canon of the so-called best albums of all time have often advanced an argument for its placement in it. Early attempts by British radio announcer Paul Gambaccini in 1977 and 1987 to create such a canon included it both times; first at #95 and then at #97. In the multiple attempts that Rolling Stone has made to create a top-500 albums list, Going to a Go-Go has been there each time. By contrast, it is nowhere to be found in the 1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die collection.

Now to even begin to argue the merits of such lists is a fool’s errand if ever there was one but Going to a Go-Go's almost universal ubiquity on them does say something interesting. After all, Motown remained a singles-driven company for years after the album began to occupy a place of supremacy in popular music. The sequencing of Going to a Go-Go almost begs to emphasize Motown's focus on 45s, starting as it does with four big hits (all but the title track charted prior to the album’s release). Yet, the effect is something quite different than luring the listener in with the best tracks up front and praying he or she won’t quickly turn off the album once the deeper cuts start.

‘The Tracks of My Tears’ begins things. It leads with a plaintive pattern played by Tarplin that ushers in a brief introduction by the Miracles with the Funk Brothers. Robinson then sings, “people say I’m the life of the party / ’cause I tell a joke or two…” The conceit of ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ is a common one to be sure: laughing to keep from crying, but Robinson relays it in an uncommon way. The conflict between the outer and the inner self is illustrated in a heart-wrenching way: the smile that looks a little bit too forced, the barely visible line on the face of recently shed tears, references to masquerade parties and clowns (something Robinson would revisit soon after) and the admission that, “if you see me with another girl / looking like I’m having fun / although she may be cute, she’s just a substitute.”

The song now stands as an edifice, one of the defining landmarks of Motown of the sixties. Stepping back from its iconic status, ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ reveals a well-honed formula: a short introduction followed by an AABA structure that utilizes hooks that quickly make the song memorable and well serve its lyrical content.

‘My Girl’ and ‘Since I Lost My Baby,’ two of the notable ballads that Robinson oversaw for the Temptations, are both exemplars of it. Think of the ecstatic “hey, hey, hey” section on the former and the staccato link between the bridge and A section of the latter. Think as well of the other ballads on Going to a Go-Go.

‘The Tracks of My Tears’ is the first, ‘Ooo Baby Baby’ is the second. The concern shifts from shielding one’s vulnerability to openly and unashamedly expressing it. With a tempo just a hair faster than a dirge, Robinson sings as if he is on his hands and knees, confessing his sins to his beloved, and begging for forgiveness and a second chance. Occasional vocal lines sweep up into the falsetto range, underlining the shattering impact of hearing such a nakedly emotional song that neither resorts nor devolves to histrionics.

Sandwiched between them on the album is something else entirely. To a certain extent, ‘Going to a Go-Go’ offers an invitation to an escape from the grind of the everyday like on Petula Clark's big hits ‘Downtown’ and ‘I Know a Place.’ But where Clark’s respites were British and brassy, Robinson’s motors like a Detroit-built automobile. It’s powered by a hypnotic rhythmic pattern by Benny Benjamin on drums, Eddie “Bongo” Brown on percussion and Jack Ashford on tambourine. Burning right along is a popping bass line by James Jamerson and tough chords by Tarplin. There’s a brass fanfare at the end of each chorus. The grit of the backing track juts up against the elegant harmonies of the Miracles and the pretty yet glued-tight-to-the-beat vocal by Robinson.

‘Going to a Go-Go’ is part of a line of hard-driving, urban slices of life that Motown was pumping out in 1965 such as Martha and the Vandellas’ ‘Dancing in the Street’ and ‘Nowhere to Run,’ the Four Tops’ ‘It’s the Same Old Song’ and Kim Weston’s ‘Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While).’ They marked an evolution from its simpler, leaner sound of the early sixties.

Part of Going to a Go-Go echoes this earlier era like on ‘In Case You Need Love.’ It emphasizes beat as opposed to groove as does ‘Since You Won My Heart.’ ‘All That’s Good’ highlights the lightening effect of Claudette Robinson’s voice and the smooth bass of Ronald Moore. ‘Let Me Have Some’ has everyone singing in unison. ‘From Head to Toe’ has some of the shout of ‘Turn Up Your Love Light’ and a healthy dose of handclaps on the second verse. If none of these songs register too much, they do hit home the reality that record making in the sixties era included more than just singles.

The fourth straight single on Going to a Go-Go is ‘My Girl Has Gone.’ Another ballad in the established and fruitful mold of such numbers, there is a rush of profound pleasure at the moment of the song’s refrain. The rush of the group as it sings—and here the end of the verse leads directly into the chorus—”my girl has gone and said goodbye” is transcendent. It is equally so on ‘Choosey Beggar,’ the fifth song off the album to chart. Hearing Robinson and the rest of the Miracles go back-and-forth on “and you’re my choice” is a glimpse into the group’s penetrating insight into the sweetness of everyday life that is sincere, not saccharine, and not simply limited to life’s good moments.

‘A Fork in the Road,’ which closes Going to a Go-Go, recognizes that there are pivotal moments—choices, really—that can take one down one of two distinct courses. It’s here that Robinson pens his most poignant lyrics on the album. There’s the acknowledgement by the song’s protagonist of the mistake he made at such a decision point in his now-finished relationship. He puts that experience to use in the following verse: “if there is something that you don’t see eye to eye / you better think before you tell your love goodbye / ’cause your path may never cross again / you make sure you take the same bend / at the fork in love’s road.” Robinson sings these lines with his voice at its most delicate timbre.

There is a wonderful symmetry as the album ends with the Miracles harmonizing on the word “beware,” sung not as a sanctimonious warning but one out of genuine concern that links back to the feel of ‘The Tracks of My Tears.’ As Motown evolved over the rest of the sixties, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles sometimes moved uneasily along. A song like ‘(Come ’Round Here) I’m the One You Need’ tried to capture the urgency of the Four Tops’ ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ or the Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ but felt (and continues to feel) inauthentic. The group would not dabble with psychedelia or chase other trends.

Between 1967 and 1970, the group had a run of hits that seemed outside of their time: ‘More Love,’ ‘I Second That Emotion,’ ‘Doggone Right’ and ‘Special Occasion’ among others. Soon after, Robinson left the group to concentrate on his work as an executive at Motown as well as his family and planning to cease making music. That intention barely lasted a year.

I have always felt that Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were the purest deliverers of the mission of Motown to be “the sound of young America.” and Robinson being its most perceptive poet. Going to a Go-Go is the apex of this beautiful legacy.

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