Among the other Robinson songs that featured Ms. Young’s voice were “I’ll Keep Holding On,” a 1965 release that peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard chart; “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,” which rose to No. 13 in 1967; and “My Baby Must Be a Magician,” which hit No. 17 in 1968.
Here's the History of Rock Music in 500 Songs episode about The Marvellettes:
After a couple of flop follow-ups to “Too Many Fish in the Sea”, Smokey Robinson took over their production, and decided to start using Wanda as the lead vocalist, rather than Gladys [Horton], who had sung lead on their hits up to that point. “Don’t Mess With Bill”, their first single of 1966, became their first top ten pop hit since “Playboy” in early 1962....
Robinson also wrote the marvellous “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game” for the group... Or, at least, he wrote it for Wanda. By this point, while the records were getting released as by “the Marvelettes”, Robinson was only using Wanda for lead vocals, and having the Andantes sing all the backing vocals. The explanation for this was generally that the group were on tour all the time, and it was easier to make the records without them and then get Wanda just to sing the lead, and the other members reluctantly accepted that, but it rankled....
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6 comments:
Growing up in Motown I loved it all. Smokey remains one of my all-time favorites. It was interesting to me to learn from a doc this past year just how much he had a hand on most all of the productions that came out of Motown.
Wanda Young did have that little sexy voice, by the way.
Jim Croce's Jim would have wiped the floor with Bill.
Is it weird that Croce give his archetypal bully his own first name? Or that I have a hard time thinking of "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" and "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" as two different songs? Or that Croce wasn't accused of cultural appropriation in the Seventies?
Where did all the wonderful "ears" go? Robinson, McCartney, Wilson, King, Bacharach, et. al. The 60's had great music in spades. Last year W.A.P. (Wet Ass Pussy) won the Grammy. Google the lyrics. It's a double dog dare.
Those beehive hairdos with the big bows are amazing. It may have been the fashion then, but they totally steal the scene now. You can't avoid looking at them. And I'll bet those bows were yellow.
I had to stop listening to that podcast. His audio levels were terrible. I always found his voice quiet and would have to turn it up. Then he would play music and it would be so loud.
"The 60's had great music in spades."
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Careful...turn that sentence around a little bit, and the "wokerati" will detect racism.
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