"Smokey Robinson & The Miracles I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" Mono/Stereo "Motown"
"Smokey Robinson & The Miracles I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" Mono/Stereo
On side 2 of the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' album "Away We A Go-Go," we find the group singing a wonderful cover of Dusty Springfield's cover of Tommy Hunt's cover of future-Motown singer Chuck Jackson's original recording of this composition by Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David (do you have all that straight?)
This is one of Smokey's best interpretations of non-Motown material and the Miracles sound absolutely spot-on in the mix. It's a nice, big production complete with dramatic stops-and-starts, quiet, reflective passages countered with big-climaxing sections and all wrapped in a massive font of gentle, chiming vibraphones, atmosphere-enhancing, distant-sounding horns (that sound as if they were being played in an entirely different zip code,) sweeping strings and the massed vocals of an extraterrestrial choir to enlarge upon the Miracles' voices.
I could listen to this All. Day. Long. (Note for those who like this kind of stuff: if you listen very, very, very, VERY closely during the intro of the mono version, I swear you can hear someone making a comment in the first few seconds. Unfortunately, I had to pull the mono version from vinyl- and even with going through four (4!) different mono albums, I couldn't get a crackle-free recording!)
Technical stuff for Motown Nerds: this was recorded twice. The first version was recorded in N.Y. and Detroit. It wasn't released. The second version made the album and was recorded fully in N.Y.
Check out the site "Don't Forget The Motor City" http://www.dftmc.info/titles/ti-05.htm
I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (Hal David-Burt Bacharach) published Quartet/Belinda
1. The Miracles; recorded N.Y. / Hitsville, completed 30-Jun-66 ; produced by Michael Gentile ; [v1]
30-Dec-16; MP3 (M): UMC Digital Release Motown Unreleased 1966
15-Dec-17; CD (M): Motown B0027684-02 Motown Unreleased 1966
2. The Miracles; recorded N.Y., completed 15-Jul-66 ; produced by Michael Gentile ; [v2]
16-Nov-66; LP (M): Tamla T271 Away We A Go-Go
Dec-66; LP (S): Tamla S271 Away We A Go-Go
Jan-87; CD (S): Motown TCDO 8050 TD Doin' Mickey's Monkey / Away We A Go-Go
07-May-01; CD (S): Motown 013 358 2 Going To A Go-Go / Away We A Go-Go [UK]
26-Mar-02; CD (S): Motown 017 227 2 Going To A Go-Go / Away We A Go-Go
17-Jun-02; CD (S): Motown 016 862 2 Motown Salutes Bacharach [UK]
07-May-07; CD (S): Reader's Digest RDCD 5601-3 The Ultimate Motown Collection - Motown Makeover
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