Indispensable! SMOKEY ROBINSON deconstructions of Little Miss Sweetness

[MIKEW-UK]

If you like the Motown sound, this is indispensable [[if you have not heard it before...only 526 views on Youtube...yet amazing stuff).

Smokey Robinson's "Little Miss Sweetness" by Temptations, Isley Brothers and Bobby Taylor. Broken down into all the different ingredients to make up the final recordings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyxuvdu0XlM

[paladin]

Thanks Mike ,that was very enlightening. Hopefully you'll get some good responses, I never would have known some of these things if you had'nt brought them to the table. Well done.......the video contains elements that you simply dont hear on record....Smokey guiding David through the song and his signature guitar chord progressions, great backing vocals ...amazing is right.......!!!!!!!

[MIKEW-UK]

Paladin,

Glad you commented.....I sometimes wonder if anyone's listening out there!

cheers Mike

[snakepit]

Fantastic...
Isn't the same basic track used on both Tempts and Isley's versions..with different "sweetning"...sounds it to me.
Love to hear stuff like this
Also, check out "More Love" link on the same page......
The point about the extra falsetto being Smokey...surely that's Claudette!

[144man]

Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for posting.

[paladin]

Paladin,

Glad you commented.....I sometimes wonder if anyone's listening out there!

cheers Mike


Mike thats part of the subject of the "How Come... ??? SDF members thread"....you're not the only one that feels that way.

[RossHolloway]

I love listening to these songs when they get broken down and the vocals acapella. It's all really quite beautiful.

[splanky]

That was one of the most fascinating things I've seen brought to the forum in a very long time. Maybe the Motown sub forum ever...Thanks Mike, oh and I often enjoy your finds, even if I don't comment. I guess I'd do better to at least say
"thanks". Sorry, as the How Come thread makes clear, we're living in a different world these days...Thanks again...

[MIKEW-UK]

splanky, scanspeak, paladin, 144man, snakepit, Ross, marv, Robbk, soulster, many thanks for your comments.....I now know there are indeed people out there who are interested in the producers, arrangers, composers, musicians, engineers, the studios and the recording process as well as the artists. In my humble opinion they were more vital to the success of The Motown Sound than any individual artist or group. [[This is not to diminish or disrespect any artist/ artists, just to say that it was the SOUND that Motown uniquely created which guaranteed a great performance even if the artist on the record was an unknown, and which prompted so many of us to buy the product without ever hearing it in advance. )

On another note, interesting to see how many viewings each of the four post attracted........I can't figure out why some people read some posts and not others. The Smokey "Being With You" post attracted far less viewings...

Indispensable - Smokey Robinson deconstruction of Little Miss Sweetness 150 viewings

Holland Dozier Holland and the enduring Motown Sound 141 viewings

Smokey and The Move to the West Coast 86 viewings

Smokey Being With You 56 viewings.

Given that all four posts contain the same degree of high quality deconstructions / commentary, I'm puzzled as to why some attract more than others. Clearly some folks are reading some and not going on to read others; maybe they don't like what they hear on their first opening and don't follow through with others? It's a mystery to me.......

[paladin]

Uh Mike, they could have read all of them, what we don't know is if they listened ? lol......

[uptight]

I am enjoying these videos. I didn't know they continued to make them since last years. That was my comment on Youtube about the "falsetto" being Claudette LOL. I, too, am surprised by the low number of viewings. The numbers might grow quickly, though. At the moment, I don't have time to listen to all of them continuously in one sitting. But I do plan on playing them soon.

[144man]

I don't have my own computer, so my computer time is limited.

[1382hitsville]

Mike, Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed it.

[Motown4Ever518]

I usually don't have time to view the links, but with a link that includes; The Tempts, Isleys, Bobby Taylor singing. A song written by SR. A song produced by both SR and Frank Wilson. Thats what I call a win, win, win, win, win, win scenario. Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed it!

[MotownSteve]

Hi Mike,
Very fascinating. I particularly like the part about David Ruffin repeating Smokey's words so soulfully. For sure.
BTW, about a week ago I was in a karaoke bar ad a Mike W sang. I know it was not you.
Regards,
MotownSteve

[motony]

Great, man,THANKS...Smokey is my fave writer & producer....The Tempts can't be beat....But I REALLY love the Isley Bros version.Detroit has it all over LA.

[MIKEW-UK]

Hi, to all of you who have taken the time to comment on the postings, I really appreciate it!. I feel good that you are out there, I 'm still kind of disappointed that a forum dedicated to soulful detroit including Motown has such low numbers of viewings of what I think are priceless mini - documentaries on the Motown Sound.

Well, our gain, their loss...LOL!

[paladin]

It is what it is Mike. I've had many a thread die right after I posted. There is a member here and he hasn't posted in this thread who sent me an email a couple of years ago, now this man is smart, talented and can compose a draft to the President of the United States if he wanted to.........but he took the time to write me an email as he was reluctant to post on threads including some of mine because he considered himself..." A Thread Killer" . I went back to the forum, looked at the threads he had posted in and for whatever reason he was right. The Threads died after he posted. I thought to myself, this was just an irregular happenstance, but I'll be dammed that the first time I posted in a thread and it "died"... I wrote back to him, we had a few laughs and he's become one of my good friends. We would watch each others back and post on each others threads all the time to make sure neither one of us didn't kill the thread. Mike its a true story.......and understand that some folk could care less about the construction of a project and just want to discuss the finished product. Thats fine by me, but I wouldn't judge my contributions to this forum on someone else's standards and neither should you. Its like you said "our gain"....not a loss.... they cant miss what they never had....

[arrr&bee]

Great great work mike,all three versions are great but the temps version does it for me of course whenever i hear them acapella i don't think it gets any better,this look behind the scenes of a recording is just beautiful,thanks mike i'll be listening for more!

[huntergettingcaptured]

[QUOTE=snakepit;70533]Fantastic...
Isn't the same basic track used on both Tempts and Isley's versions..with different "sweetning"...sounds it to me.


The music tracks are vastly different for the Tempts version and the Isley's. The Temptations' track has a fairly "gutsier" quality. The guitar work has that fantastic mid 60's Motown sound, and probably has the inclusion of Marv Tarplin in the mix. Listen closely and you'll hear how the guitars and vibes mesh seamlessly and have a sort of "glisten" to the sound, highlighted at times by those wonderful strings.

The drums- yes, there are two drummers on the Temptation's version are slick and raw at the same time. One drummer is playing a sort of "cartwheeling" figure throughout- a trademark drum figure on lots of Smokey's productions [["My Girl Has Gone", "Fading Away", the middle eight break on Marvin Gaye's "When I Had Your Love".) The second drummer is doing a more standard figure, hitting beats 2 and 4. However, during the choruses, one of those drummers is hitting the snare on every beat- 1,2,3,4.

The Tempts' track also has an excellent "live" feel to it, whereas the Isley's version has a bit more of a slick studio quality to it. The guitars on the Isley's version too are quite different, and there is only one drummer.

I like both, but for me, the Temptations version is just really intriguing because there are so many things happening in the mix that aren't so obvious on first, second or even third listen.

PS, I'm going to check this link out NOW!!!

[drewschultz88]

Rats, looks like I missed out on something awesome:

""Record Producers: SR - Temp..."
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by British Phonographic Industry Ltd..
Sorry about that."

[paladin]

Dam Drew , I was gonna download that sucker too..........by the way great work on Ronnies CD.........you kill em player...and I was all geekd up to hear your response to Huntergettingcaptured remarks about the drummers.......oh well.......

Kdub

[drewschultz88]

Thanks for the kind words Paladin, Ronnie is 100% awesome. I also love checking out the interplay between the two drum tracks that Motown often did - insider secret, I was told that from time to time Uriel, or whoever the session drummer would be, would overdub himself as the second drum track. This makes it even harder to tell which drummer[[s) is[[/are) on what track!

[paladin]

I'm going to post my review late tommorrow.........been lining things up.........

[MIKEW-UK]

Bummer! It's gone!!!!!

[mhc]

Big thanks for posting this..
About 20% less talking from the hosts would be nice, but it's great stuff in any case...

[MIKEW-UK]

mhc, is this link still active for you?

[RossHolloway]

the video is gone. Glad I got a chance to listen to it last weekend.

[MIKEW-UK]

Yep, Ross, it's gone, all the links have gone..........what a bummer...... that series was fascinating....even when the recordings were dissected into their smallest individual components, the magic still remained....they really illustrated the sheer brilliance of Motown and its unique productions.... all that talent.....I was hooked from the very beginning of Motown by the sheer scale of the talent ....It will be a crying shame if those priceless documentaries have gone for good

[mhc]

Gone indeed.. Good thing I listened to everything in one sitting the other night.. Maybe it'll reappear; that happens often on YouTube.

[Motown4Ever518]

[QUOTE=snakepit;70533]Fantastic...
Isn't the same basic track used on both Tempts and Isley's versions..with different "sweetning"...sounds it to me.


The music tracks are vastly different for the Tempts version and the Isley's. The Temptations' track has a fairly "gutsier" quality. The guitar work has that fantastic mid 60's Motown sound, and probably has the inclusion of Marv Tarplin in the mix. Listen closely and you'll hear how the guitars and vibes mesh seamlessly and have a sort of "glisten" to the sound, highlighted at times by those wonderful strings.

The drums- yes, there are two drummers on the Temptation's version are slick and raw at the same time. One drummer is playing a sort of "cartwheeling" figure throughout- a trademark drum figure on lots of Smokey's productions [["My Girl Has Gone", "Fading Away", the middle eight break on Marvin Gaye's "When I Had Your Love".) The second drummer is doing a more standard figure, hitting beats 2 and 4. However, during the choruses, one of those drummers is hitting the snare on every beat- 1,2,3,4.

The Tempts' track also has an excellent "live" feel to it, whereas the Isley's version has a bit more of a slick studio quality to it. The guitars on the Isley's version too are quite different, and there is only one drummer.

I like both, but for me, the Temptations version is just really intriguing because there are so many things happening in the mix that aren't so obvious on first, second or even third listen.

PS, I'm going to check this link out NOW!!!

An excellent take. As a drummer, I appreciate someone "giving the drummer some", or should I say drummers. A competent drummer could play the tempts version alone, but this track speaks to what seperated the snakepit from any other recording arena. Firstly, that the record company, did everything they could to release the best product possible, even if it meant using two drummers. Secondly, the fact that the Funks were not interested in making a musical statement on the recordings, just playing the right part for the betterment of the song.