The Supremes Sing Lesser-Known Smokey On ‘The Composer

[milven]

The Composer is not a favorite of many fans, but I have always liked it, so there !!! I'm an instrumental freak, and this article mentions the prominent strings and hard piano. That may be what turns me on to the song.


By Paul Sexton

The good times for the Supremes were so very good, that it was even harder for them to take when some of their singles of the later 1960s found the going considerably tougher. Among their releases of the period, “The Composer” is an interesting, if less well remembered, part of the story, brought to fruition by its writer and producer, Motown master Smokey Robinson.

Diana Ross and the Supremes, as they had been billed since 1967, may now not have been guaranteed pop chart-toppers every time. But they were still able to make major soul-pop crossovers with almost every release. ....

“The Composer” combined prominent strings and piano with the increasingly funky groove of the day, and was billed as a single to the trio even though it was the Andantes, not Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, accompanying Diana Ross. It debuted on Bestselling Rhythm & Blues Singles for the week of May 10, 1969 at No.25, but peaked only four places higher.

The ambitious sentiment of the lyric was one that surely few writers but Robinson would even have attempted. “You may not what quarter notes are, or what I mean by four to the bar now,” he wrote. “Such musical terms may be Greek to your ears, but deep down inside of me, you have created a melody.” ...

Mary Wilson pulled no punches when she wrote about “The Composer” and its follow-up, “No Matter What Sign You Are,”... “That these records charted so poorly compared to our biggest hits, was due in part to the fact that, as several critics have since pointed out, they did not sound like ‘Supremes records.’”

According to The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 9, “The Composer” sold a “mere” 200,000 copies. Such were the Supremes’ standards that their idea of failure would have been spectacular success for others.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stori...composer-song/