![]() (The inexplicable use of the non-existent word “choicey” in the very first line is a bit jarring – perhaps it was intentional, or perhaps there wasn’t time for a vocal retake on a very busy day. So, we have a first half-minute of quite heartbreaking beauty, rivalling anything Smokey has yet turned his hand to, vibes and cymbals chiming like a broken carriage clock in another room before getting swept up in a blend of gorgeous Miracles harmonies and swirling strings, and over the top of it all a vintage Robinson melody, an unexpected second-line chord change winning the listener over straight away. The problem, I suppose – in so far as there is one, which is debatable when you’re dealing with beauty of this calibre – is that Ooo Baby Baby is a vastly better record than either My Girl Has Gone or Don’t Look Back, and with the shining example of The Tracks Of My Tears showing how successful the marriage of those two different strands of Smokey-sounds could be, it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that all the very best ideas went into that one, and all the slightly less good ones ended up here. We get the dreamlike, otherworldly fuzz and burr of Ooo Baby Baby (a Miracles trademark going back as far as 1959 and You Can Depend On Me), and we also get the vestigial dance hook foundations of My Girl Has Gone (or the Temptations’ Don’t Look Back, another Smokey co-write), the floaty, feather-light soap bubbles of the former tethered to the earth by Marv Tarplin’s guitar and the need to write an anthemic, memorable chorus. So, Choosey Beggar is a prototype or a contemporary, rather than a deliberate attempt to reference past glories. In fact, it’s one of the year’s oldest – Smokey and the Miracles finished recording it on the same day as The Tracks Of My Tears back in February, and that song must have been on the group’s minds: their DNA is intermingled at some fundamental level. So, confusingly, chronologically, as we finally round the final bend and catch sight of the finish line for 1965 (just ten more sides to go after this one!), Choosey Beggar looks to be the last in a line of beautiful Smokey ballads this year. Such is the danger of a project like this.Īnother one is mistaking release schedules for a linear archaeological record Motown were not geared up to work that way, and it was not unknown for Motown singles to spend months, or perhaps years, on the shelf before being released, leapfrogged in the meantime by older-newer recordings which darted through closing windows to grab a precious release slot. I just think it’s lovely, which is likely both not enough and too much. ![]() (Although I have played it on the radio!) In my mind, this always feels softer, wispier, more featherlike than it is, something akin to A Fork In The Road, but when I actually come to listen to it, it’s really the light of the introductory half-minute which steers me wrong the rest of the record is a more obvious stablemate of My Girl Has Gone and – especially – The Tracks Of My Tears, heavier and more forceful, anchored more firmly to the floor than I remembered.Īll of the Miracles’ great songs of 1965 have their ardent adherents each of them will be a surefire 10 in at least one reader’s book, while leaving someone else relatively unimpressed, and so I’m bound to be annoying all sorts of different people here by being neither completely entranced, nor remotely repelled. Choosey Beggar doesn’t feel quite cut out for radio, either by comparison to the energetic A-side or the Miracles’ preceding run of slower numbers. Attention might have been paid to the risk of the ’65-model Miracles, as seen through their 45s, becoming a one trick pony (although Motown didn’t have similar concerns about, say, the Supremes or Stevie Wonder).īut it’s not a great loss that this wasn’t a plug side. Perhaps this is why a superb song like Choosey Beggar ended up on the flip of an energetic dancer, as though the main purpose of Going To A Go-Go appearing on 45 was shaking away some cobwebs. It’s a Miracles slowie, and (of course) it’s lovely: by this point, Smokey Robinson was the undisputed king of Motown ballads, and he kept back many of his loveliest songwriting efforts for himself. The Miracles produced so many outstanding downtempo numbers in the mid-Sixties, and in 1965 in particular, that it’s hard not to become acclimatised – almost take it for granted – when another one rolls along. (Released in the UK under license through EMI/Tamla Motown) (Written by Pete Moore and Smokey Robinson) Tamla Motown TMG 547 (B), February 1966 B-side of Going To A Go-Go Tamla T 54127 (B), December 1965 B-side of Going To A Go-Go
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