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Gordy G 7037 (B), November 1964
B-side of Can You Jerk Like Me
(Written by Smokey Robinson)
Stateside SS 381 (B), January 1965
B-side of Can You Jerk Like Me
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
Okay, that was a surprise.
Not for the first time here on Motown Junkies, these pesky Contours throw me a curveball. Just as I’ve got them pegged as Motown’s most affable, acrobatic dancers, a rough and ready gang whose stock in trade was big, dumb, raucous dance tunes aimed squarely at moving the feet rather than the heart… now here they turn in a beautiful, low-key rendition of a wistful Smokey Robinson ballad. They don’t sound like the Contours at all, they sound like the Temptations teaming up with the Miracles.
Like I said, a surprise.
Smokey didn’t do much work with the Contours, but this is a forgotten gem. If it was a shock for audiences in 1964, it was too much for Motown’s Quality Control team back in the summer of 1963, when this was recorded (and when all was rosy in the Contours’ garden, before their acrimonious near-split and lineup change). Original Contour Joe Billingslea takes up the story in the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4:
“People heard it around the studio and said ‘who’s that new group?’ Berry Gordy said: ‘Who’s that singing that song?’ They said ‘the Contours!’ Berry said, ‘the Contours? Oh no no no, we can’t have ’em singing like that! No, no, put them back in their groove! Take them out of that bag!’… We were showing our versatility. But Berry was smart. He HAD smooth groups, pretty groups, singing groups. We were the rowdy group that was noted for our choreography. We’d tear up everybody.”
And you can see Gordy’s point – this sounds nothing like a Contours track. Even if the harmonies aren’t quite all there for this kind of heart-on-sleeve endeavour, it’s still a really beautiful song. I don’t know for sure that it’s the Miracles’ guitarist Marv Tarplin plucking the strings, but it certainly sounds like him. Eddie Kendricks would have been happy with the lovely lead vocal, dovetailing with the other Contours in literal call-and-response fashion, answering their questions.
…I finally got home tonight
(…What did you find?)
My baby had split the scene
(…Where did she go?)
Over the mountain and across the stream
(…What did you do?)
Tried to follow her every track
(…How come?)
I had to try and get my baby back…
Plus, once again Smokey the writer-producer (who must surely have known full well his decision to get the Contours to play against type would meet with resistance) still refuses to phone it in, providing a lovely lyric full of regret, the narrator cursing himself for not having tried harder to be there when it mattered. It’s unexpectedly touching, and it’s given a sensitive reading full of feeling – quite a turnaround considering these are the guys who at one point seemed to be having trouble reading a lyric sheet (cf the intro to Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby.
Indeed, it’s hard to believe these are the same Contours who’d made such a cacophonous, unlistenable hash of their previous attempt at a sweet ballad, the execrable Funny, one of the worst Motown records of all time. But this is in a different league.
Smooth and pretty, as Joe Billingslea noted, and really very sweet. It’s also completely out of character for the group – if you were asked to identify these guys on sound alone, “the Contours” would be the absolute last answer you’d give – but no worse for it. Nice surprises are the best kind of surprises, after all.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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| The Contours “Can You Jerk Like Me” |
The Miracles “Come On Do The Jerk” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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It’s definitely one of my favourite Contours’ cuts, after the Dennis Edwards and Joe Stubbs leads. I didn’t like Billy Gordon’s gravelly voice, nor his singing style. “Do You Love Me” was okay and Shake Sherry. But most of the rest of the original Contours’ songs were not much to my taste. (Of course, it’s the song, not the singing, that carries “First I Look At The Purse”). And there are also 2 nice, mellow, melodious (previously unreleasd) cuts by The Contours on their Ace/Kent CD.
It’s really nice for The Contours. But, based on the ratings I’ve been giving other songs here, I couldn’t make it quite as high as a 7. I’d give it a 6+.
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A tender side of the Contours. Nice Smokey composition. Great call and response vocal arrangement My rating = 8/10
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A solid 9 for me, or I’m not honest. I adore this heartbroken little song. When it’s truly caught me off guard it has had my eyes stinging by its last moments.
Not only do I think it’s one of Motown’s best call-and-response tunes with a sad bent, it is the foremost example that comes to mind for me whenever I read about Robinson’s generosity. Not only did he not keep this fine song for himself, but he fought against the crystallizing conclusion that the Contours were only good for remaking “Do You Love Me” again and again.
It’s one of many Motown nuggets that deserves to be much better known than it is, and I’ve no doubt at all the group remained perpetually grateful to Smokey for bringing out such a very different side of their talent. (And he’s not done giving gifts.) Love it.
🙂
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This song comes up regularly on my Ipod (the shuffle function is useless at times) and until I read your review, had forgotten it was the The Contours. I always love the tune and knew its wasn’t one of the Motown headline male groups but totally agees that you would never guess its a Contours tune. My rating # 7/10
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“..The Temptations teaming up with the Miracles” – great way to summarize this song Steve D. What a pleasant surprise this song is! I can’t help but wonder if this was released what direction would the Contours recording career had taken.
S/O to Smokey this is such a great and touching song. The inner turmoil of letting down the person you love, replaying it over and over and your head, and warning other don’t make the same mistake. Beautiful song! I must also S/O whoever is on lead. He conveys the right amount of shame, guilt and sorrow which really helps to sell this song. The only part of the song I don’t like is the bridge. The song seems to fall dead at that point. For that reason I agree with the 7/10 verdict.
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Back in the days when I was hosting the radio show “The Motown Files” That was dedicated to the 1960’s Motown input…It was on from 1973-1976 I did a special “B” side program from time to time!!! this is a song that I got a lot of feed back from the listeners!!! a lot of request to play again and listeners re guesting more information about it. Some times they could not believe it was the contours. And it would be a regular request for air play since that presentation!! it wound up being regular in the line up of records that was featured on my show since then!!!!. It was a great Smokey tune with a great call,Question and answer Hook to it!!! I think that was one of the things that caught a lot of listeners about the song… This was a period of time where a new generation was beginning to listen to Motown music and I was Trying to keep Motown’s Past Alive as Well as promoting the new!! This was the early to mid 1970’s in the U.S. and at the time it seemed like at least for some of the young people that the Contours Where almost but forgotten!! But this was another example of how a song can be almost like a revival!! As I recall this song never came out on any other form than the original 45rpm single “B” side which was long a go out of print at the time!!! I enjoyed Doing that show and have more and some times better memories than some of my regular R&B/SOUL ,Top 40, m.o.r. or progressive Rock Programs during that time period !!!! You have to understand that I Grew up on and being in the business with Motown and Soul music,so I was partial to It!! and I enjoyed also educating the young kids at the time on some of the great tunes of Motown’s great past classics!!!!!!especially when some of the original songs started to be covered by other artist on other labels ETC. Some times while doing one of the “OTHER” format shows and one of those cover songs came up to play, I would also play The Motown original right after or before the cover version and I would get some times better listener response on the Motown originals than some of the cover versions!!! I would agree With Steve and also give this at least a ” 7 ” on the song….. but a 9 or 10 on the memories!!!
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p.s. I forgot to mention, that a day latter being started, the name of the program was changed to ” THE MOTOR TOWN FILES ” due to legal and trade mark issues and concerns..
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Cool! = )
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Great review and comments…the only false note on this song is the shouted “Yeah, yeah, yeah” at about 1:30. Totally out of character for the tune.
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Agree!
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Aside from the “YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!”, he sounds very much like Lawrence Payton of the Four Tops. Maybe it’s Billy Gordon’s little way of reminding listeners “Hey! We’re the Contours!” It is kind of out of place, but it certainly achieves whatever goal it was aiming for (showing the great pain the narrator feels, showing how much fun The Contours (or at least Billy Gordon) were having, or the reason stated above).
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That is exactly what made this record work for me. It was as if Billy was giving a shout out to the guys, “Yeah fellas! It’s us, the CONTOURS.” You almost have to think that was Smokey’s way of clueing in the clueless just who this was singing.
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9/10 for this one —one of my faves
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The lead singers delivery is so close to Smokey’s that i always thought the Smokey demo’s the tune and the Contours learned it directly from that demo and quoted verbatim in the studio. Of course that thought pattern always kept the path open that the unreleased demo by Smokey would turn up somewhere down the line…
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PS: This songs reminds me a lot of that unreleased Miracles gem “I’m Stuck On You”.
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Does anyone here know who sang lead on this song? It certainly can’t be Joe Billingslea, Billy Gordon, Sylvester Potts, Hubert Johnson, or Billy Hoggs. So, I think it must be Huey Davis.
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It’s Billy. The raucous YEAH YEAH YEAH at the end of the bridge tells you. Only Billy Gordon could pull that off. And compare his speaking voice in the intro of “Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby”; Billy’s speaking voice lines right up to his softer, somber voice here.
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I don’t remember any Chicago or L.A. DJs playing this. Everyone played “Can You Jerk Like Me” – yet another VERY poor man’s “Do You Love Me”. I’m very angry at them for not playing it.
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It seems nobody wanted to hear the Contours singing anything else but the up tempo, here-for-the-minute, gone forever, throwaway songs. Really weird that something as beautiful as this was just totally ignored. However, there was one Chicago DJ who played this: Richard Pugue. That’s how I learned of it. But that was a good 2 decades later, in the 80’s. He had his “dusties” show and he played a lot of hidden gems like this and the Temptations’ version of “Say You.” I was trying to figure out who this record was by and once I heard Billy let loose with those YEAHS, I knew who it was. Then Richard announced it was indeed the Contours. I spent YEARS trying to find this record.
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This is the inescapable conclusion, really – the Contours were as badly typecast as anyone, and throughout the history of pop music we see radio and punters alike being wary of artists trying to hop genres instead of giving buyers and DJs what they expected. Indeed, when pacing your show, the last thing you want is a ballad when you’ve just played a slower number by someone else, or indeed a raucous rocker when you’re programming a quiet storm segment. Between that and the fact this isn’t listed as the plug side (meaning few jocks had any real impetus to flip over a kind of forgettable Contours single in the first place), it’s not surprising this didn’t take off, but it’s still rather lovely all the same.
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Really good points to put it all into perspective. And Motown- and probably just about every record company- certainly did like keeping their artists in their typecast places.
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I used to listen to Richard when he DJ-ed for WVON during the late 1960s. He was in The Norvells, and went to a nearby, rival high school to mine. I don’t remember WVON playing “That Day When She Needed Me”.
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Probably not back in the 60s but he did in the 80s.
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