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Tamla T 54025 (B), June 1959
B-side of It
(Written by Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson)
After the horrors of the A-side, this is slightly better, but still hardly great; extremely repetitive and almost mindlessly simple, running for less than two minutes, and crafted out of basically just one verse repeated over and over for the whole of that time, there’s nothing to commend it except a brief and briefly-inspirational moment where the key changes for a couple of seconds of near-perfect harmony at the end of the third line each time it comes around. Other than that, there’s almost nothing going on here at all (the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 1 call it “conventional” while giving dues to the “fairly unusual key change”).
You can at least sort of see how this fits into the development of Smokey Robinson, hit songwriter, and of the Miracles as a group, something that can’t be said of the terrible A-side, but it’s still not particularly good; it sounds more than anything else like a Buddy Holly record being played at 33 by mistake. This was the last foray for “Ron & Bill”, but the Miracles would have some proper records of their own out soon enough, records which would be good enough to erase the memory of these two substandard sides.
“Don’t Say Bye Bye” was bafflingly resurrected in 1961 as material for a new trio, “Hank, Gino & Bob”, before having its attribution changed and being credited to Gino Parks alone.
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!)
COVERWATCH
Motown Junkies has reviewed other Motown versions of this song:
- Gino Parks (May 1961)
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.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in Smokey Robinson & the Miracles? Click for more.)
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| Ron & Bill “It” |
The Satintones “Going To The Hop” |
Motown Junkies 
This song would have been suitable for the Everly Brothers.
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I just don’t understand either side of this single, to be honest. One of the all-time great artists, two total duffers, national distribution (as you noted for the A-side), and for this B-side, a dusting-off and repurposing two years later. I don’t get it.
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Smokey recalled in his book that in those early years he fashioned the Miracles being another Platters group. Huh???
To their credit, their CD of unreleased material has some worthwhile work, including a great PLEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME, written by Smokey and Janie Bradford, the front office girl. She’s coming up, with a co-authorship of MONEY…now there’s a lifetime annuity if I ever saw one!
Wow, they moved from Gladstone to West Grand. Where’d that money come from?
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Yeah where did that money come from???
It’s cool how my post is almost exactly a year after yours = )
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The Money to move from Gladstone to West Grand came from the up front money of the leasing agreement Marv Johnson’s “Come To Me”, and the agreement to produce his recordings, plus the “sale” of his artist contract (e.g. allowing United Artists Records to sign him to a 5-year contract), as well as front money agreeing to produce other artists for UA (Eddie Holland, Wyatt “Big Boy Shepherd”, and possibly more). Early residuals from Johnson’s UA record sales also added to that. Before starting Tamla Records and releasing “Come To Me”, The RayBer Music Co. had only made several hundred Dollars from artists such as Mike Power, Wade Jones, Don McKenzie, The Biscaynes (AKA Nick & Jaguars), Byron Brent & The Cut Outs, and Tom Clay for writing and polishing songs, recording them, publishing their songs, and placing them with record labels for release, and getting them distributed. That was not much of a profit-making business until they produced a hit (Marv Johnson’s “Comne To Me”).
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I disagree with this verdict verdict, I think that this song should at least get a 4. It’s not as bad as some previous released Motown stuff. I agree that this does sound like a Buddy Holly song. If Holly would’ve song it this song would’ve been better. Perhaps Berry and Smokey were being influenced by Holly’s sound and found it to be the perfect way to get on the pop charts.
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This is the type of record that people were having hits with in 1959.
It’s unfair to judge it as a Motown record rather than a pop record.
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To my amazement or maybe I should say amusement it’s hard for me to fathom this. It’s always a wonderful thing though to see how much society & culture has changed or how it is still very similar.
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This song is so adorable although it is kind of cheesy, Ron & Bill sound fantastic really better than the Gino Parks remake. I would rate this a 4/10
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