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Tamla T 54039 (A), March 1961
b/w They Rode Through The Valley
(Written by Berry Gordy)
Not for the first time when listening to an early Motown 45, I’m struck with a single, persistent question: “What the hell is this?”
Berry Gordy’s greatest gift in Motown’s difficult, cash-strapped, formative years was his knack for successfully playing a hunch. Here, according to the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 1, apparently Gordy had a hunch that Motown needed a slice of the white teen pop action, hence the appearance of this record. I say “apparently” because this is not teen pop, it is depressing anguished teen bedsit emo music from fifty years ago.
As a songwriter, Gordy was a pretty versatile guy; certainly you would never have tabbed the writer of this dirgey, overwrought lament as the same bloke who co-wrote, say, Yes, No, Maybe So. Slow, soft brushes, deliberately off-key guitars, backing vocals that wail mournfully, and a lead vocal which tries its best to conjure up the listener’s deepest sympathy for a character that doesn’t even make any sense, ending up as histrionic aural wallpaper.
It’s the story of a man, the eponymous Sam Jones, who left “three crying children and a nagging wife” to go off and make some money, but only ended up with… loads of money. No, but it’s sad, because he also got grey hair, and his kids grew up, which made him feel sad about getting old. And rich.
Still not in tears? Well, how about this, then? “Well now, he’s got money, and he’s got friends / But none will stick to the bitter, bitter end / With all his money, and all that he owns / Poor Sam Jones will die alone.”
Seems rather harsh to me.
It’s a thin, boring song, made almost laughable by Woods’ ridiculously overblown vocal, orated as though he were recounting a Greek tragedy or something, let down by his wetter-than-wet voice. Presumably it’s meant to pack some sort of emotional punch, but it’s all surface and no feeling, it means literally nothing, and so the only thing it actually conveys is the sort of vacuous pomposity that the fourteen-year-old girls of 1961 might have mistaken for deep and troubled. (They didn’t.) It’s not even remotely pop, it’s certainly not fun, and you won’t be surprised to know it met a fitting end commercially, sinking without a trace.
The Internet doesn’t know anything about Mickey Woods; history has seemingly pretty much forgotten him. If he was white (and he sounds it), he’d be the first white male solo Motown vocalist, but it’s not a landmark worth celebrating.
Really not very good at all. The B-side is even worse. Brace yourselves.
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 Gospel Stars “Behold The Saints Of God” |
Mickey Woods “They Rode Through The Valley” |
Motown Junkies 
One of Motown’s worst cuts. Almost as bad as Ray Oddis’ VIP efforts. Makes one wonder what Berry had in mind. I guess he wanted to cash in on Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John”. But, did he REALLY think this would sell? Or did he owe a favour to Mickey (just as he had done favours for Tom Clay and Joel Sebastian)?
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With you on Joel Sebastian, but it’s harsh to consider the Tom Clay record in the same basket as a “favour”; every source I’ve ever read has it being recorded at Clay’s expense as a filler piece for his LA radio show, and Gordy noting the reaction and laying down quite a lot of money to snap up the rights to release it, as a commercial decision rather than simply a way to curry favour with the West Coast media. (Correctly, too, resulting in a bizarre but mega-selling Top Ten pop hit and a narrowly-charting LP on the back of it). But I won’t get to write about that for a few years yet!
Anyway. Mickey Woods. My theory, such as it is, is that Gordy simply had no idea what would sell and what wouldn’t, but had a superb instinct as to what might sell, hence the “rainbow” of musical styles and genres in the early years; hedging his bets, throwing at the wall and seeing what sticks, call it what you like, but I think that was the essence of it. This is an awful record, and likely wouldn’t have made it over the QC threshold even a year later, but at the time Woods was a new signing and this is what he brought to the table; if it was a choice between either this or “They Rode Through The Valley” (which is, as noted, somehow even worse IMHO), I guess this was the lesser of two evils. Hindsight is 50/50 and all that.
I don’t know why I’m making excuses for it, this is awful!
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Isn’t the Tom Clay record to which Robb Klein is referring “Marry Me” on Chant 103 in 1958, written by Berry Gordy, with accompaniment by the Rayber Voices?
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Yeah, Robb and I cleared that misunderstanding up on one of the other threads (the Don McKenzie B-side IIRC) – I didn’t realise they were by the same “Tom Clay”.
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To think that Berry put out shitty garbage trash fuckery like this but refused to release any of Tommy Good’s tunes besides “Baby I Miss You”…
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shitty garbage trash fuckery
Don’t hold back, Benjamin, say what you really mean 🙂
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Isn’t the saga of Tommy Good pretty strange? I liked just about all of his recordings EXCEPT “Baby I Miss You”. Yet all the good stuff was buried in the Motown M.I.A. Vaults. Sure. Release the not-so-good stuff and deep six the better stuff.
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Yes, it’s hard to believe. And even harder to believe that he kept “Suspicion”, “Tear From A Woman’s Eye” and a whole bunch more on the shelf, but allowed this to be pressed.
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“Orated as though he were recounting a Greek tragedy or something” (LOL) Yes, Mr. Nixon you summed up this dreadful record perfectly. While listening I felt as though I were about to fall asleep. They could have at least up’d the tempo just a tad bit. And if this record were specifically geared toward teens why did they choose this song? What teen wants to hear the problems of some middle aged guy with gray hair? (LOL)
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I’m torn with this song because something is tellin me to give it a chance and another is like im bout to go to bed lol But my verdict is 4/10. Does anyone know bout Mr. Mickey Woods?
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Nobody knows anything about him, so some more information would be very gratefully received indeed.
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It’s not hard to imagine that both sides of this single were cynical efforts by Gordy. Not that cynicism was ever a hundred miles away in a doo-wop studio, but these seem to have the deliberate, almost spiteful badness of someone imitating a genre he doesn’t rate or find interesting.
Still, 1 seems a bit excessive for “Poor Sam Jones”. Overall it is something of a shambles. But the song and the arrangement would flow smoothly in one ear and out the other if not for the mismatch with the lyrics. The lyrics are a half-finished mess, but at least you can see what they’re trying to get at: a moral similar to Danny Small’s “Without Love”. Woods’ decision to ham up the creaky material is pretty fatal, but you can hear that he’s a *good* vocal stylist in the genre even if his interpretation here is cringeworthy. (As a commentator on the Internet I am contractually obliged to say something indignant about Auto-Tune here.) I imagine he could have done a solid job with better material in the same vein, not as badly in need of someone able to rescue it … and, quite likely, if Berry Gordy hadn’t been encouraging him to go to town with the genre histrionics.
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Mickey has a good voice. Mickey didn’t have a good song. The song that kept coming to mind while listening to this was “Stagger Lee”. Not that these two sound alike, but both are pretty depressing stories set to music. The exception is that “Stagger Lee” is set to a fairly driving beat (at least Lloyd Price’s version).
I also get that maybe this was supposed to come off as a cautionary ⚠ tale: money won’t bring you happiness if you treat your family like throwaway trifle (I’m using the American
🇺🇸 definition here and not referring to the British 🇬🇧 desert, which sounds delicious, BTW!)
Hard to look backwards and know exactly if the teens back then were into something like this- I never would have guessed in a kazillion years “Tell Laura I Love Her” was any kind of a fan favorite. And THAT one heaped the vocal histrionics on with a steam shovel! All quavering, maudlin-fortified melodrama. By comparison, Mickey’s performance was much more restrained.
I think Mickey could have made some good records at Motown if he had been given quality material. I give this a 2.
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