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Gordy G 7012 (A), November 1962
b/w You Better Get In Line
(Written by Berry Gordy)
Oriole CBA 1799 (A), February 1963
b/w You Better Get In Line
(Released in the UK under license through Oriole Records)
As we arrive at the tail-end of 1962, the time had come for the Contours to attempt to follow up their mega-hit, Do You Love Me, released five months earlier.
The group was at a crossroads here in terms of how America (and posterity) would go on to receive them. Could they rack up a string of hits and become an enduring and bankable Motown act? Or were they simply a bunch of chancers who’d got incredibly lucky one time, and already shot their bolt?
The suspense didn’t last long, and it wasn’t good news. Despite the promise of their rollicking Motown début, Whole Lotta Woman, it’s really rather difficult to argue, in the light of this and the other singles they released after their brief moment in the sun, that the Contours – and particularly this line-up of the Contours – were anything more than an energetic, happy-go-lucky stage act who happened to bottle lightning just one time, striking it very rich with a one-off hit single, a flash in the pan.
Still, the attempt to do it again is kind of fascinating, in a watching-the-cogs-turn sort of way. Even if it’s not very good. (Because neither of the two sides of this single is very good, it must be said. Let’s get that out of the way now.)
Both sides of this, the Contours’ follow-up single, were written and produced by Berry Gordy – just like Do You Love Me had been – and both take a different approach to the concept of the “soundalike sequel”. Later, this would become a singular Motown quirk – very rarely was a Motown artiste allowed to have a hit single without being made to cut a follow-up that adhered strictly to the same formula as their hit – but the practice was still in its infancy here, having previously had a couple of commercially-unsuccessful trial run-outs with Barrett Strong and the Miracles. This, though, was meant to be different; for the first time, Motown set out to emulate a previous success, nakedly and mechanically. The Contours had previously shown they were uncomfortable doing anything outside their natural environment, the raucous dance hall smash (see, for instance, their genuinely horrible attempt at a group harmony ballad, Funny), so it wasn’t just a case of art taking a back seat to sales – but the brief was clear. The public had loved Do You Love Me, so all Motown had to do was isolate the defining ingredient in its success, reproduce it, and count the money as it burst forth from the company’s engorged coffers.
There was a problem with the plan, though. Do You Love Me had been thrown together spontaneously, with great haste and little preconception. Originally intended for the Temptations, the song’s possibilities and potential had so enthused and excited Berry Gordy that he’d grabbed the nearest group and cut it on them instead, right there and then, before any momentum was lost. That giddy, joyful rush infuses Do You Love Me, the rock solid certainty that a hit record was being made becoming a self-fulfilling prediction.
However, sitting down coldly to sketch out a soundalike sequel was another kettle of fish; on this evidence, Berry Gordy didn’t actually know what the magic ingredient had been. The result was two different songs, this and its B-side, both attempting to recapture the groove, joy and sales of Do You Love Me by shamelessly trying to photocopy something good from the previous record.
As a result, this single ended up as a kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde version of Do You Love Me, as if that song had somehow been magically separated out into two different songs, Shake Sherrie (spelled “Sherry” on some label pressings) and You Better Get In Line, split across the two sides of this single, each side containing only half of the vital elements that had made the original a hit, each fatally incomplete without the stuff that’s been extracted.
On this side, then, we get a reprise of the frenetic “party” atmosphere, the dance-centred lyrics, the ascending Twist And Shout break, the false ending, and the weird “Glum glum glum glum” throat noises, but we’re lacking the spoken-word intro, the driving, pulsating beat, and the actual harmonies from that record, most noticeably lacking from the ascending break that made Do You Love Me so riveting.
(They’re replaced by a really awful shouty bit – Dance to the east, dance to the west / Dance to the one that you love the best, followed by a very rough call-and-response “comedy” section where each of the Contours asks in turn Is it me?, and the others shout back “No!”, which lasts only a few seconds but seems to drag on for many painful minutes.)
Indeed, the vocals here are really just a load of faintly discordant shouting, and you’d be hard-pressed to identify any of it as “singing” in any real sense; Billy Gordon’s lead vocal is delivered with more of an eye on live audiences than the record, to the point he becomes something more akin to an MC, or even a toaster, than a lead vocalist. He sounds like he’s having fun, leading the crowd along rather than bothering with anything so prosaic as harmonies, and that might have worked if the rest of the Contours had been able to provide good vocal backup – but since they’d already shown they couldn’t really do that, instead they’re all just shouting too. For a dumb party record, it’s also got far too many words for its own good, although Billy chews on them in a barely-intelligible growl that causes a good quarter of them to be lost in the mix.
The group themselves seem to be having a good enough time – more so than their listeners, I dare say – but there’s always the nagging Beach Boys Party! feeling that the fun might be manufactured, that this is actually a studied exercise in recreating something spontaneous and instinctive. Knowing that was Motown’s intention, even if the group’s own enthusiasm is genuine, certainly takes a bit of the shine off for me – but there wasn’t much there to begin with.
The song isn’t good, the performances aren’t good, and whatever had been magical about Do You Love Me, it’s missing here; this is just a stupid dance record, and not even a fun one at that.
The record didn’t bomb completely (it limped to number 43 pop, just missing the R&B Top 20), but neither did it achieve anywhere near the hoped-for success, and the Contours’ very brief time as a front-line Motown recording act was already drawing to a close.
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.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in The Contours? Click for more.)
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| The Miracles “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” |
The Contours “You Better Get In Line” |
Motown Junkies 
I can’t remember exactly who it was, but I recall reading some rocker claiming Shake Sherrie having the best drum work on any single of 1960s. If it wasn’t Springsteen himself, it was someone of that eminence and visibility.
I might push this up to a 5 for myself, finding the group’s enthusiasm a little more pleasing, but not I or anyone could make the case this was another Do You Love Me?
Nor, as you point out, is it the first time Motown would follow a formula of milking sound-alike’s till the returns diminished enough to need a genuinely new idea (with more worthwhile results, and at this same time, Smokey is doing the same thing with Wells.)
I think a quintessential example would be the quartet of Heat Wave/ Quicksand/ Live Wire and In My Lonely Room. I love all four very much, but the latter three could never claim to be taking adventurous departures from their initial inspiration. The second record would follow Heat Wave into the top ten, but the final two stalled in the Billboard forties, making it all too obvious the need for a fresh approach. (In defense of Wire and Room, business-wise, they also had to battle with Beatlemania and the ‘British Invasion’ in its crazed, first six months.)
Shake Sherrie is another 60s Motown nugget I was lucky enough to find a shiny, unplayed, remainder script-Gordy copy in about 1977. I take good care of it!
The Contours will stumble some more as we go on, but I look forward to your takes on That Day When She Needed Me and First I Look At The Purse, which I regard as foremost examples of Smokey’s ability to create silk purses where several sow’s ears went before.
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“claiming Shake Sherrie having the best drum work on any single of 1960s”
Yikes – that’s putting it up against Clyde Stubblefield on Cold Sweat and You’ve Got the Feeling, Bernard Purdie on Rock Steady and all the later Motown. It’s great drumming but hard to ignore the out-of-tune chorus long enough to enjoy it fully.
I really think Berry should’ve cannibalized all those gospel groups to create a vocal “wrecking crew” that could be brought in to fix vocals when necessary. Listen to “watusi watusi” at 1:00 of You Better Get in Line. The second and third times are reasonable, but the first time is just grotesquely out of tune. Should’ve done a second take!
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Followups are a dicey business. As Dave L. points out, the soundalike “Quicksand” worked but “Live Wire” didn’t. In addition, I’m convinced that the latter was responsible for “In My Lonely Room” stalling on the charts. It not nearly as similar to “Heat Wave” as the other two but coming on the heels of a trio of increasingly trite tunes it paid the price. Too bad “Lonely Room” wasn’t released after “Quicksand” or “Heat Wave.”
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It was titled “Shake Sherry”-as seen on your label scan. Why do people refer to it as “Shake Sherrie”?
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I agree it seems odd, but “…Sherrie” is apparently its official title, both as registered by Jobete with ASCAP (you can search their database online and verify this) and as confirmed by every subsequent CD reissue I’ve ever seen (the TCMS sets are unequivocal on this). “Sherry” on the original labels really does appear to have been a printing mistake.
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I also saw it spelled “Sherry” on posters for Contours’ appearance dates. I never saw it spelled ?Sherrie” until late in my life. So, to me. it will always be “Shake Sherry”.
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The y-to-ie change has to either be very recent, or coming and going.
In addition to the single, the name is spelled with a ‘y’ on the cover of 1964’s “16 Original Big Hits Vol.2,” and again with a ‘y’ as late as the 1999 CD “Best of the Contours.”
But on Motown’s 1970s-era YesterYear label, the ‘ie’ spelling is used.
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I’ve only just noticed the LP cover above also has “…ie”.
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I agree this isn’t a very good record, but it does have a certain clumsy charm to it.
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Its an ok record to do “the slop” to.
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A small postscript to the story of “Shake Sherrie”.
The two versions of the track on TCMS Vol 2 are the same recording (take 6, as it happens), with the radio promo version having a much crisper, more “toppy” mix.
When Motown came to compile the stereo version of “A Collection Of 16 Original Big Hits Vol. 2” in 1966, for some reason they mixed take 7, which has a distinctly inferior lead vocal. That LP, and the long-deleted 1991 CD of the album, remain the only places that you can hear this alternate version … as far as I know.
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I don’t generally like any Billy Gordon lead songs (other than “Do You Love Me, and Baby Hit and Run (though his version has the worst vocal). But, I’ve always liked this song better than most of The Contours’ novelty songs. I think a “3” is really a bit harsh. I’d give it a “4”.
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I seem to be at odds with the majority on a lot of the Contours’ records. I’m not big on much of the pre-“Do You Love Me” records but I do take pleasure- not even calling it a Guilty Pleasure- in these daft, goofy follow up records.
The singing is off the rails times 10 but Billy Gordon is one of the most interesting vocalists to me. He’s barely a singer but he’s so comfortable in his own skin until he is quite good in his own bizarre way. I know the other fellas can barely harmonize and yet again, they carry such sheer bravado that I like their sound. For whatever inexplicable reason.
I’ll just own up to it and say I like both sides of this record. I refuse to use the standard cliches “it’s so bad it’s good” of “guilty pleasure”; sometimes there are songs that defy common sense and good taste and yet you still enjoy them because they have a sort of reckless fun. I guarantee, if you don’t like the tunes to begin with, none of the above will change your mind- and I totally get it!
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