Saturday, June 27, 2009

Day 133/365 Can't Stop Till You Get Enough

Apologies to those of you who are Michael Jackson'd out - only one more.

And only because I was trying to gather up You Tube links for my DD, because she missed a VH1 show tonight of MJ videos.

I found my original all-time favorite MJ song - it's a remake of Smokey Robinson's 1960 Who's Lovin You - he wrote it for The Miracles, and it was such a hit eventually almost every Motown group recorded it. The song is an ex-lover's lament, mourning the loss of a relationship and remembering where it went wrong, and wondering who she's with now.

In 1960 Louisiana, Smokey Robinson records were only sold in "race" record stores, but the music itself was played on black radio stations, and some enterprising little white girls had transistor radios with dials that wandered all over the color divide. By 1963, most white record stores had added a store section (clearly labeled "race records") for R&B music. Then John Lennon got off the plane in NYC in February 1964, and told the reporters his favorite music was James Brown and the Shirelles. That sent all the kids scrambling towards the "race records". So I was in love with Smokey's version of Who's Lovin You from the start.

Then on October 14, 1969, Michael Jackson got his little 11-year-old hands on it, and it ended up being the B-side to their first single (I Want You Back), riding the charts straight to #1.

Michael's version sends shivers down my spine - I bet you can't listen to it just once:

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