‘A Pulsating Beat-Ballad Romancer’

A GOSPEL-INSPIRED HIT FOR THE AGES

Smokey Robinson went to Sam Cooke’s funeral.

      On December 17, 1964, in freezing conditions, he was among thousands who filled Chicago’s Tabernacle Baptist Church and the streets outside to pay tribute to one of the most popular, influential singer/songwriters of his generation, who had been killed six days before.

      Two years earlier, Robinson had been inspired by Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me,” after hearing it on a New York radio station while visiting the city on business. Relaxing in his hotel room, Robinson began composing a new song.

The Miracles’ biggest hit since ‘Shop Around’

      The genesis of “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” is a familiar tale, including how Cooke’s call-and-response with Lou Rawls on his original hit led Robinson and bandmate Bobby Rogers to follow in those vocal footsteps on the Miracles’ recording. In concert, the Motown group even segued from their song into “Bring It On Home To Me,” to their audiences’ delight.

      But the backstories of Cooke’s composition and its stepson (so to speak) are interesting for a variety of reasons, as former Jobete Music songwriter Larry Buford reminded me recently. For starters, the singer cut both sides of his single – “Having A Party” and “Bring It On Home To Me” – at the same session in Los Angeles on April 26, 1962. So did the Miracles, recording “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” and “Happy Landing” at the Hitsville studio in Detroit on October 16, 1962.

      Cooke’s session was “very happy,” RCA engineer Al Schmitt subsequently recalled to Peter Guralnick, author of Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. “Everybody was just having a ball.” On both tracks, backing vocals were the work of the Sims Twins, an act signed to the star’s own SAR label (more on SAR in a moment). Obviously, Rawls was present, too. “The tempo picks up a little as they run through a dozen takes,” wrote Guralnick of “Having A Party,” “with Lou’s voice joining in on the chorus, just out of synch enough to suggest spontaneity but totally attuned to Sam’s lead.”

      Turning to “Bring It On Home To Me,” Cooke was in full gospel mode. He had first heard the song in its original, spiritual-based form as “I Want To Go Home” by blues singer Charles Brown, then adapted it (and even tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit Brown for the session). “We were after the Soul Stirrers-type thing,” arranger Rene Hall told Guralnick, “trying to create that flavour in a rhythm and blues recording.”

A MATURE MESSAGE

The resultant depth surely influenced Robinson, both in terms of the mood of “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” and the maturity of its message. (He had employed the same type of lyrical contradictions in Mary Wells’ “Two Lovers,” which was recorded two months earlier and occupied the charts at the same time as “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me.”) The Miracles’ previous hit was “I’ll Try Something New,” which Robinson recalled in some detail in Inside My Life, his autobiography. Unfortunately, he didn’t do the same for the follow-up, beyond mentioning that it was inspired by “Bring It On Home To Me.”

      Of the two tracks recorded by Sam Cooke that April, “Having A Party” was the obvious, crossover-oriented candidate for his next single, which was subsequently validated by its No. 17 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 of July 14. Yet the flipside charted even higher just a few weeks later, topping out at No. 13 in late August.

Peter Guralnick’s triumph of a book

      At Motown, the Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” was released on November 9, and became the responsibility of Irv Biegel, newly promoted to run singles sales and promotion. Initially, the decision was to plug “Happy Landing” as the A side, and that soon gained Top 10 slots on radio stations in Washington, D.C. and Cleveland. But Billboard recognised the flip as the true hit: “A potent item from the Detroit group,” the magazine’s review page declared two weeks after its release. “Lead sings with devastating feeling as the rest of the group fills with solid sound at a walking tempo.” Cash Box was equally effusive: “Side’s a pulsating beat-ballad romancer that the artists carve out in emotion-packed fashion.” The original A side was given less verbiage: “Backing’s a hard-hitting rock-a-twister.”

      Within no time, “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” was the track spun by disc jockeys nationwide. It helped that the Miracles were out on the road, drawing audiences to the very first “MotorTown Special.” (Also on the bill: Mary Wells, the Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, the Contours, Marv Johnson, Sammy Ward, the Supremes and the Vandellas.) The package tour kicked off with a week at the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., then barrelled its way from top to bottom of the eastern United States from November 2 to December 3 – often with two shows per stop (more at the weekend) and not a single night off for the acts or the musicians.

      Unfortunately, Robinson caught Asian flu during the roadshow and was out of commission for many of the dates. “Hey, man, they’re loving you in Georgia,” Berry Gordy advised in a call to the Miracles’ leader as he recuperated in Detroit. “Claudette’s singing all your lead parts, and they’re hollering at her, ‘Sing it, Smokey, sing it!’ From the voice on the records, they think Smokey’s a girl!”

      And so, by the second week of January 1963, “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” was inside the Billboard Top 40, and a month later, inside the Top 10. On the R&B charts, it rose further, to Number One. The overall outcome? The Miracles’ biggest-selling single since “Shop Around.”

HELPING THE CAREERS OF OTHERS

      Sam Cooke, too, was on tour soon after “Having A Party” and “Bring It On Home To Me” were Top 20 titles. In fact, he trekked across the U.S. at much of the same time as the MotorTown Special, which sent his next RCA release, “Nothing Can Change This Love,” high on the charts.

      In addition to their skill as self-supplying hitmakers, both Cooke and Robinson were instrumental in the careers of others. In Robinson’s case, Mary Wells was the prime beneficiary; he penned and produced three consecutive Top 10 pop hits for the teenager: “The One Who Really Loves You,” “You Beat Me To The Punch” and “Two Lovers,” all released in 1962.

Smokey with Larry Buford

      For his part, Cooke had in 1959 set up his own label, SAR Records, and then a publishing unit, Kags Music, with manager J.W. Alexander. Among the signings were the Soul Stirrers (of which Cooke had been a lead vocalist in the ’50s), Johnnie Taylor, the Valentinos (“It’s All Over Now”) and the Sims Twins. “We wanted to give young black artists the benefit of as good a production as they could get with a major company,” said Alexander, adding, “We thought of it as an opportunity to contribute something back to the community.”

      Intriguingly, Cooke also seemed interested in handling A&R at New York’s Scepter Records – which had once tried to tempt Smokey from Motown. Discussions between Cooke and Scepter’s owner, Florence Greenberg, took place towards the end of ’62, and the singer even wrote a song for the label’s hitmakers, the Shirelles, and produced the session. Yet when it became apparent that Greenberg’s real goal was to sign Cooke away from RCA, the A&R prospect evaporated.

      As for the matter of Robinson and Scepter, Berry Gordy confirmed the hustle for me during a 1994 interview. “I remember Smokey coming to me once after a few hits with the Miracles. He said that a lady came to him from Scepter Records and offered him a million dollars to come with them.” Gordy added, “Smokey was insulted. He said, ‘How could she think I would [leave], what did she think of me?’ ”

      As 1962 evolved into ’63, Cooke and Robinson continued on their own creative paths – but stayed close on the charts. When the former’s “Send Me Some Lovin’” peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 of March 2, the record one slot below was…”You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me.” When Cooke’s third Top 20 pop single of the year, “Frankie And Johnny,” peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100 of September 14, the record one slot below was the Miracles’ “Mickey’s Monkey.”

      So if Smokey Robinson was among the many at the Tabernacle Baptist Church that December of ‘64 in order to acknowledge Sam Cooke’s inspiration and influence – as well as his stature as a progressive black businessman – then you might call it an act of faith.

‘Hold’ notes: Smokey’s songs will likely live forever, “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” among them. And on a side note, the Beatles’ version on their second album had an especially positive effect on Motown revenues as the company was expanding in 1964-65. Theirs may be one of the most famous remakes of the song, but there are many others. Notable examples? Laura Nyro and Labelle, Lorraine Ellison, and Bonnie Bramlett. Smokey’s also returned to the song himself more than once: with, uh, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jools Holland and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. Mickey Gilley (see below) took his interpretation to No. 2 on the Billboard country charts in 1984, while newer country star Luke McMaster tackled it on his 2020 album, Songs Of Smokey. A selection of these — and of “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” — is to be found in this WGB playlist.

‘Home’ notes: the enduring appeal of “Bring It On Home To Me,” too, is evidenced by the scores of remakes and revivals. In 1965, L.C. Cooke, Sam’s brother, recorded it, as did the Animals, theirs becoming a U.K. Top 10 hit that year. Five years later, Lou Rawls cut his own version, while Mickey Gilley’s 1976 update went to No. 1 on the country charts. More country? By the Dixie Chicks and Martina McBride, for sure. Naturally, the Supremes included it on their We Remember Sam Cooke album. Soul stars (Aretha, Wilson, Otis) took the song to heart, as did others from across the Atlantic (Rod Stewart, Van Morrison, UB40). And just this January, jazzman Benjie Porecki offered an engaging instrumental edition.