SMOKEY'S BAD GIRL ON CHESS!

Been a bit since I posted on the blog - job-hunting if you must know.  Still looking, so anyone out the blog-shere based in and around Manchester/UK Northwest looking for someone with a semi-encylopaedic knowledge of music then I'm available - contactable via the email here, and via Facebook!

Artist: The Miracles.  Title: Bad Girl.  Label: Chess.  Cat. No. : 1734.  Year: 1966.

Today's post is hails from the embryonic days of Motown - The Miracles "Bad Girl" released in 1959 on both Motown and Chess.  The main reason being that like Barrett Strong's 'Money', Berry Gordy's fledgling label was unable to cope with the potential demand - hence the deals with other labels who could distribute over a wider area, rather than just the local areas; in the case of the Barrett Strong track via Anna records - run by the then Mrs Marvin Gaye - and in the case of this Miracles tune - via Chess.  Catalogue for those interested on the original Motown 45 only issued locally to the Detroit area was G1 (or with money to burn at a N. Soul auction/record fair/ebay auction) or on the Chess version 1734, which they reissued in 1966 - which this pressing is, and worth around the £20 mark the last time I checked.

Songwise with "Bad Girl" what you get is the that point where Doo-Wop/R'n'B is making that transition into what we'd now regard as Soul - Smokey here co-writing with Berry Gordy - and subjectwise the guy's having his heart broken, but still trying to man enough about it so that the hurt doesn't show - at least too much!

The flip side is the rollicking "I Love You Baby" - again co-written by Smokey and Berry Gordy - and a fair hint of where Lennon and The Beatles drew a fair amount of their early influences/inspiration from. Of course it goes without saying - but it's going to be said anyway, that both of these sides are well worth checking out!

Enjoy!!!!