2012 Kicks Off With A Good Start With Motown!

We kick off the new year with a couple of fantastic compilations.We  have two early Motown releases on tap, from The Miracles and Marv Johnson.

THE MIRACLES: HI WE'RE THE MIRACLES

As the title might imply, this was the first album released by The Miracles, the group that would make a major star out of Smokey Robinson. It is also
 the very first album released on the Tamla label and thus the first album released by a Motown company. As chief songwriter for the group (and later for a slew of Motown artists), Smokey penned hit after hit, with "Shop Around" becoming something of an early signature song for the group. The album also features Motown founder Berry Gordy on production duties; the teaming of Gordy and Robinson was one that helped quickly establish Motown as a musical force to be reckoned with.

MARV JOHNSON: MARVELOUS 

Tucked away as track six on this album is a historic recording; "Come To Me" was the first single issued by Berry Gordy's Tamla label. Lacking national distribution, Berry accepted an invitation from United Artists to handle the distribution, also agreeing to United Artists taking over Marv Johnson's contract. Berry is still involved in this album, writing many of the songs and handling production with Don Costa. The end result is an R&B album with a hint of MOR, since to pad the album out to 12 tracks, a decision was taken to cover some of popular music's standards!