Motown: The ’65 45s

If 1964 was the year that Motown went global, scoring their first UK No.1 with The Supremes’ ‘Baby Love’, and also notching up major international successes with ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ and Mary Wells’ ‘My Guy’, then 1965 was the year the label shot into the stratosphere. Releasing a whopping 119 singles that year in the UK and US combined Motown were starting to consistently hit it out of the park, scoring their highest number of US chart-toppers yet within a 12-month period, while also making regular showings on the UK charts. Indeed, the year started off particularly well thanks to The Temptations’ ‘My Girl’. Penned by Smokey Robinson as an answer song to ‘My Guy’ (which was, of course, also written by Robinson), it was issued on 21 December 1964, backed with ‘(Talkin’ Bout) Nobody But My Baby’, and hit the US No.1 spot in the new year, around the same time that the pairing was released in the UK. Robinson had his work cut out for him: one of Motown’s most in-demand songwriters at the time, he also fronted his own group. Not only did he pen seven of the eight single sides released by The Temptations in ’65 (among them ‘It’s Growing’ and ‘My Baby’), plus Marvin Gaye classics ‘I’ll Be Doggone’ and ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’, and Supremes B-side ‘I’ve Been Good To You’, but he also penned all four of The Miracles’ A-sides of that year, among them ‘Come On Do The Jerk’, ‘Ooo Baby Baby’ and the timeless ‘The Tracks Of My Tears’. While Robinson was busy in the writing room, The Supremes were pounding it out in the studio, issuing almost one single each month throughout the year, among them three US No.1 cuts, ‘Stop! In The Name Of Love’ (also a UK Top 10), ‘Back In My Arms Again’ and ‘I Hear A Symphony’, while another one of their 1964 US No.1 showings, ‘Come See About Me’, also made its way into the UK market.


"The Governor" -- ISU Football, !963-1966
February 12, 2016 at 6:28 pm
The Matriculation and Football @ ISU were indeed daunting… but for the MOTOWN SOUL!