10 Smokey Robinson

Where There’s Smoke…

TAMLA, 1979

You say: “Cruelly overlooked these days, even the disco cover of Get Ready has a coked-up charm.” Tina Wood, via e-mail

When originally released, Robinson’s seventh solo album was hailed as his finest solo release. With 44 years’ hindsight, it’s maybe not that great but boy is it good. Six-minute disco-funk opener It’s A Good Night perfectly captures the cocaine addiction that was beginning to define his life (“A good night for everything/ Except for you and me saying goodnight”) while the more laid-back, late-night grooves of Hurt’s On You, Share It and hit single Cruisin’ are suffused with the easy, unassuming genius of Robinson at his lyrical best, where nothing is foregrounded but everything fits perfectly in its place.

9 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Time Out For…

TAMLA, 1969

You say: Reclaims My Girl, adds some new hits and does a beautiful Wichita Lineman.” @Pablo_S_ Alonso, via Twitter

Time Out For… is an LP gloriously, defiantly out of step, eschewing the label’s in-vogue psychedelic soul sound in favour of a studio blueprint from three years earlier. Civil rights are addressed in their curious barber-shop cover of Dick Holler’s Abraham, Martin And John and they make a fair fist of Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman, but the LP mainly succeeds with the classic R&B grooves of Doggone Right, Here I Go Again and the glorious Baby, Baby Don’t Cry. CD copies come with bonus LP, Four In Blue, also from 1969, which features a great eerie version of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s My World Is Empty Without You.