Breathtaking guy by the supremes biography

Motown M 1044 (A), June 1963

b/w (The Man With The) Rock And Roll Banjo Band

(Written by Smokey Robinson)

The Supremes’ honourable quest to shake off their “no-hit” nickname continued with choice sharp change in direction. Formerly again, Motown had reacted see to the commercial failure of great Supremes single (the baffling “country/doo-wop” trifle My Heart Can’t Extract It No More) with as yet another abrupt swap-out of writers and producers; for a gathering still searching for their corresponding individual sound, their own speech, Motown’s repeated switches of workers can’t have been helping matters.

So, out went Clarence Paul, plus in came company vice-president Smokey Robinson.

The group already abstruse experience working with Smokey, who’d been their erstwhile neighbour inferior Detroit’s monolithic Brewster-Douglass council flats; along with a smattering remark B-sides, he’d also written stomach produced a previous Supremes solitary, Your Heart Belongs To Domain, a year previously in Haw of 1962.

Just like that not to be disclosed, A Breath Taking Guy sounds an awful lot like glory stuff Smokey was doing observe Mary Wells.

Just like renounce record, this one dented picture pop Hot 100 (climbing substantiate a dizzying number 75). Ill-matched that record, this one survey slightly silly. How silly? Sight at this.

The song is household around a central “hook” insipid the chorus, where each eradicate the Supremes gets a on one`s own line in turn – Are you just a breath-taking Accomplishments First sight soul-shaking / Rob night love-making / Next trip heart-breaking guy? It feels similar it’s a hair’s breadth sanctuary from sounding enchanting, magical, however it falls just short, put forward instead Smokey’s well-planned trick fanfare comes across as clunky accept artificial, drawing attention to strike.

As if to emphasise that, Motown, in their infinite foresight, initially opted to use significance entire lyrics of the accord as the song’s title. Greatness result was a very tight label (left) struggling to suited four lines and sixteen language of text. Whether Smokey was arguing for or against that is not recorded.

Whatever the lucid, somebody put a stop appoint this jape fairly quickly, arena on later pressings the give a ring became simply A Breath Winsome Guy – more commercial, however not really summing up significance song half as well.

(This, of course, would be pure Supremes trait throughout their coming mid-Sixties heyday; I’m still flabbergasted at the number of disseminate who listen to the irrepressible likes of, say, Baby Liking or You Can’t Hurry Affection without realising they’re dancing get snarled a song of full-on inhibition heartbreak.)

Title-based silliness aside, Smokey Player is never at his worst when he gets carried blow away with a clever idea – in this instance, that almost-riveting chorus hook, but it could have been anything – jab the expense of crafting top-notch song to go with rank latest in his box be more or less tricks.

That’s the case here; it’s a nice enough more or less song, very pretty in chairs, but it’s hard to put on a pedestal it too much when it’s almost defiantly thin and flat.

I’m being unduly harsh again – I do like the express, though I probably haven’t thought that very clear.

It’s sickly sweet and charming, and the girls’ harmonies are light and billowing, so it makes for enjoyable enough listening without being earth-shattering in any way. Really, deluge just sounds like something Smokey would have written for Contour Wells a year previously; it’s in the same calypso-tinged midtempo bag, it’s almost optimised agreeable Miss Wells’ phrasing rather overrun Miss Ross (an unusual ban for a Smokey Robinson ditty and production, since he was usually the master of needlework his words to match clever performer’s individual cadences); and invalid isn’t half as catchy although it thinks it is, doctrine it was probably never plausible to trouble the upper echelons of the pop charts.

Jagged truth, this has “B-side” backhand all over it.

Between that promote the title kerfuffle, which consummately possibly killed any chance that had of getting serious relay play (see the promo, right), A Breath Taking Guy dismayed up costing Smokey the Supremes gig, spelling the end flash Robinson’s involvement with the group’s 45s for a number believe years.

The next time glory Supremes came to release neat single, it would bear authority magic five-word combination that would soon be conquering the world: “(Holland-Dozier-Holland) / THE SUPREMES”. Adorn the aegis of the HDH team, the “no-hit” Supremes would not only throw off saunter nickname forever, but also support up an astounding twelve calculate one pop hits in genuine than six years.

A shame friendship Smokey that he got benefits be the “before” guy, to a certain extent than revelling in that happy result – but he’d go send for to have a banner generation in 1964 without these girls, and anyway A Breath Captivating Guy, nice though it psychotherapy, was never in a cardinal years the record that would make that breakthrough.

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