That cover of ‘Ebony Eyes’ he did with Rick James was nice too but I swear I haven’t heard it on the radio in decades
There was a great parody at the time called “Don’t My Songs All Sound The Same” I remember hearing. Can’t recall the artist but she was a dead ringer for Whitney’s voice. Really well done
Honestly, I've grown to really love all of virtually all of his big '70s and '80s hits. "Cruisin'" has always been my favorite Smokey song, and "Being With You" is up there. I think the white/pop charts kinda lost touch with Smokey in the '70s, but he was responsible for Quiet Storm, which was hugely influential on the R&B charts really up to the current period we're covering. In a way I think his '70s and even early '80s output might have ultimately been more influential and important than his work in the '60s.
Responsible for starting a whole genre? Certainly! I have his anthology CD set. I lose interest in his music right after the 1979 song "Crusin'". I think the most interesting thing he ever did was the song "Just My Soul Responding".
I love "Being With You" and like his late '80s hits as well, although not quite as much. In addition to Quiet Storm, I think Smokey was instrumental in the development of that smooth, classy, jazzy but slightly-electronic R&B sound of the early '80s, thanks to "Being With You", which was done by George Tobin, the guy who'd produced the Kim Carnes cover of Smokey's "More Love". It's a really sophisticated but contemporary and mature sound, without being dull or sounding dated, like a lot of backward-looking R&B material from other established acts. I hear echoes of that blend right thru the rest of the decade. I wouldn't be surprised if its success might have further inspired Tina Turner to team up with Heaven 17 on a good chunk of Private Dancer, and even if it didn't, it certainly would have given audiences some context or frame of reference for that album's sound. Ditto later hits from Sade, Anita Baker and others who followed in Smokey's post-Quiet Storm wake. We forget now but "Being With You" was actually a bigger hit than "Cruisin'", making it all the way to #2 ("Cruisin'" stalled at #4 - a crime) and only being kept out of the top slot by...Kim Carnes! We're about to come up on a pair of huge Tobin-produced hits in this very thread.
Just to See Her & Cruisin' were flops in the UK but Being With You was a massive No1 on the UK Official Singles Chart. It was also his only UK Top 30 hit.
"Being With You" was in the U.S. a "sorta', kinda' " #1 - it topped the Cash Box, Record World and Radio & Records charts (actually preceding Ms. Carnes' hit at the summit, the first two had it at Number One one week, the last for 2 weeks). Those who swear by Billboard to the exclusion of all else remind me of those in the UK who only consider the "Official" charts' word and disregard any of the others (which by 1981, consisted of NME and Melody Maker). I think of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" which was #1 in both NME and Melody Maker, but stalled out at #2 "officially." (B.T.W., even more a crime: "Cruisin' " didn't even chart in Britain. As for "Being With You," it wasn't just Number One "officially" - the other two likewise had it at the top.)
If someone put a gun to my head and asked for the perfect pop single, it would be 'Cruisin'. It's just completly magical. I don't recall the circumstances that kept it from #1 in it's time but it hardly matters. The charts have never necessarily been representative of taste
It's nowhere near my all-time favs, but it is a favorite of my Smokey Robinson solo songs. If you held a gun to my head and asked for the perfect pop single, i'd be more likely to pick something like "You Keep Me Hanging On" by The Supremes, "Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" by Edison Lighthouse, or some future single from the 2010s.
Her first 2 albums are very interchangeable- especially those ballads which were paint by numbers.. Glad she was more varied after this album.
Since that'd be jumping waaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead, in a Concorde SST level, we'll just have to wait till we get there, to get there.
One thing I find kinda interesting about "Didn't We Have..." is how it eschews the truck-driver gear change used in so many other WH hits, inverting the trope by actually dropping in key during the first half of the first two choruses and then staying in the original key for the rest of the song.
It certainly makes a difference and you’re right, it distinguishes it from similar efforts and makes it less ‘waily’ than other ballads.
No one in the UK quotes any other chart other than the Official Singles/Album Charts when referring to chart positions- including the artists themselves. Of course today you do hear reference to i-tunes charts but again the "Official" charts are indeed that- OFFICIAL and regarded as gospel no matter how fallible they may be!
And the same thing, I've noticed, with artists only citing their Billboard chart peaks in the U.S. for both singles and albums, as Billboard is now seen for all practical purposes as "official" for the States. But it does seem that, like Joel Whitburn (and his Record Research publishing concern) in the States, Paul Gambaccini, Tim and Jo Rice, etc., et al., however much they didn't intend to originally, ended up creating themselves a monster with their UK singles chart books, especially after OCC adopted their Guinness-published books as gospel as to who to judge as "official" in the pre-1969 period. I am as "give the other side an equal shot" for the UK as I am for the US (if you've noticed by my threads of UK #1 singles from 1952-1979). Otherwise it ain't "every #1" by a long shot. I had seen, in the 1960's and '70's, ads in Billboard that cited NME, Melody Maker, etc., for UK #1's that were being promoted for U.S. single release.
The funniest thing about the discussion of other musical charts on here is the fact that Rolling Stones Top 100 chart is gaining in popularity everyday, especially as the Hot 100 seems to be letting fraudulent tactics by a certain fanbase misrepresent what's actually popular in the U.S. I follow the RS chart just as much as I do the Hot 100 these days.
Whitney was a legend and I respect her talent but her music never connected with me. I have to admit that shifting into a lower key for the chorus is kind of cool.
Whitney's team always released a dance track, then followed with safe ballads. Didn't We Almost Have It All is an amazing song though, in The Number Ones on Stereogum the writer mentions that Whitney was too young to be singing the song in the first place. Didn't We Almost Have It All sounds like a song for a seasoned woman who's reminiscing on a relationship she had 20+ years in the past. She's moved on, probably married and has had children of her own, but she remembers the fondness of her first true love and all that came with it. Whitney was 24 the year this was a hit, so it seems out of place for her to be singing. I love the song, but maybe it would've made more sense had Aretha recorded it lol.
I'm not sure it would have mattered how old she was when she sang any particular song. There are many adjectives one could use to describe her vocals (both good and bad), but I don't think "lived-in" is one of them.
There was speculation at the time that the song was written for Houston about her romance with football player Randall Cunningham, I didn't know until recently that they dated. According to his teammates he was absolutely smitten by her and sent her flowers and various gifts to get her attention. I think she was seeing Eddie Murphy around this time as well so there was speculation there too. The way Whitney had all these men after her but ended up with Bobby Brown, chile....I guess Anyway, Mr. Cunningham was expecting the Whitney he had seen in the Greatest Love Of All video and got Ms. Newark instead lmao, he didn't know what to do. Bless his heart.
