Post-'Quiet Storm' Smokey
white_tea
3,262 Posts
Smokey got real spotty after Quiet Storm. It's pretty tough to navigate all his releases but I found a few really nice songs, seems like at least one burner per record. But I lot of it seems very skipable. Anything you guys really love or would recommend?A few of mine: "Madam X" and "Daylight and Darkness" off Love Breeze and "Gimme What You Want," a nice moder track off Touch the Sky. In Smokey's top moments, I think I would take him over anybody.
Comments
In Music? In Soul R&B? At Motown?
Smokey is a Great writer and should be credited for helping sculpt Motown.
Paging Motown 67 & Pickwick 33........
Ahh, Batmon you have got me again. Say something on Soulstrut and you will be challenged. No Smokey does not really hold a candle to Marvin, yet Smokey's best loves songs touch me a personal level -- the notes he hits are so nice. If I am hanging out with the lady, trying to not have a care in the world, Smokey comes correct.
Prettiest Green eyes in the game still.
He looks freakish with all the work he's had done. Plus, sad to say, his voice is long gone.
off of this is the shit.
But this was BEFORE Quiet Storm...
It is a classic album, if only because he's tackling all these controversial issues like male virginity and teen pregnancy. I don't think I've ever heard another Smokey solo LP (out of the three I have) where he's had this many social-consciousness songs in one place. It's like he's trying to play catch-up with his Tamla labelmates Marvin and Stevie...
You know, now that you mention it, I'm surprised that Soul Strut hasn't given Smokey the "multiple appreciation thread" treatment like we have Curtis, Marvin and Stevie. Maybe it's because Smoke is the least funk-oriented of the four? (Although he made a respectable stab at funk on the Smokey's Family Robinson album...)
Yeah, Curtis, Marvin and Stevie did a lot for black music back in the time, but if somebody came on here saying that Smokey was #1, I wouldn't question it. And his guitarist, Marv Tarplin, is an underrated six-string genius along with Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack.
Ballader vs Social/Funky
After Quiet Storm also check:
Smokey Family Robinson
http://www.soulstrut.com/reviews/review.php?item_id=2250
Where There's Smoke just for Cruisin
http://www.soulstrut.com/reviews/review.php?item_id=2102
I think those are the only 2 post Quiet Storm LPs that I have.
What a songwriter.
When Being With You came out I loved it, listened to it non-stop for a while.
He was recently here in Portland playing with the symphony. Doing an evening of standards. I thought of going until I realized the standards were written by Irving Berlin and Sammy Khan.
Only standards I want to hear him sing he wrote.
He wrote a song called That's What Love Is Made Of, that could be a folk song. It could be one of those songs that every kindergartner learns.
one heartbeat
being with you
was cruisin post?
ALL HOT JAMS!!
It's an "adaptation" of an old nursery rhyme, so I can definitely see it that way.
Plus it has a chours that that builds by adding the verses, like A Partridge In A Pair Tree song. Very folky. Plus it's 2 chords (mostly).