A great Motown song that I’d never heard before. With a story every bit as fascinating as the song. I’d never heard of Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers, a group that was, yes, from Vancouver, and signed by Motown on the recommendation of Supremes Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson. But I’ll bet you’ve heard of one of their members–Tommy Chong. Yes, later of Cheech & Chong. He even wrote a couple of songs for the group.
Taylor is perhaps best-known for ‘discovering’ the Jackson 5, who opened for the Vancouvers at a Chicago gig. At Taylor’s urging, Motown signed the Jacksons and Taylor produced the bulk of the Jacksons’ first album before the final Motown exodus to California.
This modest hit (#48 on the US charts, #16 on the R & B charts) from 1968 is, as described by Agent Double O Soul, a ‘rhyming dictionary of a song, written by Smokey and others’. Hope you dig it as much as I do:
