After All (The Miracles song)

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"After All"
Song by The Miracles
from the album Hi... We're the Miracles
ReleasedJune 1961
Recorded Hitsville USA; 1960
Genre Doo-wop
Length2:37
Label Tamla
Songwriter(s) Smokey Robinson
Producer(s) Berry Gordy, Jr.
"After All"
Single by The Supremes
B-side "Unknown"
Released1961 (unreleased)
2000
RecordedTamla (Studio B); August 1960
Genre Doo-wop
Length2:46
Label Tamla
T 54045
Songwriter(s) Smokey Robinson
Producer(s) Berry Gordy, Jr.;
Smokey Robinson
The Supremes singles chronology
"Tears of Sorrow"
(1960)
"After All"
(1961)
"I Want a Guy"
(1961)
"After All"
Single by The Marvelettes
from the album Return of the Marvelettes
A-side "Marionette"
Released1970
Recorded Hitsville USA, Golden World; 1970
Genre Soul
Length3:20
Label Motown
Songwriter(s) Smokey Robinson
Producer(s) Smokey Robinson
The Marvelettes singles chronology
"That's How Heartaches are Made"
(1969)
"Marionette" / "After All"
(1970)
"A Breathtaking Guy"
(1971)

"After All" is a 1960 song written by Smokey Robinson and originally recorded and released by The Miracles [1] [2] on the Tamla label. It was first recorded as an unreleased single by The Supremes for Tamla; it was supposed to be their first single but it was canceled in favor of "I Want a Guy", and their cover wasn't released until it appeared on the 2000 box set, The Supremes . [3] The song is noted for both groups' unusual choices for leads. For the Miracles' version it serves as a rare lead for Claudette Rogers Robinson, instead of the group’s main lead, Claudette's husband, Smokey Robinson. In the Supremes' case it is their only single to feature Barbara Martin singing on lead vocals (although she does have a spoken line during the song "(He's) Seventeen"). Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross sing verses, and Martin sings the bridge (usually Ballard or Ross was given the lead on the group's recordings at that time). "After All" was also later covered by The Marvelettes, in the early 1970s, with group member Wanda Young Rogers as lead. (There's a connection to the two previous groups in that Wanda Young was the wife of Miracles member Bobby Rogers, and she was the only member of The Marvelettes on the song—as with the late-1960s singles of The Supremes, The Andantes served as background singers.) Their version appears on the album The Return of the Marvelettes , [4] [5] and later became the group's belated final single (it failed to chart).

Contents

Personnel

The Miracles version

The Supremes version

The Marvelettes version

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References

  1. https://www.allmusic.com/album/r48111
  2. Depend on Me: The Early Albums [liner notes]. New York: Hip-O Select/Motown/Universal Records
  3. https://www.allmusic.com/album/r495531
  4. https://www.allmusic.com/album/r12493
  5. Clemente, John (2013). Girl Groups: Fabulous Females Who Rocked the World (Paperback ed.). AuthorHouse. pp. 334, 335. ISBN   978-1-4772-7633-4 . Retrieved October 9, 2015.