{"id":2705,"date":"2010-04-23T12:04:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T16:04:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-04-24T08:04:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T08:04:43","slug":"thrifty-music-vol-20-8-what-s-the-deal-america-you-hate-stevie-wonder-or-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/thrifty-music-vol-20-8-what-s-the-deal-america-you-hate-stevie-wonder-or-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Thrifty Music, Vol. 20.8: What’s the Deal, America? You Hate Stevie Wonder Or Something?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“We’ll Have It Made,” The Spinners
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Greetings, fellow scavengers of incredibly cheap music! I come before you with yet another scratchy old single, found abandoned in a junk store in the nation’s capitol. This time, it’s a wonderful non-hit performed by The Spinners<\/strong> — a band that helped make Philly Soul famous. But! This track, entitled “We’ll Have It Made,” was recorded for Motown, a few years before the Spinners and Motown gave up on each other.<\/p>\n

There are a bunch of great Spinners songs in the soul canon — but their biggest smash was probably “It’s a Shame.” Why was it so great? Why did it shoot to #14 Pop in the blink of an eye? Because Stevie Wonder<\/strong> co-wrote it, that’s why! So: you’re Berry Gordy, and this is the first time the Detroit Spinners have ever amounted to anything. What do you do next? Easy! Have Stevie Wonder write another song for them!<\/p>\n

Which is exactly what Wonder and his long-time lyrical collaborator Syreeta Wright did, and the results of their efforts you can hear above. I really dig this song, and it coulda, shoulda, WOULDA been a hit, except… except… it wasn’t. Reportedly, Stevie was genuinely disappointed (this was only the second time Gordy had let Stevie out of his cage to lead the writing\/production duties on a Motown track) — and more than a little confused by what hadn’t happened. The song peaked — somewhat incredibly, sez me, at #89 on the pop charts.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I think it’s a winner. And it prompts the following Thrifty Music question: What, in your humble estimation, is the song or album that most sticks in your craw as an indisputable example of the poor taste shown by America’s music listening public?<\/em> I don’t want the song or album that you<\/em> like that the rest of the world isn’t smart enough to agree with you about; I want the song or album that coulda, shoulda and WOULDA been a hit<\/em>, a popular sensation, had it not been for… for… well, who knows? It just shoulda, that’s all!<\/p>\n

I look forward to your responses.<\/p>\n

HVB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We’ll Have It Made,” The Spinners Greetings, fellow scavengers of incredibly cheap music! I come before you with yet another scratchy old single, found abandoned in a junk store in the nation’s capitol. This time, it’s a wonderful non-hit performed by The Spinners — a band that helped make Philly Soul famous. But! This track, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}