#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: February 16, 1980.#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.
This has got to be one of the smoothest songs ever written, sung by one of the smoothest singers of all time. When Smokey Robinson released this single, he already had a twenty year recording career. He had sung more than two dozen hits that reached the top twenty on the charts. He had been the producer of numerous albums, and had written a pile of songs for other artists that had also reached to the top echelons of the charts.
I point all of this out, because I suspect that most people now don't remember this version of his song, but are rather familiar with the cover version put out by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow in 2000 as part of the soundtrack for the movie Duets. I advance this notion because almost everyone I played this song for over the last couple weeks as I got ready for this Musical Monday said some variation of "Hey, its that song that Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow sang!" when they heard it.
And that's really kind of a travesty because, in my opinion, Smokey Robinson is one of the most important figures in music in the last half century or so. He had fairly substantial hand in shaping what modern music is, whether as a singer, songwriter, music producer, or record executive, and the idea that his legacy is basically that he was covered by Paltrow for a movie that almost no one went to see seems almost to ridiculous to be real.
Previous Musical Monday: Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers
Subsequent Musical Monday: Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen
Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers
Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen
List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989
Smokey Robinson 1980s Project Musical Monday Home
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