Make It Happen (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles album)
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Make It Happen is a 1967 album by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. It featured ballads such as the hit singles "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" and "More Love", as well as the up-tempo "The Tears of a Clown" co-written by Stevie Wonder and his producer Hank Cosby.
Three years after the album's release, "The Tears of a Clown" was issued as a single, and charted at #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. As a result, Make It Happen was reissued as The Tears of a Clown in 1970.
Stevie Wonder was a contributing writer on three of the album's songs, the aforementioned "The Tears of a Clown", "After You Put Back the Pieces (I'll Still Have a Broken Heart)", and "My Love Is Your Love (Forever)". Holland-Dozier-Holland contributed the delightful good-times dance song "It's a Good Feeling". Smokey's fellow Miracles Warren "Pete" Moore and Marv Tarplin collaborated with him on the songs "You Must Be Love" (a popular regional hit tune), and "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" (a Top 20 Hit) respectively, and all of The Miracles (except Claudette) co-wrote the up-tempo rocker "Dancing's Alright". The album also features a rendition of their good friends, Little Anthony & The Imperials' 1964 Top 20 smash, "I'm on the Outside (Looking In)" "The Tears of a Clown" on the monaural version of the album has an alternate lead vocal.
Critics at Allmusic praised the album, giving it 4-1/2 out of five stars, calling it "The most underrated Miracles LP of the '60s", and stating that, in addition to the album's three hits, it also had "featured a spate of [other] great songs, including three or four that really should've been hits".[1]
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| Allmusic |   link |
Track listing
Side one
- "The Soulful Shack" (Smokey Robinson)
- "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" (Robinson, Marvin Tarplin)
- "My Love for You" (Clarence Paul, Morris Broadnax)
- "I'm on the Outside (Looking In)" (Bob Weinstein, Teddy Randazzo)
- "Don't Think It's Me" (Robinson)
- "My Love Is Your Love (Forever)" (Ivy Jo Hunter, Stevie Wonder)
Side two
- "More Love" (Robinson)
- "After You Put Back the Pieces (I'll Still Have a Broken Heart)" (Paul, Broadnax, Wonder)
- "It's a Good Feeling" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
- "You Must Be Love" (Robinson, Warren Moore)
- "Dancing's Alright" (Robinson, Tarplin, Moore, Robert Rogers, Ronald White)
- "The Tears of a Clown" (Robinson, Wonder, Henry Cosby)
Personnel (The Miracles)
- Smokey Robinson: lead vocals
- Ronnie White, Bobby Rogers, Warren "Pete" Moore, Claudette Robinson: backing vocals
- Marv Tarplin: guitar
Other instruments
- The Funk Brothers and various Los Angeles session musicians: instrumentation
- The Andantes: backing vocals on "It's a Good Feeling"
Producers
- Smokey Robinson: producer, album executive producer
- Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier: producer
- Henry Cosby: producer
External links
Allmusic review: https://www.allmusic.com/album/r67479