Adios, My Desert Love
written by Dorothy S. Brown and Ray Meany
performed by The Matadors featuring Smokey Robinson
While attending Detroit's Northern High School, William "Smokey" Robinson started his own vocal group, the Five Chimes. Along with Smokey, the group included Warren "Pete" Moore, Ronnie White James "Cleveland" Grice, and Clarence Dawson. When Dawson quit, Emerson Rogers was added and the name was changed to the Matadors. Cleveland quit the group after getting his girlfriend pregnant and Emerson's cousin, Bobby Rogers took his place.
Robinson's initial influence was another great group, Nolan Strong and the Diablos. In 1955, Robinson and his renamed Matadors did an a cappella demo of the Diablos' "Adios, My Desert Love" that revealed a distinctive though rough Robinson falsetto already taking shape.
In 1956, Emerson was drafted and his place was taken by his sister and Bobby's cousin, Claudette Rogers. In 1957, the Matadors auditioned for Jackie Wilson's manager who turned them down because he felt they sounded too much like the Platters. A young writer named Berry Gordy was there and he liked the Matadors.
By early 1958, Gordy along with Jackie Wilson's cousin Tyrone Carlo had written an answer song to the Silhouette's hit "Get A Job" called "Got a Job". Berry brought the song to the Matadors, since they now had a girl in the group re-named themselves the Miracles, and helped get it recorded on End Records in March 1958.
The rest, as they say, is history.
TECHNICAL NOTE: They really isn't much you can do to a piece of audio like this. It is an acetate demo recording, transfered some 50 years ago. However, I think you will find that the other versions that might be floating about KZread seem to run a bit fast. I think this sounds closer to what it actually sounded like even if the original disc cutter was running a bit slow that day.
NOTE: The material featured in this video is from a non digital, analog source and of "substandard" quality. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.