Big Chief Smokey

Smokey Robinson is about the last singer on Motown you'd expect to wade into the waters of racism and social commentary as he was usually more concerned with conflict and strife on the field of romance, but the majestic "Just My Soul Responding" is so good it makes you wonder why he didn't do more stuff like this (I can't recall another song of his like it). Taken from his 1973 solo album "Smokey" - his first since leaving The MIracles - this is a sweeping historical epic of a record, starting out from the angry point of view of a soldier returning home from Vietnam ("though that war he sent me to didn't claim me, if I'm bitter don't blame me") then reaching way back to the appaling treatment of Native Americans and painting a portrait of an America built on blood and injustice. There was something of a "Red Power" vogue at the time and the record sounds like a tribal wardance as written by Curtis Mayfield with a marching beat and chanting courtesy of Tom Bee, the Dakota Sioux leader of the Native American rock band XIT who'd just signed to Motown subsidiary label Rare Earth and put out an album called "Plight Of The Redman." I don't know what he's saying but everytime I play this it rains outside.

The album "Smokey" isn't available anymore (which is a shame as it's very good) but you can get this on "The Solo Anthology"

[Download]
Just My Soul Responding - Smokey Robinson