Consumer Guide Album

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: 1957-1972 [Tamla, 1972]
If this live-double souvenir of Smokey's farewell tour with his group were the only Miracles record I owned I'd play it a lot. It totals less than an hour including patter and offers little that's new, but the show band gets through all the oldies with a minimum of extraneous swing and only on "Shop Around" does Smokey betray the kind of embarrassment that so frequently afflicts upwardly mobile performers reprising their teen hits. Good for him--he knows these are great songs, and he sings his ass off. B+