Smokey Robinson & the Miracles LIVE! (TS289) is a 1969 album by R&B group The Miracles (aka “Smokey Robinson & the Miracles”). Issued on Motown’s Tamla label, it’s the second of three reside albums the Miracles recorded throughout their profession. The album was recorded in 1968 at Detroit’s well-known Roostertail Restaurant, a preferred venue the place Motown artists appeared through the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies. Launched January 6, 1969, it charted at #71 on the Billboard Pop Album Chart and peaked at #7 on the Billboard R&B Album Chart.

The live performance that spawned the album was aimed toward an grownup supper-club crowd, as an alternative of the group’s typical teenaged market. It consisted of a mix of a number of of the group’s best hits, together with requirements. The album, which documented a way more polished {and professional} efficiency than the one on the group’s first reside album, The Miracles Recorded Dwell on Stage, revealed the Miracles’ great development as skilled performers through the intervening six years.

There have been two essential adjustments within the group’s personnel for the reason that earlier reside album. Miracles’ bass singer Pete Moore, whose profession had been interrupted by navy service, had returned to the group by this time and was current on this album, whereas Miracles member Claudette (Mrs. Smokey) Robinson, who was on the primary reside album, had retired from reside performances 5 years earlier than this album appeared. (Claudette Robinson continued to seem on studio recordings with the group and likewise appeared on the group’s third and closing reside album, 1957–1972. In actual fact, that is the solely Miracles reside album through which Claudette does not seem.)

Along with Miracles favorites comparable to “The Tracks of My Tears”, “Ooo Child Child”, “Mickey’s Monkey”, “I Second That Emotion”, “If You Can Need”, and “Going to a Go-Go”, the album additionally included the group’s newest single, “Yester Love”. Requirements included “Poinciana” (recorded by Bing Crosby, Vic Damone, Ahmad Jamal, Johnny Mathis, and quite a few others), Dionne Warwick’s “(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls”, and one other Warwick basic, “Stroll On By”. Different covers included the Fifth Dimension’s smash hit “Up, Up and Away”, and The Beatles’ “Yesterday”, which the Miracles had carried out reside on The Ed Sullivan Present the earlier yr. Miracles member Marv Tarplin was on each reside albums however was uncredited for causes unknown. Tarplin was credited on 1957–1972, and did seem with the group on The Ed Sullivan Present in 1968.

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles LIVE! was launched in 2004 on a Motown two-CD set along with the group’s closing reside album, 1957–1972, by Hip-O Choose, below the identify Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: The Dwell Assortment.