60-Year-Old Songs: The Way You Do the Things You Do

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WOW, what a great day yesterday. And, given the heat that’s moving in, I’m very thankful that walking tour was yesterday and not today!! It’s “send a thank you card to the A/C company” weather now. It’s also time for another song from 1964. Sing along with this great Motown great. The Way You Do the Things You Do - the Temptations So…about the time I started listening to rock and roll in the mid-70s there came a trend in popular music. That was white “soft rock” singers doing covers of R&B songs. It started innocently enough, when Linda Ronstadt did a rocking rendition of “Heat Wave. Then there was James Taylor’s pretty good version of “How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved By You).” Then EVERYBODY got in on the act: the Captain & Tennille covered “Shop Around,” for instance. One of the biggest criminals in that trend was Kris Kristofferson’s ex-wife, Rita Coolidge (although they were still married at the time). She did this woeful version of “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” originally a hit for Jackie Wilson. Then waddaya know, she covered this too. Ick. This was the first hit for the Temptations. With Eddie Kendricks on lead vocals, it had massive crossover appeal in that wild, wonderful year of 1964. Amid the Beatlemania and British Invasion, the R&B caught on as well. I wonder if Rita ever apologized to Smokey Robinson (who wrote the song) for what she did to it. What a song. The Way You Do the Things You Do Written by Smokey Robinson and Robert Rogers Recorded by the Temptations From Meet the Temptations, 1964 You could’ve been a school book: