Tuesday 31 March 2009

It's A Shame

I've had It's A Shame by The Detroit Spinners going around and around in my head for a couple of days now. It's a song that does this on a regular basis. I'm not sure if that means that I love the song more than most or if it's just super catchy. I find myself singing it to myself walking down the street, or while I'm cooking.

It is a great track mind you, and what I didn't know for years was that Stevie Wonder wrote and produced it, and plays a lot of the instruments on it. Listen to the brass lines and you can hear Stevie's melodic touch quite clearly.

Here's the original by The Detroit Spinners (just The Spinners in the US, renamed in the UK to avoid confusing them with our middle of the road folk group of the same name) and a lovely reggae version by Alton Ellis. I'll have this going around and around and around in my head all day now...

Detroit Spinners - It's A Shame
Alton Ellis - It's A Shame

3 comments:

Mondo said...

I've got the Alton Ellis version on a Studio One comp - love it(well both actually).

It's worth keeping an eye out for the Standing In The Shadows Of Motown comp - CD2 is packed with outtakes and alt-takes including an instrumental versh of 'Shame'

drew said...

Absolute belter of a track. My favourite by them is That More Could A Boy Ask For

davyh said...

Splendid, splendid, splendid.