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The Miracles music biography continued...

young Detroit students, William Robinson and Ronald White, who had become friends and started singing together while in the fifth grade. Robinson, nicknamed "Smokey" because of his love of cowboy movies, started a doo-wop group called The Five Chimes in 1955 at Northern High School with himself, White, bass singer Pete Moore (another childhood friend who Smokey knew since he was age 11), Clarence Dawson, and James Grice. As the group matured, their name and line-up would change, but in 1958 they hooked up with then songwriter Berry Gordy who worked with Robinson on his songcraft and produced The Miracles' first single, "Get a Job." Robinson soon suggested Gordy start his own record label and in 1959 he did so, founding Tamla Records (later Motown), and signing The Miracles as one of his first acts. After three unsuccessful singles, The Miracles' fourth Tamla single, "Shop Around" backed with "Who's Lovin' You" (1960), became their first Motown hit. "Shop Around" was the first Motown song to reach #1 on the national R&B charts, and the first to sell over a million copies. In February 1961, the Miracles became the first-ever Motown act to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, and they would soon become Motown's most popular act, setting a course for the remarkable careers of both Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy.



Over the next twenty years, The Miracles, both with and without Smokey Robinson, charted over fifty hits and recorded in the genres of doo wop, soul, disco, and R&B. Twenty-six Miracles songs reached the Top Ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including four R&B number ones. Sixteen of the Miracles' songs charted within the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, with seven songs charting within the Top Ten and two - 1970's "The Tears of a Clown" and 1975's "Love Machine" (Part 1) - reaching number-one. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Smokey Robinson & the Miracles #32 on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. And in 2009, in honor of Motown's 50th Anniversary, the group got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.