From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   Now, if you dismissed (as more tiresome Styble rhapsodizing hyperbole) my   
   above-thread declaration of the late Bobby Smith [expired on Saturday, March,   
   16, 2013] as nothing less than the Presley* of The Spinners, consider this   
   link, from "The Midnight    
   Special".  It of course isn't as pristine as the studio take, it's still a   
   most remarkable performance of a remarkable tune, and nearly as exquisite as   
   the laboriously-produced recording you still hear on oldies stations.   
      
   Young folk may not know The Midnight Special as that Fridays-on-NBC broadcast   
   brainchild of Burt Sugarman (hubby of the still-oft-seen-behind-Dodgers'-home   
   plate Mary Hart, original and to date still best "Entertainment Tonight"   
   host).  Now I gather    
   backstage honcho Sugarman didn'I have many MSpecial rules, but one WAS said to   
   be ironclad AND wonderfully simple:  No lip-synch.  (Same policy held by Ed   
   Sullivan, no?):     
      
   So this version of The Spinners' perhaps finest recording ever demonstrate how   
   Bobby Smith was every bit the talented vocalist as was the 1956-58 Elvis.   
      
   Smith's vocals here are simply DRENCHED with nuance, and his movements   
   exquisite, as notably were those of the more-acrobatic,  cinematic dancing   
   Nicholas Brothers.  Like the Nicholases would explain in interviews, Smith   
   also clearly understood that    
   HANDS are as essential to any dance act as are the feet.  Smith's arms here on   
   MS are exponentially more beautiful to watch than any affected movements   
   Jagger ever subjected a Rolling Stones audience to.   
      
   With maybe the exception of my all-time fave Marvin Gaye clip ("Ain't That   
   Peculiar?" linked below, and also not lip-synched--though a pal insists I'm   
   naive about that).  But Smith in that MSpecial performance arguably matches   
   Gaye even here.  Bottom    
   line, I don't know of ANYONE in classic soul to equal Bobby Smith's stunning   
   package of talent.   
      
   (And yeah, the dapper Henry Fambrough certainly played an elegant Robin to   
   Smith's soaring-then-glidin'-then-boppin' Batman.)   
      
   BRYAN STBYLE/Florida   
   ==================   
   * Uh, that would be Elvis Aron, NOT Jesse Garon...though J.G. TOO would   
   probably have been a prodigiously-talented vocalist, had he ever had the   
   chance sometime after Tuesday, January 8, 1935); J.G. is indeed reported to   
   have had identical DNA, after all.   
   ==================   
   Spinners "I'll Be Around":   
           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03UBzqoPMY   
   --------------------   
   Marvin Gay "Ain't That Peculiar?":     
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP0Loe6tVB0   
   =============   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)