{"id":20325,"date":"2026-02-06T13:32:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artgardenhub.com\/?p=20325"},"modified":"2026-02-06T13:32:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:32:57","slug":"john-lennon-believed-smokey-robinson-had-the-most-perfect-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artgardenhub.com\/?p=20325","title":{"rendered":"John Lennon believed Smokey Robinson had \u201cthe most perfect voice\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the grand history of rock and roll, there has never been someone more willing to take the piss out of their own work than\u00a0John Lennon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as The Beatles were looked at as gods among men half the time they played, Lennon was the one always telling the fans that he wasn\u2019t the perfect artist that everyone thought he was and even went out of his way to insult the way that he sang most of his tunes. He didn\u2019t think that he was exactly like Pavarotti behind the microphone, but all of his greatest heroes normally had a different kind of tone in their voice than everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, the early rock and rollers were never supposed to sound completely clean whenever they sang. Little Richard\u2019s entire gimmick was being able to scream to the heavens on all of his tunes, and while Chuck Berry had a smoother voice than everyone else, he still wasn\u2019t going to be the same clean singer that someone like Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra was in their prime. He was singing from the gut, and Lennon figured he would follow suit when he wrote his own classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in terms of his range,\u00a0Plastic Ono Band\u00a0<\/em>really has everything that he\u2019s capable of under one roof. The whole album was about him deconstructing his own fragile mind, and with nothing else to hide behind, you get everything from the softer Lennon on \u2018Love\u2019 to the screaming at the end of \u2018Mother\u2019 to the primal freakout that\u2019s going on in the middle of \u2018Well Well Well\u2019 when the band really starts grooving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in terms of vocal tone, Lennon wasn\u2019t only a rock and roll fan. Jerry Lee Lewis and Berry were still among his all-time heroes, but the Fab Four needed to know more than a few rock and roll numbers to get them through their early Hamburg circuits. That meant listening to everything, and while McCartney convinced them to start playing some more nostalgic showtunes now and again, Lennon couldn\u2019t get enough of what he heard coming out of Motown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The R&B groove was already there in a lot of early rock and roll songs, but everyone from The Supremes to The Temptations were setting a new standard for what pop stars could sound like. There were also musical legends like Stevie Wonder, but everything that Lennon ever wanted to hear out of a vocalist could be found in Smokey Robinson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That gritty croon was absolutely fantastic at the time, and even when Lennon was going down the avant-garde rabbit hole, he still found time to compliment Robinson\u2019s pipes, saying,<\/a> \u201cThere\u2019s just one line in this Miracles\u2019 record \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve Been Good to You\u2019 \u2013 where it goes \u2018You got me Cry-y-y-yeying\u2019 \u2013 no breath, a beautiful little piece, I always love to hear it. I think he\u2019s [Smokey Robinson] got the most perfect voice, you know, I just think the group\u2019s got into such a same-y groove that it spoils it really.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it doesn\u2019t take a musical scholar to hear Lennon\u2019s admiration for him in practice. Even if you didn\u2019t know that \u2018You Really Got a Hold on Me\u2019 was originally a Miracles song, Lennon\u2019s powerhouse performance of \u2018This Boy\u2019 back in the day only comes from someone who\u2019s heard more than their fair share of Motown classics. That influence never stopped, either, since Lennon was still calling back to Robinson when making Double Fantasy <\/em>shortly before his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had been through many different musical eras and gone down the experiment rabbit hole more than a few times, but the fact that Lennon always found time for Robinson really is a testament to his voice. Not every song had to be an absolute barnburner or anything, but you can feel your heart aching whenever you hear the rest of the band coming in behind him on \u2018Ooh Baby Baby\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yqvMvuF6Dhk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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