Marv Tarplin (1941 - 2011)

Illustration from "Plan for a Boulevard to Connect the North and South Sides of the River on Michigan Avenue and Pine Street" by the Commercial Club of Chicago, 1908

I only just found out that Marv Tarplin of the Miracles passed away at the end of September. I think that Tarplin's an interesting character in the story of Motown because he's one of few instrumentalists that was attached to a specific vocal group. For most of their time together, the Miracles were composed of Smokey Robinson, four backing vocalists, and Tarplin on guitar. Robinson was a first-rate songwriter and he collaborated with Tarplin and the other Miracles on many of the group's best songs.

Tarplin's biggest contributions to the band's songs coincided (not coincidentally) with the peak of their success - Tarplin had a writing credit on three of the four singles (all Top Twenty hits!) that the Miracles released in 1965. The two best singles are based largely on guitar riffs that Tarplin came up with, the better-known of the two being "The Tracks of My Tears". I'm a big fan of Tarplin's other big riff from 1965, "Going to a Go-Go" - Tarplin felt strongly that the Rolling Stones had been "borrowing" from the Miracles sound, so he decided to write a song in the style of the Rolling Stones. The result is an uncharacteristically straightforward and simple raver that really stands out among the Miracles mid-60s singles. In a fitting tribute to Tarplin's pointed composition, the Stones recorded their own version of "Going to a Go-Go" in 1981.

"Going to a Go-Go" by the Miracles