I Like It Like That (The Miracles song)


I Like It Like That was a 1964 hit song by Motown group The Miracles on its Tamla label subsidiary. It reached the Top 30 of the Billboard Pop chart, charting at #27 and the Top 10 of Cash Box R&B chart, peaking at #10.. This is not the Chris Kenner hit song of the same name, but rather, a Miracles original, written by Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Marv Tarplin, and is included on the group's first greatest hits album, . It was also the title song from their long-since deleted 1964 album of the same name.
Like many Miracles hit songs, "I Like It Like That" begins with Tarplin's guitar. It features a "live party" feel, similar to their earlier 1963 hit, "Mickey's Monkey". Smokey encourages everybody to "clap your hands now, everybody, we're gonna have some fun tonight...we're gonna sing and shout...knock ourselves out...and everything's gonna be alright". The other Miracles, Bobby, Ronnie, Pete, and Claudette, join in with their trademark harmony vocals, with chants of alright, and I like it like that as The Funk Brothers add additional instruments to the mix.
"I Like It Like That" was released during a period when Smokey and the Miracles were so busy touring as the headline act with the famed Motortown Revue shows, and writing big hits for other Motown acts, principally Mary Wells and The Temptations, that their own chart action suffered. Of the group's four single releases that year, "I Like It Like That" was the only one to crack the Billboard Pop Top 30, while two songs that they wrote for the two aforementioned acts, "My Guy" and "My Girl" respectively, both reached #1 Pop.. The following year, 1965, was The Miracles' biggest year ever.
"I Like It Like That" has inspired cover versions by Bobby Vee and Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. The song's B side, "You're So Fine And Sweet", featured a rare lead by Miracles second tenor Bobby Rogers, and inspired a cover version by The Undertakers.

Personnel

The Miracles: