The Miracles

Scoring over 40 hits on the R&B Top 40 charts, The Miracles started out as the Five Chimes in the mid-'50s while the members were still in high school. The Detroit vocal group consisted of William "smokey" Robinson, Warren "pete" Moore, Clarence "humble" Dawson, Donald Wicker, and James "rat" Grice. Not too long after the group formed, Wicker and Grice left and were replaced by cousins Emerson "sonny" Rogers and Bobby Rogers, who both sang tenor, and baritonist Ronnie White was in Dawson's place. The vocal quintet then changed its name to the Matadors and in 1956 Claudette Rogers joined the band after her brother Sonny was drafted. The Matadors auditioned for Jackie Wilson's manager, Nat Tarnopol, in 1956. Although Tarnopol wasn't interested, finding the group too similar to The Platters, one of Wilson's songwriters, Berry Gordy, Jr., was and he soon began producing the band, who now went by the name The Miracles. Gordy produced their first single, "Got a Job," (an answer to the Silhouettes' "Get a Job") which was issued by the New York label End Records in 1958.

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