Make It Happen (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles album)

Make It Happen is a 1967 album by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. It featured ballads such as the hit singles "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" and "More Love", as well as the up-tempo "The Tears of a Clown" co-written by Stevie Wonder and his producer Hank Cosby.

Three years after the album's release, "The Tears of a Clown" was issued as a single, and charted at #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. As a result, Make It Happen was reissued as The Tears of a Clown in 1970.

Stevie Wonder was a contributing writer on three of the album's songs, the aforementioned "The Tears of a Clown", "After You Put Back the Pieces (I'll Still Have a Broken Heart)", and "My Love Is Your Love (Forever)". Holland-Dozier-Holland contributed the good-times dance song "It's a Good Feeling". Smokey's fellow Miracles Warren "Pete" Moore and Marv Tarplin collaborated with him on the songs "You Must Be Love" (a popular regional hit tune), and "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" (a Top 20 Hit) respectively, and all of The Miracles (except Claudette) co-wrote the up-tempo rocker "Dancing's Alright". The album also features a rendition of Little Anthony & The Imperials' 1964 Top 20 smash, "I'm on the Outside (Looking In)"  "The Tears of a Clown" on the monaural version of the album has an alternate lead vocal.

Critics at Allmusic praised the album, giving it 4-1/2 out of five stars, calling it "The most underrated Miracles LP of the '60s", and stating that, in addition to the album's three hits, it also had "featured a spate of [other] great songs, including three or four that really should've been hits".

Side one

 * 1) "The Soulful Shack" (Smokey Robinson)
 * 2) "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" (Robinson, Marvin Tarplin)
 * 3) "My Love for You" (Clarence Paul, Morris Broadnax)
 * 4) "I'm on the Outside (Looking In)" (Bobby Weinstein, Teddy Randazzo)
 * 5) "Don't Think It's Me" (Robinson)
 * 6) "My Love Is Your Love (Forever)" (Ivy Jo Hunter, Stevie Wonder)

Side two

 * 1) "More Love" (Robinson)
 * 2) "After You Put Back the Pieces (I'll Still Have a Broken Heart)" (Paul, Broadnax, Wonder)
 * 3) "It's a Good Feeling" (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
 * 4) "You Must Be Love" (Robinson, Warren Moore)
 * 5) "Dancing's Alright" (Robinson, Tarplin, Moore, Robert Rogers, Ronald White)
 * 6) "The Tears of a Clown" (Robinson, Wonder, Henry Cosby)

The Miracles

 * Smokey Robinson – lead vocals, producer, album executive producer
 * Ronnie White – backing vocals
 * Bobby Rogers – backing vocals
 * Warren "Pete" Moore – backing vocals
 * Claudette Robinson – backing vocals
 * Marv Tarplin – producer, guitar

Other instruments

 * The Funk Brothers and various Los Angeles session musicians: instrumentation
 * The Andantes – additional backing vocals on "It's a Good Feeling"

Producers

 * Brian Holland – producer
 * Lamont Dozier – producer
 * Henry Cosby – producer