When Smokey Sings was the eighth UK Top 40 hit single for ABC
and reached #11 in 1987. It faired even better on the
American Billboard Hot 100 reaching #5.
The success of the song came as a relief to the
band, and propelled them back into the limelight after the previous two
singles had failed to break the Top 40. It was the band's first Top 40 hit since 1985 when Be Near Me reached #26 in the UK.
The song was written and
produced by Martin Fry and Mark White and was a tribute to the
R&B/Soul singer Smokey Robinson. It was lifted from ABC's fourth
studio album Alphabet City.
Between 1981 and
1989, ABC released ten Top 40 singles in the UK (five in the U.S.)
making them very much an 80's band. Their last hit single was in 1989
with One Better World which peaked at #32 in the British singles chart.
Commerically, ABC reached their peak in 1982 when they released the #1 Platinum-selling album The Lexicon Of Love, which spawned the three top ten singles Poison Arrow (#6), The Look Of Love (#4) and All Of My Heart (#5).
