
Bruce Jenkins was twelve years old, living in Malibu with his parents, when he heard the original “Shop Around” single, by “The Miracles featuring Bill ‘Smokey’ Robinson,” the first Billboard No. 1 R&B single for Motown’s Tamla label. Released nationally in October 1960, the single would ultimately make it into the Grammy Hall of Fame, but for young Bruce, the first times he heard the song were a revelation. Jenkins grew up surrounded by music. His father, Gordon Jenkins, was a composer and arranger who worked with artists from Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday to Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash, but was best known for his close collaboration with Frank Sinatra. His mother, Beverly, was a singer. For Bruce, “Shop Around” ushered him into a new world of loving Motown. In Shop Around, he brings to life the first thrill of having the music claim him, provides the back story of the recording (and rerecording) of the hit single, shares sketches from his life with his father and mother, and traces how his love of music has grown and evolved over the years and how he still loves driving around San Francisco with Motown cranked up on his car stereo.
Author

Bruce Jenkins, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, is the author of "Goodbye: In Search of Gordon Jenkins," "Shop Around: Growing Up With Motown in a Sinatra Household," "North Shore Chronicles: Big-Wave Surfing in Hawaii," and " A Good Man: The Pete Newell Story." A 1966 graduate of Santa Monica High School, he earned a B.A. in journalistic studies at UC Berkeley in 1971 and has written for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1973, writing a regular sports column since 1989. He has covered 27 World Series and 19 Wimbledons, and been named one of the top 10 sports columnists in the nation by the Associated Press Sports Editors.