First I Look at the Purse has also been covered by David Bromberg, Rod Stewart, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, The Cortinas and Nashville Pussy. "First I Look at the Purse" was the last Contours hit featuring original lead Billy Gordon. It also features the renewed line-up of Contours, as several original members had left back in 1964. Shortly after its release, Gordon departed the group, and Motown, for good, due to personal problems. He was replaced with Joe Stubbs, brother of lead singer of fellow Motown group The Four Tops, Levi Stubbs. In the early 2000s, the Contours performed the song on the
Something About You (Four Tops song) Wynn praises the song as being "a great uptempo shouter." Wynn also praises its "vocal authority" and "production genius." Author Bill Dahl praised the song's "crackling shuffle rhythm" and the way lead singer Levi Stubbs emotes "over punchy horns and low-end guitar." "Rolling Stone Magazine" critic Dave Marsh rated "Something About You" to be one of the top 1001 singles of all time. Marsh praised the song's sense of urgency, claiming that rhythm and blues is about "the kind of emotional expansiveness that erupts from these grooves, the pure tension between Motown formula and Levi's [lead singer Levi Stubbs'] uncontrollable