Robinson, Smokey

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Smokey Robinson

Singer, songwriter, record company executive

Smokey Robinson, the “poet laureate of soul music,” has been composing and singing rhythm and blues hits for three decades. As the lead singer of The Miracles, Robinson helped to put Detroit and its Motown Records on the music map; more recently, his solo performances have netted Grammy Awards and praise from pundits who usually shun the pop genre. People magazine contributor Gail Buchalter calls Robinson “one of the smoothest tenors in soul music,” a romantic idol whose 60 million-plus in record sales “helped turn Motown into the largest black-owned corporation in the world.”

According to Jay Cocks in Time, Robinson has written, produced, and performed “some of the most enduring rhythm and blues ever made. The church kept easy company with the street corner in his rich melodies, and his lyrics had a shimmering, reflective grace that, at his pleasure, could challenge or seduce. With the Miracles, Smokey helped make a kind of soul music that balanced ghetto pride and middle-class ambition. Some of the group’s best tunes … stayed true to the R & B roots even as they beckoned, and found, a larger pop audience.” In Rolling Stone, Steve Pond concluded that Robinson has written “some 4000 songs and recorded hundreds that have made him a true poet of the soul—and a voice of the soul, too.”

William “Smokey Joe” Robinson, Jr. not only rose from obscurity, he brought along a number of other now-famous black recording stars when he began to find success. He was born and raised in Detroit, in the rough Brewster ghetto, where, as he told People, “you were either in a [music] group or a gang—or both.” Young Smokey grew up listening to his mother’s records, including the works of B. B. King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Sarah Vaughan, and Billy Eckstine. He told Rolling Stone that these black artists were “the first inspirational thing I had.” When Robinson was ten, his mother died, and his sister Geraldine took him to raise along with her ten children. The family was poor but close-knit, and Robinson spent his youth writing songs and singing in local bands.

Robinson would not consider a professional career until he graduated from high school, and even then he tried barber school and courses in dentistry before giving his full attention to music. In 1954 he formed a rhythm & blues group called The Matadors; the name was changed to The Miracles three years later to accomodate a female singer, Claudette Rogers, who married Robinson in 1959. At first The Miracles found the music business difficult, even with the

For the Record…

Full name, William Robinson, Jr.; born February 19, 1940, in Detroit, Mich.; married Claudette Rogers (a singer), November 7, 1959 (divorced); children: Berry William, Tamla Claudette.

Singer, songwriter, 1954—; founder of group The Matadors, 1954, group’s name changed to The Miracles, 1957; performer with The Miracles, 1957-72; solo performer, backed by group Quiet Storm, 1972—; co-founder (with Berry Gordy, Jr.) of Tamla record label, 1959; vice-president of Motown Records, 1972—; has made numerous television appearances, including own special in 1971; appeared on Broadway in “An Evening With Smokey Robinson,” 1985.

Awards: Grammy Award nomination for best rhythm and blues song, “Cruisin’,” 1979; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1986, and Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1986; Grammy Award for best male rhythm and blues vocal performance, 1987, for “Just to See Her.”

Addresses: Home —Los Angeles, CA;Office –Motown Record Corp., 6255 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028. Agent— c/o Michael Roshkind, 6255 Sunset Blvd., 18th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

five-dollars-per-week salaries granted them by their energetic young agent, Berry Gordy. “For a while,” Claudette Robinson told Essence, “we lived basically in one bedroom. But we didn’t stay in that house very long. Fortunately, the music started to happen.”

Robinson was lucky to have encountered Berry Gordy during an audition for another agent; Gordy, then a fledgling music producer on a shoestring budget, was equally fortunate to have found Robinson. Gordy began to produce The Miracles’ singles in 1958, collaborating with Robinson on lyrics and tunes. Their first release, “Got a Job” (an answer to The Silhouettes’ number one hit “Get a Job”), hit number 93 on the nationwide Billboard Top 100. The debut was encouraging, but nothing prepared Gordy and Robinson for the limelight they would attain in 1960. Late in that year they released an upbeat single, “Shop Around,” that became a chart-topping million seller. The Miracles became a national phenomenon, and Gordy was able to launch Motown Records, a landmark production company that introduced such talents as Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and the Temptations.

Robinson and The Miracles were Gordy’s first star-quality group, and they continued their association with Motown as the company gained prestige. Indeed, Robinson wrote hit songs not only for his group but for other Motown headliners as well. He explained the Motown philosophy in Rolling Stone: “We set out to … make music for people of all races and nationalities. Not to make black music—we just wanted to make good music that would be acceptable in all circles…. All we were doing, man, was just putting good songs on good tracks, songs that anybody could relate to…. We had good, solid songs that would fit your particular life situation if you were white or Oriental or Chicano or whatever you happened to be. And that made a world of difference.”

Throughout the 1960s, especially in the latter half of the decade, the Motown Sound competed with the British Invasion as the most popular new music for the young. Robinson and The Miracles were favorites among the Motown personnel, earning more than a half dozen gold records with hits including “The Tracks of My Tears,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “I Second That Emotion,” and “Ooo Baby Baby.” Still, Robinson was on the verge of quitting the group in 1968 when his son Berry was born. He reconsidered almost immediately, however, when a Miracles single, “The Tears of a Clown,” became a number one hit, first in England and then in the United States. Robinson told Rolling Stone that “The Tears of a Clown” became “the biggest record we ever had. It catapulted us into another financial echelon as far as what we made on dates, and I felt that the band was entitled to reap the benefits.” The Miracles endured, a model group in terms of road behavior, until 1972, when Robinson quit.

For a time after leaving The Miracles, Robinson concentrated on business duties as vice-president of Motown Records. He soon returned to recording, however, this time as a solo artist. Robinson’s solo albums are, on the whole, more reflective and mellow than his work with The Miracles. All of them highlight the singer’s particular talent—the creation and performance of meaningful love songs in a day when many erstwhile romantics have become jaded cynics. Stephen Holden analyzed Robinson’s music in Rolling Stone: “Smokey Robinson is that rare pop singer whose rhapsodic lyricism hasn’t diminished with approaching middle age. Indeed, time has added a metaphysical depth to his art. The postadolescent Romeo who created ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ and ‘Ooh, Baby Baby’ exudes the same sweetness today he did fifteen years ago, but his tenor and falsetto have shaded into a single dusky croon…. Smokey Robinson’s faith in the redemptive power of erotic love continues unabated. In Robinson’s musical world, sexual happiness isn’t the product of spiritual equilibrium but its source…. Don’t think, however, that Robinson’s songs aren’t filled with sex. They are. But in this man’s art, sex isn’t a fast roll in the hay, it’s sweet manna shared during a leisurely stroll into paradise. Smokey Robinson creates that paradise every time he opens his mouth to sing.” Recent Robinson hits include “Cruisin’,” “Just to See Her,” and “Being with You,” all rendered in a voice Essence contributor Jack Slater described as “a hypnotic, airy aphrodisiac that puts tens of thousands in the mood for love.” In the Chicago Tribune, Lynn Van Matre notes that when Robinson is singing, he “is among the most appealing of soul men, sexy in a low-key, warm way that generates a far greater amount of genuine heat than all the contrived posturings of the ‘giddy-up gonads’ group currently doing the old synthetic sex soft shoe.”

Robinson plans to keep writing songs, singing, and producing music indefinitely. He told Time that he still loves to perform for live audiences. “If I don’t remember all the words to some of the old songs, I’ll sing what I remember,” he said. “We all have a great time. I can be down in the dumps and really feeling bad. But when I go onstage, it’s like wow.” Nor does Robinson plan to discontinue writing love songs, the appeals to romance, and the laments on separation that have made him famous. “Love is basically what we’re all about, man,” he told Rolling Stone.”We’re about our business, the nine-to-five trip, but our basic thing in life is love. It’s the most powerful force. It’s never passe, it’s not a fad. It’s always.”

Compositions

Has written and co-written numerous songs, 1954—, including “Ain’t That Peculiar?,” “Don’t Mess With Bill,” “Going to a Go-Go,” “I Second That Emotion,” “It’s Growing,” “More Love,” “My Girl,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “You Beat Me to the Punch, ““You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Here I Am Baby,” “I’ll Be Doggone,” “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” “Ooo Baby Baby,” “Two Lovers,” “Cruisin’,” “First I Look at the Purse,” and “The Tears of a Clown.”

Selected discography

Major single releases; with The Miracles; all released by Tamla

“Got a Job,” March, 1958.

“Shop Around,” November, 1960.

“What’s So Good About Goodbye?,” January, 1962.

“I’ll Try Something New,” May, 1962.

“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” December, 1962.

“Mickey’s Monkey,” August, 1963.

“I Gotta Dance to Keep From Crying,” November, 1963.

“Ooo Baby Baby,” April, 1965.

“The Tracks of My Tears,” July, 1965.

“Going to a Go-Go,” January, 1966.

“The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” March, 1967.

“More Love,” June, 1967.

“I Second That Emotion,” November, 1967.

“The Tears of a Clown,” December, 1970.

Major single releases; solo

“Cruisin’,” 1979.

“Just to See You,” 1987.

“Being with You.”

LPs; with The Miracles

Hi, We’re the Miracles, Motown, 1961.

Shop Around, Motown, 1962.

Doin’ Mickey’s Monkey, Motown, 1963.

The Fabulous Miracles, Motown, 1964.

The Miracles on Stage, Motown, 1964.

Going to a Go Go, Motown, 1964.

The Miracles from the Beginning, Motown, 1965.

Away We Go, Motown, 1965.

Make It Happen, Motown, 1968.

Greatest Hits Volume 2, Motown, 1968, reissued, 1987.

The Miracles Live, Motown, 1969.

Special Occasion, Motown, 1969.

Time Out, Motown, 1970.

Four in Blue, Motown, 1970.

What Love Has Joined Together, Motown, 1970.

Smokey and the Miracles, Motown, 1971.

1957-1972, Motown, 1973.

Anthology, Motown, 1974.

The Miracles, CBS, 1977.

Compact Command Performances, Volume 2, Tamla, 1986.

Going to a Go Go/The Tears of a Clown, Tamla, 1986.

Also recorded Cookin’ with the Miracles, Christmas with the Miracles, Tears of a Clown, I Like It Like That, Greatest Hits, Pocketful of Miracles, One Dozen Roses, The Season for Miracles, Compact Command Performances, Greatest Hits from the Beginning, and Flying High Together, all with Motown.