Smokey Robinson
- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Multi-talented performer/writer/producer Smokey Robinson's career, and
life, is inextricably tied up with Motown Records' founder Berry Gordy (his
first two children are named Tamla, for the Gordy-owned label Smokey
recorded for, and Berry, for Gordy himself). He and Gordy have had a
professional and personal relationship since the late 1950s, when
Robinson went to work for Gordy's budding musical empire not only as a
performer with his group, The Miracles, but also as a songwriter/producer.
Robinson and The Miracles began turning out an almost unbroken string of
hits in the early 1960s on Gordy's Tamla label (although they had minor
hits on a few labels before they signed with Gordy). Robinson's high,
warm tenor was perfect for the romantic ballads that he wrote for the
group (one of the music industry's most prolific songwriters, Robinson
was also such an imaginative one that Bob Dylan once called him
"America's greatest living poet"), although they could also do hard,
driving dance records (i.e., "Mickey's Monkey"). In addition to his
writing/performing/producing chores for The Miracles, Robinson also turned
out hit after hit for other Motown acts: Mary Wells ("My Guy"), The Temptations
("My Girl"), and others for The Marvelettesand Marvin Gaye. He left The Miracles to go
solo in 1972, and met with even more success, turning out hit record
after hit record all through the 1970s and 1980s. He was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
