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Written by Josh Baron.
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Thursday, 24 August 2006 |
 I'm living beyond my wildest dream,” says 66-yearold Motown legend Smokey Robinson. With an equal amount of charted hits under his belt as his years, Robinson could easily rest his laurels on his 4,000- plus song catalog. Yet the sultry soul master is as indefatigable as ever, releasing a collection of standards earlier this summer with an aim to release an album of original material in the near future. The man who penned such classics as “My Girl,” “I Second that Emotion,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “My Guy,” “You Really Got a Hold on Me” and “Tracks of My Tears” checks in with Relix.
In Detroit in the 1950s you literally grew up alongside Aretha Franklin and so many other phenomenal talents. What do you think catalyzed people to perform at that place and time?
The key to Detroit at that time was Barry Gordy, because I guarantee you every city, every town, every township in the entire world, in ratio, has that amount of talent. It’s just the fact that we were fortunate enough to have Barry Gordy. Gordy was a man who had a dream and he had the wherewithal to pursue his dream and to make that thing happen like that.
Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is your all-time favorite album. What are your next four, in no particular order?
That’s a real tough question [sighs]. I know one of them would have to be Tapestry [Carole King]. And my Quiet Storm album. And… [We let Smokey off the hook with those two.]
Innumerable artists have covered your material. Have you ever heard the Grateful Dead’s or Jerry Garcia’s versions of “Second That Emotion” or “The Way You Do The Things You Do?”
I hear all of ‘em, they’re all sent to me. Don’t ask me what my favorite one is, though [laughs]. That’s a songwriter’s dream. When I sit down to write a song, I’m trying to write a song, man, I’m not trying to write a record. I want to write a song that if I had written it 50 years before it would have meant something. It’s going to mean something at the present time and 50 years from now it’s going to mean something. So when I hear one of my songs being done, however the person interprets it, it’s a dream come true for me as a songwriter. There are millions upon millions of songs for them to have chosen—and they chose one of mine. I can’t beat that.
Your new album, A Timeless Love, is a collection of standards you grew up loving, like “Night and Day,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “Our Love is Here to Stay.” Given how legendary and well-covered they are, how do you approach recording them?
I sing them like I sing them. Every song that I sing, I try to sing it like me. I’m not trying to emulate what has been done with those songs because I would never try to emulate Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan or any of those people. They were instruments [laughs]. You’re talking about two of the greatest singers in life. These songs were written when the song was king.
So many of your lyrics connect with people on such a personal and emotional level. How often have they come out of real experience?
Life is my inspiration. I don’t have to experience everything that I write about. It would be impossible for one person to experience everything in life. But I’m an observer. I’m a people-watcher and a thing-watcher. I don’t have to stub my toe necessarily to know that it hurts. I see billboard signs or something in the newspaper or you might say something that could trigger an idea, you know what I mean? [laughs] That’s how I write. I’m not one of those writers who needs to take four months off and go to the mountains and isolate myself so that I can write or go down to the beach and rent a little hut. No, no, no. It happens for me every day of my life, basically. I can be in my car, in the bathroom. There’s no place or set thing. It just happens.
Does Smokey Robinson sing in the shower? All the time.
Smokey Robinson was interviewed by Josh Baron. For more of this interview, please visit www.relix.com/
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Last Updated ( Friday, 20 October 2006 )
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