Smokey Robinson

R and B Money.

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R and B.

Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tanking. I am Ja Valentown. This is the R and B Money Podcast, the authorities on all things please R and B. Yes, yes, yes, that's what we represent. The foundation is in the building, preach telling what reason why we are here while we do what we won't do. What we do here is in the building while we sing so beautifully, don't you chucking?

Man?

Yeah? Him, the one and.

Only, the one and only.

Huh why even fo you want to smoke? Yeah? What Yeah? All of that, all of that he's been setting on five. We got to smoke from him. Let's get right into it. The King smoky bro.

Smoke tak. I'm taking you everywhere I go for that introduction.

Man, man, man, let me ask you a question. Okay, let me ask your question. Do you know like do you do you ever get to like they said the guy on the matrix? He said, have you ever step back and marveled at it? It's beauty? Have you've gotten a chance to just understand what you've done?

Well? Man, you know what, First of all, I am just really really really blessed man, you know, and especially especially now, if you could have seen it, then you would add some inkling of what I'm talking about it, especially if you see it now where I grew up. Any kid there, because we had a lot of groups and a lot of people singing, and other would not have thought that something like this could happen for them.

Man.

I grew up in the hood. I grew up you know where, you know, with some gangster brothers. So I am overwhelmed with what God has allowed to happen in my life, man, you know, because like I said, this was my impossible dream as a kid. This is what I wanted for my life, but it was impossible to me because this possibly ever happened, you know, not from where I am, you know. So I'm living my impossible dream, and it's a blessing, man. And I don't take it

Well, let me say this. Today is Smoky Robinson Day. We know he probably got many of them around the world, of course, of course, but today on this pod, it's the King's day. Right. You say listen, you say you ain't. You don't trip on the Smoky Robinson thing. Today we get we tripped trip tripping Smoky Robinson. All right, you get the trip too, all right, whatever you get to stand on business, all right, I want to get I want to I want to get two things that are

Well you know what, man, I'm having two fiftieth anniversaries at the same time. Really, because it's a fifty Diniversity of a quiet storm. All yeah, quite storm was my debut back into show business. Man, because uh we of course everyone knows that we very started Motown. We started out in Detroit. That's where we're all from. I was born in Detroit. Blah blah blah blah. Were so well from Detroit. And then he decided along the way that he was going to he wanted motown to become an

And how old were you at this time.

When I retired from the Miracles, I was thirty one. Yeah, I was thirty one and so but man, I did because the Miracles and I had been saying. Ron White and Pete Moore and I had been singing together since we were eleven years old.

Man, oh wow, you know back in the days.

And then we met. We met Bobby who was our other original Miracle member, and a guy named Sonny, and Sonny when we graduated from high school, decided he wanted to go to the Army because we weren't doing anything as a group. It was a thousand groups in Detroit, you know, we just singing around the parties and stuff like that. So he had his mother decided for him to go to the army, and his sister took his place at our group. So Man, we went to audition

Platters already out. You'll never make make it.

Yeah, you'll never make it. All right, Here's what he said, is that he said, you never make it unless you change your format. So we okay, good. So anyway, so they rejected us. However, during the course of that audition, there was a young man sitting over in the corner, and, like I said, I'm sixteen, so he don't look any older than nineteen or twenty at this point, you know. And I think he's sitting there because he's gonna audition

Man?

I said, I wrote him. I'm wondering why he's asking me that, you know, because you know, what, do you care where gun I'm from? So you know, I'm being nice. Point yeah, but I'm thinking, like man, because I'm I'm I'm you know, I'm disappointed, you know. So he said, yeah, Man, he said, I liked a couple of your songs. Man. So I said to myself, well, he wants to use a couple of my songs so he can audition with him.

I said, so he was a guy already. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

He was ten years older than me. I just look, he just look young, girl, you know, I just want to see him the other day. You know, Bet was ninety five on his birthday. Man, he looked like he's sixty, you know. So anyway, so anyway, so uh so he said, yeah, I said, you berry Gordy. So that's why I say it was a god day, man, because Bet didn't have to be there that day. We didn't have to go audition. He was there to turn in some new songs to

Had lonely tears drop. He was gonna let jacket here all day.

Yeah, absolute, absolutely, you know what I'm saying. So anyway, he said he was him, and I could not believe this man. And he liked a couple of my songs and stuff. So to make a long story short, he he said, you got any more songs? I had a loose sleep notebook, man, like I said, full of songs. So he listened about twenty of them that day and he just critiqued him. So he started to work with me, and and and about a year and a half later

So I'm trying to put together inflation, baby, yeah, three nineteen nineteen.

Just ain't that Arry framed it. He's got it. He framed it, and I think that was that was the start that broke the camel's back as far as the starting motown. I'm glad George going to did that, man, because he said, MANE say, I'm tired of this because ain't nobody paying. So he bought eight hundred dollars with his family started Motown, thank God, started Motown. And like I said, we moved out to Los Angeles. I'm I'm

All sounded like me, so.

I just grabbed it. Yeah. I heard him for about ten minutes, man, and then I went home and uh, and I told her that I was so happy, man. And then I said, okay, I always consider myself to be a quiet singer, you know. I said, but I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna take show business by storm. And I walked around, I thought about it. I said, wait a minute, quiet Storm, Wait just one second, you know. So I went to the piano and I started writing

Yeah, yeah, you ready, You're ready, I'm.

Ready to go. So anyway, I took it to her and she finished up the leg for Quiet Storm, and the album became Quiet Storm, and it was my debut back in the show business.

Man.

It was. It was what had me come back to doing what I absolutely love. And so it was my debut back in the show business. And then eventually, man, this young brother, Melbourne Lindsay, he was a DJ down in Washington, d C. And he had a late night show and he started to play a Quiet Storm at the beginning of his show every night, and then he changed his show to be the Choiirt Storm, and then radio stations all over the country started to have a Choie Storm.

Ladies, gentlemen in the building right now. The Quiet Storm himself the reason you have a Quie wowarm Listen, you gotta understand. And I'm just you know, I'm just speaking to to impact us as artists R and b artists, our songs. The first place we would get spins, the first place they would say, you know what, We're gonna try you out on the Quiet Storm all right, Yeah, that's where I started. I started on the Quiet Store. A man, those are those late night spans.

Better believe it overnight or overnight.

Yeah, And it went from having successful overnight spins to having mind spins in the morning show. But it starts there, the Quiet Storm. But listen, I've set in for for many a DJ on their Quiet Storm. You know what I'm saying.

I've done a few, I've done plenty.

I have a question too. Yeah, over time coining a lot of these things, did you ever think like I need to start trademarking any of it? You was just like, I'm just writing and I'm just.

Clever at first. Yeah, at first, you know, I'm just I'm just writing. I think that when when something like that happens, Man, it happens basically on its own. Yeah, because I hadn't. I hadn't planned that, man, you know, I just I was just excited to come back and be able to go and do concerts again, and I'm I'm gonna be the white storm, you know, and then it just happened like that. Man. I hadn't planned it. I didn't even thought of that. Man, you know, I

I want to write.

If I had written it fifty years before I wrote it, it would have meant something to people, and currently it's gonna mean something when they hear it, and fifty years from now it's gonna mean something. He is here, so I want to I want to write a song. That's the thing that Barry when he started to mentor me on my songwriting, that he instilled that in me. I want to write a song, man, because if I write a song, I might go in the studio and record it. On myself or somebody else and not give it the

I want to be baited. Man.

You know it's six hundred years. We were still playing Beethoven's music. We're still playing Chopin, We're still playing Bach. You know, we're talking about where I grew up. Man, I had a great dose of music. Man. My mother. My mother passed when I was ten. But my mother, she well she would cuts you out in a minute. But she was like when the church three times a week, that kind of shit. But you know, she was a regular woman. She wanted to like this kind of person,

And and and and and.

These white boys came to me after the show and they said, hey, smokey uh, have you heard this new guy, BB King? I said, B B King, Man, I said, my mother played BB King when I was a little boy. You know what I'm saying. So my mother played Johnny Hooker and BB King and Muddy Waters and people like that, and little somebody. There was a whole lot of littles back in the day. And then some days, for two and three days in row she wouldn't play nothing but

Man.

Songs take different times at least for me, and shop Around took me about twenty five thirty minutes and it was done. It just flowed, just plump. I was so excited about it, man, and I want to office. Hey man, I said, I gotta smash it for Barrett Man. He said, you have me said, let me hear it. So we go down to the studio. We go to the piano, and Barry's an accomplished pianist, you know. So we go down the piano and I started singing shop round, you know,

Man.

I like the way you sound on this, so I said, okay. So I went in the studio and I recorded it on us and it Bear Strong was a bluesy singer as far as I was concerned. So that's how I wrote Chaperon and I recorded it just because you becoming young man. Then piano blo on, blown blown on on, and then you know all that you know, and it was kind of like slow and rocking and shit. So

It's on the radio.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. I said, Berry, the record's been out for two weeks on the radio. He said, I don't care. Man, it's not as good as it can be, and it can be really good. He said, I'm gonna change. I'm gonna change everything about it. I'm gonna change the sound, I'm gonna change the beat, I'm gonna change the rhythm. I'm gonna change everything about it. And it's going to number one. So I said, oh, man, okay, I said, but you know, he said no, no, no,

Sure.

But that's who that do it is. Man, He's one of those guys. That's why that's I tell people all the time, that's the success of Motown, man, Because people ask me all the time. You see, I grew up in a great neighborhood, man. I grew up down in Rossly for four doors down the street from Meretha Franklin lived right around the corner.

You know.

The fore Tops live right across the avenue by by by Pete who is one who's who was our bass singer. You know, the Temptations live right across this avenue right over there. And we had battles at high school. And you know, I grew up in a great neighborhood. You know what I'm saying. And people say all the time, why did Detroit have all those talented people? Man? He

We had Barry go. You know what I mean, somebody got to bring it all together.

Somebody had to bring for a dude with a high school education to pull off something like Motown and have it be what it has become. That's a special dude, man, that's a special dude. Man. You know what I mean, so that's what we had. We had somebody who was there pushing us. And and you know, and Motown was a place of competition. It was, it was, it was, it was. It was such a wonderful, wonderful place, man, because it was not just our workplace, it was our

You know.

It's but we have the Motown family man, and it's a beautiful thing. It was beautiful, you know. We Very held a sign up in the in the office. He had this thing and says, competition breeds success because we were so competitive against each other. Man, we were knocked down, drag out competitive against each other. The producers and the writers and people are trying to get records out on

Man, You see that?

Oh yeah, warm thoughts. Man, you see a little pature.

I'm pature, you know.

So anyway, so I'm in the mirror and I'm shaving, and the thought just came to me, Man, what if a person cried so much until their tears left tracks in their face? And then I said, oh, ship, that's it. So that was how I was able to finish up the tracks of my tears. Okay, now tracked my tears.

You gotta be from the snow Joy that took.

That took maybe a month or so cruising, which was another song that he Marven had put his guitar riffs on tape and cruising. I loved his guitar so much until back in those days you could looper tape and I would look. I literally put me to sleep at night. It was so sensual and so sexy, and so I wrote a couple of songs of that, and they didn't work because they weren't central and sexy like that. It took me five years to come up with something for cruisers.

Maybe.

So I'm driving down Sunset Boulevard in December with my top down and they got Christmas decorations and people are walking around in shorts and tank tops and ship it's eighty degrees is wrong because in December, and I thought to myself said, damn, this is ridiculous, man, this is December. I'm cruising down so it okay, I like this out of that word cruising, put it on the end of the thing, and that allowed me to finish that song. But life, yeah, life, absolutely.

Let's stop a cruising. Let's stop right, cruise, I do that, Let's stop. There are two things that I need to know about cruising. First, I need to know about the session of cruising. Okay, what does this the session? What is? What is it? Give me? If i'm if I walk in the studio, what do I see?

There was a guy named Jean Paige. I don't know if you ever met Jean. Jean Page was an arranger. He was one of the greatest UH rhythm and blues pop for arranger, of the greatest record industry arrangers that I've ever heard in my life. You take Jeene Page your raw thing, You're raw tape And when he got through with it. It was over, you know what I'm saying. So I took gene page after I put after I had recorded the the the uh the rhythm track, and

So he hired the string.

Yeah, yeah, he hired the string. He but he did the arrangements.

Arrangements, so he's he's Quincy Jones right now doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah, indeed, the bass player, this is what you do, and and this is all these are all live instruments.

Yes, yes, that's music, man, that's one man. I record live all the time. Man, I like to I like to sing while they're playing.

Still, you like to sing while they're playing, ask.

Him, that's what we did this time. I like to sing while they're playing. I like to sing. I prefer that because you see that that that's that's like when when we're doing concerts. I don't know if I've ever sang the same song exactly the same way ever, because you know the cats are playing, it's different. Hear some ship to guitar player. But it aspires you to do something else, you know, And he's gonna hear something that the bass player player, and he's gonna inspire him to

Okay, so cruising, cruising, Like I said, man, so do me this, do me this moment. Okay, the first time you hear d'angelo's cruising, Okay, what are your thoughts when you hear it?

Well, see, first of all, D'angelo's my little brother. I love him. He's I know his mama and all them, you know, so he's a cool dude. And what did I think when I heard it? I thought, yeah, b oh great, that's the same thing I think when I hear anybody doing any of my songs, I mean a songwriter. I hope that that happens all the time.

Uh.

You know, I know when when the kids first started to sample music and doing all the people come to me, hey man, they sampled your music? Did you up to no sample all of mine?

Yeah?

Sample every song I ever wrote in my life, because when you sample it, that says to me that out of the billion songs that are on earth, you know that you had a choice of you know, and plus you a songwriter, your say off, you chose one of mine, yes, to incorporate in your music order to the bet just sing period. Thank you. So D'Angelo, like I said, he's a talented young man, and he sang it, and I was flabbagasted, and in fact, they surprised him he did.

It was we in the mall.

We had the mall. It was crazy, but but but I loved when he did that. Man he's got such a funky version of him, but the angel's funky anyway.

So yeah, now I love I love what you said about that, because I think there's sometimes there's this line in the sand where you know you have you have, which they have all the right to feel that way, but you have certain artists who are just like I don't want anybody touching my music. Make your own music, and you know y'all.

Need to be more creative. You said it, I didn't. Y'all said it?

Yeah stupid.

Yeah, there goes the answer to that.

That is what it is, absolutely because first of all, like I said, it, flattery and then you're going to earn some money.

So why would you protest that that?

Why would you protest that?

Speaking of speaking of money, speaking of money.

The best things in life are free, but you can give them no.

Money.

Going to that part, because you spoke earlier about the finances with these other labels before you guys started Motown, did you have any understanding at this point, like when you first really kicked it off, got your first hit records wrote you know, got a then you get your smash record shop around. Did you really understand the publishing side and you know, the royalties and different things that a lot of artists didn't know for a long time.

No, you were part of the business.

No, No, I didn't understand that until Barry explained it to me. See, I don't know. No, you know, see when you're a kid like that man, because we were kids, you know, sixteen and and then then you know, I think about this too when I got when I turned nineteen. I married Claude, who was a girl in a group.

Because I was going to ask you why you got married, and I stoked, I was a man.

Okay, And here's my girlfriend. She's traveling with us anyway, and many times her mother had to go on the road with us because you know, the chaperone her and she had because she's the only girl in the group. And blah blah blah. But I got married when I was nineteen. If one of my kids had come to me when they were nineteen, dad get married.

Yeah, you shutting, shutting down, saying but I thought I was a man.

Man that was me. Find out a week we started motime.

You see this five dollars you know that I can take you place.

Absolutely man. But yeah, so it was it was. It was something man.

It was.

It's a great it's a great life legacy, man. And to think that how we started and what was going on. Like I said, it was five people there and in the day that very started more time, Yeah, he had. It was Brian Holland, who was one of the Hollands Holland writing team. He was there, lady named Jamie Bradford, Barry's then wife, and lady named ray Noma, and me and Barry and Barry set us down and he said, amen,

So yeah, I did it, you know.

Yeah, And we shop around being like like you said, it was the first million seller for y'all.

Did you see real money on that?

Yeah, well we did. No, No, we didn't see real the real money that we could have seen because Moretown was new, so the distributors weren't paying, you know what I'm saying.

So they were withholding.

Oh yeah, man, but you knew what they what happened for us, which was so great man. They were holding at first, but when Chop Bron came out, some of them were still wortholding. But we came right back and we had please mister postman and brooted and blocked the block. We kept bombarding them with hit records, but legal that because they wanted to the legally, Who's gonna come and investigated?

You know.

We kicked their ass. Man.

Were y'all making money on the road? Oh yeah it was, but not much.

Yeah when you first, when you first start out, you want to let me tell you that we first start out, we won't make it any money. Okay. Uh. The first professional gig, really professional gig the Miracles and I ever did was that the Apollo Theater in New York on the Ray Charrolds Show. Okay, now, I just played the Apollo just recently too. I will play the Apollo as long as it's standing because it's it's Black music tradition, you know. I just play. I just closed it down.

We just kids.

I think I must have been about maybe seventeen or something like that. Anyway, just gogate from high school. So we have a record called Bad Girl and it's on Chess Records out of Chicago. So it's making a little bunch of noise for us. It started us to getting some gigs and blah blah blah. When the ray Child Show as Apollo Theater, we weren't making any money, but we were so terrible. Mr Schiffman, the guy who owned Apollo, called Bury and told me he want his money back.

Give me that back.

Yeah, we were terrible, man, I mean I agree with him. If if we hadn't been an actor, had a record out where they considered you to be a professional, the dude who danced and pull you off the stage with the host sad Man would have came and got us. You know, he came and got us.

Who was your favorite artist to write for?

To write for? Uh? Well, you know what I I I enjoyed writing for everybody, man, because, like I said, those people are my brothers and sisters. And you know, people ask me questions about some of the songs that they heard by other artists that I'd written. For example, my Girl, you know, my Girl has become for me as a songwriter, like an international anthem or something. Man, should we go places where we're getting ready to go overseas now in June, but we go places where they

But it just.

As a songwriter, I can't beat that. I cannot beat that kind of stuff happening, especially when it happens unexpected, you know what I mean. I'm not expecting that. In fact, I don't expect any any awards or anything like that, anything like that that I've ever gotten. I wasn't expecting it, because you know, it's just icing, because you know, like

Have you ever done anything else like as an occupation as it always because you said.

You started that? Ever? You mean ever, have you ever had another job?

I've had every job you can think of it.

Yeah.

Look, my mom passed when I was ten, Like I said, Okay, so my my oldest sister came back to live in the house. And when she came to live in the house, she already had six kids. She ended up having ten kids. Man, so there was like eleven of us. So my brother in law, who I love, I can't tell you how I felt about him. He's gone now. But he was my man because my sister came and I had another sister who was younger than her, and she didn't have

You know.

So But anyway, she ended up having ten kids. So now I was eleven. There's no way from the time I was ten years old.

I was gonna go with my brother.

La'll say, hey, man, you got fifty cent or you got a dial or something like that. There was an old Jewish man had a grocery store around the corner. At the time, the neighborhood was just passing over, you know, black people just taking over. The still a few Jewish people in the neighborhood named mister Hackerman. So I went around there was ten years old. I said, mister Hackerman, could you give me a job? They call me smoking Joe.

Why did they call you smoking?

They call me smoke at Joe because I had an uncle, my uncle Claud. He was also my godfather. And when I was three or four years old, if you ask me what I wanted to be, I would tell your cowboy because I loved cowboys, you know. So my uncle Claud used to take me to see cowboy movies and I especially left the ones who sang Dean Autry, Roy Rogers. They had guitars and they saying and so I loved them.

Man.

So he had a cowboy name for me, smoking Joe. If anybody asked me what my name was back in those days, my name is smoking Joe.

We need cowboy names, give us cowboy nassy before the day is over.

I need a cowboy name.

Man. Yeah, so smoke at Joe. And uh so, everybody, including my teachers, until I was about twelve years old or so, called me smoking Joe. Okay. And then when I got to be about twelve, so they dropped the Joe off. I guess that was long and drawing off for them, and I just became smoky. And people think that I became that after I got in show business, I named myself Smokey Robinson. But that's been my name all my.

Life, you know.

Yeah, so uh yeah, and so anyway, he had this cowboy name for me. It was, which is Smoky Joe, and that's what people called me. So I loved the cowboys and saying. So if you asked me what I wanted to be until I got to be about eight or nine years old, I will tell you I wanted to be a cowboy boy. I want to be a cowboy because that's my that's my goal, be a cowboy and be a cowboy that sings and have a horse.

That's what.

Detroit, you know. But then when I got to be about like I said, after my mom passed when I was ten and all that, I've always been heavily into sports. And I played football and basketball for my high school and in the summertime, I played summer league baseball, which at that time was my favorite sport at the time, you know, because and I loved baseball, and I'm not bragging, I could really play baseball pretty good. And I thought that I was going to be a baseball player. I thought, Okay,

And they ring like a rocket share the old man.

Is retiring on this was thirty three.

Fuck.

You know what I'm saying.

I always would retire.

Three three. He was old man, you know, so wow wow.

If I mean, if we're just looking, Kareem looks sixty two. Hey, you know, Kareem no karate, I love Korea. You shot get your head. But back in those days, like guys that went to high school, they look like grown men with full families, and the look was just different when until you said it, I had never put a number on it. You know, when I was a kid, I thought Kareem.

Was especially having all the scoring records everything you said, thirty three, it is wow wow, But that's reality. Yeah, And like you said, even if you're the best of the best at something, I mean, like Lebron is now forty, but people acting like that is.

He's but even in that, yeah, how many more.

Hits did you have after forty?

You know what I mean, Like you still had ha, you know, just the record you have.

Yeah, and you know another thing about it is that and like I told you guys this earlier in this in this interview and the talk we're going on at the end of the next week. And I'm looking if I can't wait and I'm eighty five, still doing it.

You're eighty five? Yeah, oh, let me think.

Five. You say that and I can't wait.

Listen eighty five. Yeah, And I want to get I want to make sure just we just we touch on this too, because we have to touch on this. Now. You have a residency, yeah, yes, at the Venetian. Yeah. Can you get us a room? I mean you got to hook up your little little little player price for the room. Like people like like y'all want to come, we do well because like when you get there, it's like what you set out for your music to be.

Okay, I want to tell you something about that too. This is not my first residency in Vegas. I've been having residencies in Vegas since nineteen eighty you know what.

Pop yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, I want to tell you how that happened, mat because I never really wanted to play Las Vegas.

I never really wanted to play that because the first actor we ever had to play Las Vegas was the Supremes, and then we had the Temptations and they played it, and of course I went to see both of them while they were playing there. And back in those days, your least amount of time that you could be booked in Las Vegas for something like that for a residency was a month four weeks. You worked every night of the week, with the exception of Monday, and you did

So it's just the Venetian, are you talking about, like the main suite, actual theater, theater?

I thought it was the Venetian showroom?

Is it? I think so? But you performing there, so you believe anything else.

What's the date for April third fifth and six.

Third fifth and six. I'm putting that in my I'm putting that in my calendar.

Come on down, Yeah, I need I need to be there.

I got to say, brother eighty five, you look a thank you, vin what you're doing? You juicing?

Like?

What what you got going on here? What's the health? What's the regiment? Baby?

You know? I tell people that I think the main thing that's happened for me, man, and this once again one of those things that I didn't intend to happen, but it did. God has led me in so many different directions man, that I didn't intend to go because I've been doing yoga, like I said, for fifty years. Fifty Yes, yoga is one of the best things that

You used to be six feet tell yes, when I.

Was playing basketball and football, shitting in high school and stuff like that. And then for a long time after the miracles, and I was going on until I was probably about forty or fifty. Then you just start to come down. I don't know why, but I say, now, yoga there's a fluid that flows from the base of your spine to the base of your brain, and in men, as you get older, it starts to slow down, which gives you arthritis or what you know, cramps and all

Are you the only person with two stars on a walker than.

As far as I know, miracles and singular?

Yeah and solo? Maybe you're Michael Jackson, because did Jackson? I should be.

Yeah, they should be Yeah you Mike Yeah.

Kennedy Center Honoree, Library of Congress, Gershwin Prize a Popular Song? What happened to you? Done that?

You want to do? You know what I'd like to do? Man, I'd like to have a really nice part in a really nice movie. I don't mean star in the movie or nothing like that, but I'd like to do that.

You know what, do you see yourself as a villain or you want to say the day? Are you a llawyer?

I don't care if it is a nice part, it doesn't matter that.

Come on, come get the young man. Let him be a instructor.

My brother, straight young you know what you be doing?

Yoga? But he guilt James two weeks ago?

Oh Freddy dead? You know he killed him.

So you never got in any of the Motown movies. No, you guys were making them. No, you really was against it.

You were like, I'm cool, No, no, no, no, no, I wasn't I wasn't against it, but there see those movies were we were focusing on Diana. Yeah, you know, so that was that was what happened with that. I don't think any of the Motown people were in those movies. They're just her and Billy d Yeah.

When I when I think about.

That, yeah, wow, I never thought of it like that. Yeah, only other only other Motown artists that was in the Wiz obviously was her and Mike.

It was her. Wow, yep, y'all cook Man, y'all, y'all you guys. And it's the formula is I mean, it's just as real as it gets. I mean, it starts with you know, it's the music and how the music is made. It's rating it with the best of the

I don't either. Yeah, I doubt that seriously. You know the times and that we live in now, we're not allowed that anyway.

So because so many people just want to be buried, like you got to let bury be buried and then every and you lets smokey be smoky. I think people now I felt like you guys, competition was healthy. Yes, yeah, the competition isn't as healthy anymore.

No, No, people.

Want each other spots. They don't want to work together, killing each other killing right instead of working with each other.

Like people look at Thank and I and get surprised that we've been working together for so long, and I'm like, why, it's my guy, it's my brother, Yes, Like I don't see no other way. But it's it's so much of a rarity now, especially like you said, you guys would come off of fifty one City tour and then fifty one and go right back to Hitsville and hang out.

So yeah, that that's amazing.

But before you go there, because you know, I got you know, I listen, I am known for the foolishness.

So I gotta asked.

You know, smokey, don't don't, don't yoga me, don't punch me an eye.

I gotta ask about gang banging. I gotta ask about gag banging.

It's it's such a viral thing in the hood that we all randomly just bust out start singing all the time.

I hope, so, yeah, I hope so because when you're listen to what it's saying, it's a it's a it's.

A message, very serious song.

It's a serious message. As I was doing a spiritual album at the time, and I was writing spiritual songs and gang banging it has a very important message because, like I said, or some see gang banging hatred itself. It's the most ridiculous, uncalled for, absurd emotion that we

Or you know how don't create the hate. Wow, brother Smoky Robinson, this is the top five? Who are your top five R and B singer?

Uh? Well, I have to be retro on you man.

Let's go come, Let's go on.

Jackie Wilson, Sam Cook, Yes, rach y'all, Clyde McPhatter, and Nolan Strong.

Oh going there? Five.

Do you know who Nolan Strong was?

I do not know who knows.

Nolan Strong was a guy in Detroit. He had a group called the Diablos and they were the group in Detroit. They made records, you know, they had a song called Audios, My Desert, Love and the Wind and all those songs like that. But he was a high tenor singer. So all those guys, those were my singing itols as a kid growing up man, And like I said, Jackiet was number one Jackie. I think about Michael Jackson and when I first saw him, he was like ten years old.

So before Mike, I ain't never thought about that. Before Michael, you were in the group. He was the dancers that were dancing when you were your group member.

Yea.

Absolutely.

Michael Jackson come along and hires and hires professional dancing.

And changed the look of show business. All the kids started doing the same thing. You know what I mean. He was a very brilliant thinking young man to be his age, you know, because not only did he look at the top R and B guys like Jackie Wilson, and he studied Fred Astare absolute Yeah, the Nicholas brothers. Yeah, I think about that all the time. You know, Michael did the moonwalk on Mojohn twenty five and people say.

Oh, he made that up.

No, I didn't. The Nicholas brothers did that in Stormy Weather, which was a movie with Lena Horn. You guys know who Lena Horn wast Okay, So Lena Horton made a movie back in the day in the forties, you know, maybe before I was even more, called Stormy Weather, and the Nicholas brothers were in there and they did the moonwalk in that movie. So you know he studied everybody, man.

Yeah, he was just were you there the day they came in auditioned?

Yeah?

Yeah at that point you were. You were a an R at the label light, a vice presidents the whole time. Yeah, So I was, what do you what do you say when y'all get back into the war room in the creative room after the Jacksons that performing. You see this kid perform for you guys like.

Like, what was that? What is the like, Yeah, what's the conversation after you see that?

Well, the fact that we knew that we had something phenomenal, you know, for those boys to be their age, the age that they were, especially Michael, and to be that talented, we knew that we were onto something really good because, uh, you know, and Michael turned out to be I guess the most renowned.

Artists ever ever.

Yeah, you know, do you immediately start hearing songs as a songwriter when you see them, You're like, Okay, I'm all right.

No, man, I not for them, you know. I wasn't even really thinking about recording anything on them. However, thanks to Michael Jackson or whoever decided they were going to do that, Michael took one of my songs and now it's his song. I wrote a song I was probably about twenty one years old.

Cause Who's Loving You?

Who's Loving You was on the other side of shop Around in fact, you know, and after shop Around they had warned it out on the radio and something like that. They started to play Who's Loving You by the Miracles of Me, and it was a slight hit.

You know.

So, Now, like I said, when I wrote that song, I had to be at least twenty or twenty one. I had had some life experience. I was married, I had some life experience. You know, here comes a little dude eleven years old. I know, damn well, you don't even know what that song is talking about, you know what I'm saying and singing to the point whereas now

You know, my whole life, I thought you wrote it for the Jackson See, I'm like I knew you wrote.

Yeah, I thought you wrote it for them.

Well apparently I did without I did, but not even knowing it.

Okay, brother Smoky your top five R and B songs.

You know something, man, I cannot possibly tell you what my top five R and B songs are, any songs whatsoever, Because, like I said earlier.

Do it, I grew up.

I grew up in a home where I got a great dose of all kinds of music you can think of. I am a song lover. Well, how about I love songs. If I could tell you my top five songs, there would probably be songs that I had absolutely nothing to do with ever in life. I don't know, because I love songs. I'm a song lover. I have loved songs since I could hear. You know, I've been listening to

All the songs off that.

Album absolutely absolutely.

Let's make a Vultron a super R and B artist, right, We're going to take characteristics from any artist that has ever lived and build one super artist. So we want to know who you're going to get the vocal from, the performance style, the styling of the artist, the passion of the artists, and for you special for you, who's going to write for this artist? The first guys and girls, it's your world. It can make. You can do whatever you need. One vocal, that's.

Yeah, okay, I got the vocal. What else do I need?

Perform style?

Performance style that would have to be Michael Jackson.

Okay, okay, you're versed in.

Between Michael Jackson and Jackie Wilson, it would be.

Okay, okay, Michael Wilson. Okay, yeah. Uh. Styling, the style of the strip, the clothing apparel.

Well, you know, back in the day, the Miracles not a real sharp.

We were real shure. You know.

We decided, you know where we came from. We decided, when we finally got some money and make some money, we were gonna get ourselves some clothes because the first we didn't have no clothes. So we were real sharp. So we have to be up and there.

Some styling, the miracles, the passion of the artists who mean it.

Well, I think that probably every artist that I've ever known and never close to has that. Man, if you don't, you ain't gonna make it. You don't have that, you are not going to make it. There are too many people with it who are not making it, you know what I mean. So if you don't have it, it's almost impossible for you to make it. I've told many a young artist that you know, you think you can sing, let me take you to my church on Sunday. You're

To make it. Give me one that has.

Just pick one that has what you're talking about.

Now that you've seen you're just like, oh yeah, they got the passion.

Damn everybody I know, man, have to be a new artist. Like I said, Man, I'm not kidding. Everybody has that, especially the people who you're aware of the they have that basically. Man. Now, there are a few people who have always gotten by without it. You know, there are people who've gotten by that had some songs that I didn't think was you know, with the world loved it. So there you go. So there are people who've gotten

Is there.

I look at some of these kids online. I don't know why, but he's done anything. Yes, I do, because you can't. Because I've got two singers I've been working with for the last five years. I can't get it. I can't get a break to at a bomb and one girl writes songs like Gershwin. You know what I'm saying. I can't get a break for nothing. Because there's so many people doing it, and there's so much passion out there, and so many challenged people see it. It's a different

So the way the way you build, the way you build the artists just pick one. You don't have to be a favorite passion I just just wanted to build them, to build a d this build them building smoke, come on smoking just what Oh my goodness, you ain't gonna urt nobody feeling smoke, I promise. Oh there it is there, we got we got my fashion. Oh listen, Yes, yes, sir.

Marvin Gay was one of the most passionate people I've ever known. I've ever worked with him, you know.

So let me ask you a question. When you said you were you know, you were with Martha during this whole time of the What's going On album and God is writing his album? Did you contribute any to that or you were there just watching it happen?

How was there just watching it happen. I didn't contribute anything to it, you know, just my listening, you know, giving him an ear. But I didn't contribute. I didn't make suggestions. I didn't do any of that because it was happening. It was happening, and Marvin was one of the greatest singers I think they ever sang.

You know.

I used to love working with him because Marburn was always late.

Man.

He was my brother, but that dude was late for everything, man, all the time. He got to the point whereas if I had a session with Marvin and my session was gonna start eight o'clock, I tell Marvin, man, session starts at six thirty so, and then he'd still be late. He wouldn't get that to nine. You know when he goes oh smoke man. I saw him in certain system, but I knew that when he got there and I showed.

Him my song Man going down boy.

I used to tell them all the time he marvurnized my songs. You know what I'm saying, because this brother would do shit vocally. I hadn't even dared to dream of on my song. But like he knew it before he got there. You know what I'm saying.

When he got to Motown because he's from d C.

He's from d C. When he first came to Motown. Let's see, gosh, he was brother. He was in this in his late twenties.

He was already in his late twenties when he got to Motown.

Yeah, yeah, he came late.

Didn't know that, Yeah, he came late.

There was a dude named Harvey Fuquah. You guys know who Harry Fulkat was harm Fukuh. There was a group called the Moon Glows, and back in the day, they were like the group in the hood. Okay, a lot of groups, man, but the Moon Glows. So Harvey Fuka was the founder of that group, and so I've been following his music since I was a kid, since I was ten years old, you know. And anyway, so eventually he came to work at Motown and he still had this group, the Moon Glows, and one of his members

Y'all were doing this type of record and.

So finally, man, uh, this dude, Mickey Stevenson who was our first a and our director there. Mickey is still Brownie is still my brother. He's the momb guy. He wrote Dancing in the Streets in Marvin But anyway, Mickey convinced him to be Marvin Gay because he told me, Sa, man, you ain't gonna hits like this. He said, you need to sang because you can sang. So they wrote this song, Stubborn kind of Fella, and that was the beginning of Marvin Gay.

You know.

So Marven, like I said, he come to the studio and he just killed your song. Just do some ship that you hadn't even thought of. You know. He was a great singer.

Last quality for you're vault trying who's writing for this artist that you just put together?

Kenny Edmonds and Dining Warren?

Hmmm, yeah, the face and dying.

Warn Jesus Christ, that is gonna be amazing. Yes, God, Lee, I wasn't ready for that one. How wasn't hanging out with Rick James a party?

Yeah? Yeah, I got any more trouble with that. But Rick was my brother. Rick was Rick was the bomb to hang out with, man, especially back in those days since I was getting high, you know, you know, so Rick was, you know, but he was a great dude.

Man was yeall was standing on the.

Extremely talented man.

How underrated is he as a vocalist? To me? I think he's one of the girls.

Well, I don't know how they rate him, man, but he was just a great talent about him. No, no, no, they don't.

They talk about him as a rock star.

Yeah, but Rick was a great talent.

Man.

He was a great talent musically.

He was just yeah, yeah, man.

But he was a great dude to hang out with. You. We had a lot of fun, man, Yeah, we had a lot of fun.

Where did ebony eyes come from?

I have no idea. I had retired at that time. That was during my retirement, and Rick called me, smoke come down to the studio, man, I wrote the song, What you sing with me? I said, no, Rick, I'm retired. Man, I'm not come to man. Come on down there, now, you do you come down here and sing with me? Man, come on there. So I went and I did it and we had a great time. And then we did a mini movie video because we shot it for three days all over Los Angeles and I had a film crew.

You high every day at gotta hear record as record.

Rick was a musical genius.

Man Smokey Robbins, Smoky Smokey Joe himself the smoke. The smoke the Rick James smoking tells us a story funny of fucked up, are funny and fucked up. The only rule to the game is you can't say no names.

Okay, when you say funked up, do you mean fucked up high or just fun up?

Any wherever you would like to go? Wherever you wherever the smoke le.

Okay, I'll tell you something funny. There's a friend of my very very very close friend. He's passed on now, but he was my very very very very close friend. And we're in the car one day and uh, he's reading a comic book, okay, and he's reading a comic book about Daffy Duck. Okay, okay, And all of a sudden, it was about five of us in the car and we we we we didn't even We never let him live this down, because all of a sudden his brother comes out. He's reading this combook and he.

Says, boy, man, oh, that Daffie Duck is a smart motherfucker, like Daffie Duck had written that.

Y'all, So how about that? How is that good enough for you?

Daffy Duck is a smart mother.

There's so many layers to a nigga thinking it's actually is actually articulate greatness. You hear what this nigga da? He just said, I'm telling you this nigga's own the something?

What man? Yes?

So how about that Daffy's killing me right now? Yes, indeed, that's amazing. That is that is that is high. That is when when Daffy speaks to you, you know that is never spoke to me.

I thought that was what else you want to know?

It is something, It is something that I do want to know.

And in your your take on it, because you you you mentioned it a little bit as far as it not being a music business anymore.

Yeah, right. Do you feel that we need gatekeepers again? That is just too open.

It's just like the fields are just too free for all control. Like do you feel like we need gatekeepers again?

And I feel like we need them, but it will never happen and it's too vast, see because it's available to everyone, so there's no controlling that. There's no there's no there's no coming in putting the control on it, you know, like it used to be when they when

In our society.

Yeah, you know, because now they're coming out with AI and all that ship like that. Whether somebody can do do your not only do your image, do your voice, and nobody's gonna know the difference, that's very dangerous man. You know. AI is good for technical stuff and stuff like that. It's good they made those kinds of advances. But when it gets to the point whereas you're cloning people, right, that's that's really deep man.

Yeah, you know that's real.

That's scary.

Do you feel like there is anything that gets us even close to the feeling and the space that we were in musically? No, No, I don't think.

I don't think that will ever happen again, like I said, because it's too free for all.

Now.

Wow, it's too it's too it's too open, it's too available, because it's it's it's it's online. Because then make any kind of music they want to say whatever they want to say. There's no senses, there's you know, there's there's no nothing. So it's just out there. It's just whatever happens happens. You know, there's some people and like I say, I you know, I listened to young people. I think there's some young people making some great music. You know, but then the line is open so that the will

Right, you know, all the time. Yeah, because you heard that.

And there were people making negative music back then. So people making negative music since they've been making music. So you can't blame that on today's generation and say that you know they're they'll make it. It's just the fact that there's no census now, you know. I know that.

You're not necessarily the powers or even the the machine itself is not running on music. It's running on engagement.

It's running on whatever you want to do.

How do we get attention? Whatever?

Well, you know what, man, just make some good music because it's going to always be room for it, you know. And I think in a way, some of that's kind of returning, you know, it's kind of returning to where people are listening and they want something milder of something, you know, listenable to it.

You know. It's like, yeah, I think I think people people can only go for so long without feeling or wanting to feel exactly you know what I mean, wanting to be loved, wanting to be held, wanting to be appreciated, and and when they really want that, they have to go back and get it. And that's the power of of of what you were able to do.

What do you think about the people whore knocking Beyonce for singing country music?

I think Beyonce should be able to sing whatever she wants she like singing.

I don't even understand that. I don't even want to stand the country artist protesting that, because Beyonce is one of the biggest artists on earth, you know what I mean. And if she feels enough about your music that she wants to participate in it, why would you protest that.

But it's also the other part is like a lot of us don't know music history of understanding where it's just it's ridiculous, like they don't want it to go back there, like we like we have to hear it singing country. Excuse me, we don't know it because you'll have our people saying, why is she doing country music? Man?

I've talked to a few of them, you know what I mean, a few black people, and I had to tell them off. You know, how dare you say that? Are you fucking kidding? You know what do you what do you remember about.

That some of the original cowboys, those black men. Yeah, yes, I think that.

I think they're in my opinion, I believe that they they don't want that history to repeat itself where it comes back to where it originated from. It's like, no, no, no, no, we created it.

Too bad.

It's too bad.

Because and we need artists of Beyonce's stature.

To say, hey, I'm going to do it.

And also, if you study music history for the United States of America, all American music started in the cotton field.

Who's in the cot All of.

It started out there with for harming and praising the Lord and stuff. They didn't have nothing else to do. They couldn't entertain themselves any other kind of way, and eventually that turned into the Blues talk about it, and eventually that turned into a country and that turned into R and B and.

Whatever, you know everything.

But the source is the cotton field. Yeah, you know, that's that's where that came from. That's where American music originated, in the cotton field with them out there humming and entertaining themselves. And you know the world really, Yes.

We appreciate you, brother, We think appreciate Yeah, this is a great time. I told my wife, I said, we got smoking. I told everybody. I told everybody.

You know, you don't hang out with smoking today, right probably, but I'm hanging out with smoking today.

I don't know what you're doing. She's hanging out with smoking. She watched me get dressed. You you got smoking.

Oh you guys, this is so loose.

I love yeah, because we need we need you. We need this. We need it so they can hear it and see it and understand that what you were doing then was so important and so impactful that you are still doing it now at a level like my brother you said eighty five, you are still they still say, hey, we need him in the Venetian Theater. People want to see him. That's the impact of just doing what you love and doing it at the highest level and and just doing that. The king, come ontown, the king, Come on,

I just got to ask one thing too on air, Will you be our mentor.

If there's something I can mentor you in it's gonna positive make something positive happen in your life? Almost only will.

That's all that, because I feel like in our industry, guys and women of different generations, we don't we don't ask enough. Yeah yeah, and not even asking of like, oh, I want to give me my no.

Knowledge advice, Yes.

You know something, I'm gonna tell you something, man. And you're saying something that is so profound to me right now because there was a time in my life till I got older and recognize the fact that it would never ever be possible even you know, but when I was like eighteen nineteen, my dad was an older guy. You know. My dad was like forty five when I

Well, I'm gonna be calling, yeah, because I got questions. We got.

Call come on over. And I love the thing. I love the fact that you guys even doing this. Man, this is beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what we run on there. You.

I really really hope you guys get a chance to come to Vegas.

What do you mean? Yeah, I'll be there, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank, I'm Valentine and this is the R and B Money Podcast. The authority on all things capital. You can't tell us nothing, nothing because Smoky Robbins, Yeah all right, Smoky to safe. Yeah yeah baby, yeah yeah baby. I was here, all right,