A superb songwriter, with a superb voice, Smokey Robinson pretty much helped create the Motown sound (and musical business model) in the 1960s, composing some of the greatest pop songs of all time, not just for himself, but many other artists.
I was not around for his hey-day, but I remember very specifically where I was when I discovered Smokey Robinson, and pretty much it was exactly how one might imagine he would be discovered. Certainly how he should be (in other words, I think the man would be pleased).
It was September 1988; I was cruising up the north shore of Minnesota, on my way to Thunder Bay, Ontario with my parents. I was fifteen, and not in a good way. I had just watched my first true love go off to college, and had been left utterly heart broken, racked not just by the pain of parting ways, but the sense that I was being left behind (saddled with three more long years of high school). Lost in that hazy and desolate borderland between boyhood and manhood, I knew my feelings for her were futile (truthfully, they had been all along), which sort of made everything seem futile, but I was unable to shake them.
I didn't want to shake them. I didn't want them to go away.
I had with me Smokey's greatest hits on cassette; I don't recall which it was, Volume 1 or 2 or some other compilation; I'd only bought it for the ride because I recognized "Ooo Baby Baby", and was going through a major Sixties phase, like nearly everyone at the time. But slouched down in the back seat with my Walkman, I submerged myself, and although these days it might seem lamely fashionable to say what I'm about to say, it really was the best medicine I could have received for what was ailing me at the time, nothing less than emotionally transcendent, right when I needed it to be. Smokey didn't make the pain go away. Instead, his music made it palatable, and digestible, if that makes any sense.
I can't even say his music defined my teenage years as a whole, but it's taken up permanent residence in a small but critically important corner of my mind nevertheless. And it holds up all these years later, in ways that, quite honestly, some of the music that DID "define" my teenage years doesn't.
Simple, sweet and soulful, I'd bet it's Smokey Robinson and the Miracles being played in God's waiting room.
Even in the 1980s, he had some great songs, among them, 1981's "Being With You". But it's in Motown, in the Sixties, with the Miracles, that Smokey is best remembered, for keeping our rawest, most intimate emotions in perspective, lending grace and style to an otherwise uncertain time that witnessed the world coming apart at its seams.
True to form, Robinson, now into his seventies, has grown old graciously, been given his due as a living legend, and is still making music.
Here, I list what I believe to be his five best songs, although any bit of Smokey on any road trip of any length in any direction would be welcome. And this is just a small sampling.
"I Second That Emotion"
"Ooo Baby Baby"
"The Tears of a Clown"
"The Tracks of my Tears"
"You've Really Got a Hold On Me"
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Listen to 1987's "When Smokey Sings" from the band ABC, a song that I didn't fricking realize was ABOUT Smokey Robinson until about 2010! The lyrics pretty much say it all.
"Debonair lullabies" indeed...;-)
