A Conversation with Smokey Robinson – HuffPost 10.25.10
Mike Ragogna: Smokey, there’s so much to go over, but let’s begin with your new album for Cracker Barrel, Now And Then. Can you tell us about the project?
Smokey Robinson: Well, it’s a combination of six brand new songs and six of my vintage songs, and I made the deal with Cracker Barrel through Time Life. I have my own label now, called Robso Records, and I have teamed up with Time Life’s label, Saguaro Records, and the Cracker Barrel deal was actually made through Time Life. Cracker Barrel is a restaurant, really, but it’s a store at the same time. You can go there, order your food, and go shop for a while until your food is ready. It’s a very, very unique place, and it’s a great place. In fact, I just got back from Nashville–I was in Nashville for the last couple of days meeting and greeting with the Cracker Barrel executives, and going around and seeing the restaurants and getting the feel of Cracker Barrel. It was absolutely fabulous–I mean, they rolled out the red carpet–and we had a great meeting and a great time there and I am the first black artist that Cracker Barrel has ever done a deal with in their history. So, it’s a groundbreaking event, and I’m very proud of that.
MR: Smokey, half the album has live versions of older hits. Were all the of those tracks recorded in ’10?
SR: Yeah, because when I found out that I was going to do the deal with Cracker Barrel, they wanted some vintage material as well as some of my new material because they felt that their clientele would enjoy that and that they would recognize my material to make for a better sales point. So, I recorded three of my concerts this year, live, and those are the songs that I picked from those three concerts to include in the Cracker Barrel album.
MR: Smokey, what were the venues, do you remember?
SR: No, man. I was traveling all over the place. (laughs)
MR: (laughs) I get it. Hey, how did you choose the live material from these concerts?
SR: Well, when you do your songs live, the time changes on them, you know? So, a lot of the other songs that would be some of my more popular songs like “Just To See Her,” “Cruisin’,” and old songs like that, the time on them is so long when we played them in person because we added stuff to them and we have sing-a-longs and stuff like that. The timing is so different, I just picked the ones I thought that people would recognize, and that had a relative time for a CD.
MR: Yeah, and when the band revs up on “Going To A Go-Go,” you know that these concerts were pretty special.
SR: Well, thank you very much man. In fact, “Going To A Go-Go” is our opening number every night.
MR: Nice. You’re still touring?
SR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah man. Yeah, this year, I bit off a whole lot more than I really wanted to chew. When they called me to talk about the dates, my agent always tricks me because they call me a year ahead and say, “Hey man, for next year, we’ve got so and so…,” and I say, “Oh, that’s fine,” not realizing that when next year comes, it’s going to be jammed up against some stuff that was booked that year. This year, a lot of the stuff that I’ve done was booked last year, so the tour started at the end of February, and just ended two weeks ago.
MR: Oh my.
SR: Yeah. We’re in and out, of course. We’re not out there constantly, but that’s how long the tour was.
MR: I’ve got a couple more questions about the live tour. It seems like you changed a couple of the songs’ basics. For instance, “Ooo Baby Baby” became even more sultry and slowed down further. What gets you to that point where you kind of know where you want to take the song? Is it from wanting to evolve the song or is it just purely by feel?
SR: Well, it’s purely feel, but it happens over time, Michael. I want to say this to you, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, every night–and I’ve sung “Ooo Baby Baby” thousands and thousands of times, back from the days when I first started singing it with The Miracles–every night, “Ooo Baby Baby” is a new song to me. I’ve never gotten to the point where I say, “Okay, I’ve got to hurry up and sing this, slosh over this and hurry up and get this out of the way because I know people want to here this. So, I’ll just sing this right quick and get that over with.” I’ve never gotten to that point as an artist. Every night, all those songs are new to me. I have a ball every night, man, it’s like I’ve never sung these songs before, I’m having a great time singing them, and they evolve, man. They change with time, and that’s what happened with “Ooh Baby Baby.”
MR: Well Smokey, you are considered one of the greatest artists ever, and everybody who will be reading this in The Huffington Post knows that Smokey Robinson is an American pop culture iconic name.
SR: I love you Michael. (laughs)
MR: And you know what? Bob Dylan loved you. I especially love his quote about you: “Smokey Robinson is the greatest poet that ever lived.”
SR: Well, I love Bob too. Bob’s a friend, man, in fact I saw Bob just recently. We did a show at the White House together, and I hadn’t seen Bob in so many years that it was good to see him. Yeah, Bob’s a friend, man.
MR: So, you played the White House?
SR: Yeah.
MR: What was that like?
SR: Oh, it was fantastic. In fact, I’ve played the White House three times this year. We actually played the White House, got caught in a snow blizzard, and we were snowed in there for three days. Nobody could get out of town. It was for Black History Month in February, and the First Lady did a show for Black History Month and I was there. I was there and Bob was there along with Jennifer Hudson, and a lot of people. It was a wonderful show, and we had a great time.
MR: Did you have any private time with the First Lady and President Obama?
SR: Oh yeah, everybody got a chance to spend a few minutes with them privately.
MR: Nice. I imagine he said complimentary things?
SR: Oh yeah, of course. They’re both Motown fans, man, and they let it be known, you know? They are wonderful, wonderful people, and it was just like sitting there, talking to old friends that you have known forever. There’s no, “I’m the President, and I’m the First Lady,” they don’t have any of that about them. It was a joy.
MR: Well, a lot of the world, I think, probably feels like they have a personal relationship with you because you’ve touched so many through your music.
SR: Well, thank you very much, Michael. I hope so, man.
MR: Let’s take it back to your early days for the readers. Your first hit with The Miracles was “Shop Around.”
SR: Well, that was the first million seller for The Miracles and me, and for Motown, yes it was. We’d had a record that was a hit before that called “Bad Girl,” and that was the record that really started our career. But it was with another label, Chess Records out of Chicago, and shortly after that, Berry started his own label and that was incredible.
MR: What was it like in the early days of Motown?
SR: Well, Berry Gordy is my best friend, and the very first day of Motown there were five people there–Berry Gordy and four others of us. He sat us down and said, “I’m getting ready to start my own record label, and we are not going to just make black music, we’re going to make music for the world. We’re going to make music for everybody, we’re going to make music that everybody can enjoy, and we’re going to make music with some great beats and some great stories.” That’s what we set out to do, and thank God, we accomplished that.
MR: You did. Also, it isn’t just your material from The Miracles that everybody is familiar with. Your songwriting has also been the backbone for other groups, with “My Girl,” “Get Ready,” My Guy,” and you wrote “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll Be Doggone” for Marvin Gaye.
SR: Yeah, I enjoyed that part of my life too, Michael, because all those people were my brothers and sisters–we were growing up there at Motown, and we were very close. And we still are. For those of us that are still alive, we’re very close. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other because when we see each other, it’s just like we saw each other yesterday. We have that kind of bond, and I’m very proud to have had any kind of positive influence on any of their careers.
MR: I imagine that Smokey Robinson & The Miracles was a closely knit group.
SR: Absolutely.
MR: Was it a difficult decision to go solo?
SR: Not for me because I had no plans to go solo–that was not in my plans at all. When I left The Miracles, I had no plans of ever being on the outer edges of show business again ever in life. I was never going to make any records, I was never going to be on stage, I was never going to do any of that because we were moving from Detroit to Los Angeles, and I was just going to be Vice President. Maybe I would record some other people, write some songs for some other people, but not for myself because I’d been on the road and doing it since I was sixteen years old and I had had it. I said, “That’s it for me.” So, I was going to retire two years earlier than that, but The Miracles were guys that I’d grown up with–I’d known them since I was ten years old, and we had a group in elementary school. I told them I was going to retire, and then “Tears Of A Clown” came out, and that pushed us to a whole other level in our career. So, I waited for two more years after that, and then I retired. I had no intentions of being a solo artists, but then after about three years or so of not doing it, I guess my misery was showing because Berry Gordy, who I told you is my best friend, came into my office one day and said to me, “Hey man, I want you to do me a favor.” I said, “What?” because I thought he wanted me to go do something corporate–make a deal with somebody or something. He said, “I want you to get a band, and I want you to make a record, and I want you to get the hell out of here.” I said, “What did you say man?” He said, “I want you to get a band, I want you to make a record, and I want you to get the hell out of here.” I said, “What are you talking about man?” and he said, “Because you are miserable. When I see you miserable, it makes me miserable, and I don’t want to be miserable. So, I want you to get out of here. That’s why I came back to be a solo artist–I was miserable not being in show business.
MR: And you again released incredible music. I mean, “Being With You”…
SR: Alright, well, when I came back, my debut album for coming back to show business was an album called A Quiet Storm. I always considered myself to be a quiet singer, and I said that if I go back, I wanted to take show business by storm. So, that’s where A Quiet Stormcame from. I always want to make quality music, man, because that’s how I was raised by Berry Gordy, and I always want to make quality music, always.
MR: Of course, Barry Gordy is equated with Motown. On the other hand, in the ’80s and on, it seems like you’ve been more of the “face” of classic Motown. Is that because you were also on the corporate side of things, in addition to being an artist, so you had a fuller breadth and depth of knowledge?
SR: Well, I don’t know. Perhaps that could have a great deal to do with it because he was teaching me the business as I was growing up there. I was an intricate part of it–I was there on the very first day. And when we first started, everybody was involved in everything, you know? So, he was teaching my the business aspect of it, so that may have something to do with what you’re saying here. We also were aware that this is show business, you know what I mean?
MR: Yeah.
SR: It’s not just show, it’s show “business.” So, you have to learn to take care of your business if you want to survive.
MR: Now, speaking of show business, in season eight of American Idol they performed a classic Motown night. That wasn’t your first appearance on the show. What was it like being around something like that, where two huge entities that have affected music are now merging to create this “happening” and you’re looking at this from the middle?
SR: It was fantastic. You know, I’ve been on American Idol every season since they started. The first season I was a guest judge because they were doing celebrity guest judges when they first came out. But every season, I’ve been on there doing something. It was wonderful that they decided to do the Motown music because that season Berry Gordy and I took the kids to Detroit and showed them the Motown museum, the paraphernalia and all that, and then I was a mentor. I really enjoyed that, that was awesome because American Idol, as far as I’m concerned, is the greatest visual platform that any artist could ever have in the history of show business. Right away, even those that don’t make the show, when they’re doing auditions, those people are seen by millions and millions of people all over the world. So, that’s a fantastic platform for artists.
MR: You’ve also done some other fun venues. You were on Daryl’s House, with Daryl Hall.
SR: Yeah, Daryl is my brother, man. So, we had a ball that day. You go up to Daryl’s House, eat, sit around and play some music–play some of his, play some of mine–and we just had a ball that day, man. It was great fun, absolutely.
MR: Daryl Hall, to me, is synonymous not only with Hall & Oates, but also with the Philly sound.
SR: Yeah, like I said, Daryl is my brother. He’s a good dude, man.
MR: Yeah, he’s great. Hey, what is your process for creating a song?
SR: There is no process for me, Michael, it just happens. I write part of a song almost every day of my life–a melody or something comes to me, or an idea for a song. I have so many unfinished songs around my house here, I can’t even tell you. It just happens for me. I’m not one of those temperamental writers. I don’t need to go away to the mountains for two months and isolate myself so I can write or rent a hut down by the beach and…I don’t write like that. I write on the plane, the bus, in the bathroom, on the golf course, and wherever it strikes me, man. So, it just happens.
MR: Nice. Do you have any favorite covers? Because, let’s face it, everybody who breathes oxygen and records has recorded a Smokey Robinson song, including this guy right here that you’re talking to.
SR: I love you more, Michael.
MR: (laughs) I don’t know, if you hear my version of “The Way You Do The Things You Do”…
SR: No, no, I would love it, man because I was about to answer your question with that statement. I don’t critique them. There are millions and millions of songs, Michael. There are millions of songs all over the world, okay? Most of the people or a lot of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. So, when somebody picks one of my songs to record, I am so flattered by that because as a songwriter, that’s my dream.
MR: It’s so easy to want to record your material because it’s so emotional and smart.
SR: I want to write songs that people want to sing. I want to write songs that, if I had written them fifty years before then, they would have meant something to people, they would mean something now, and they will mean something fifty years from now. So, that’s the kind of song I want to write. When that happens, man, I love it.
MR: You have a body of work that includes The Miracles, Smokey Robinson, and all the people who have recorded your songs. Is there a song or two that charm you more than the others?
SR: Yeah, there are many of those, Michael. Like I said, I write all the time, and I do not have a favorite song. I’m a song lover. If I could tell you what my favorite song was, it would perhaps not even be a song that I had written. I love music, and I love songs–I’ve been hearing songs since I was two years old. So, I love songs. I have no idea what my favorite song is.
MR: Alright. Getting back to Now And Then, which you’re doing exclusively for Cracker Barrel. It takes tracks from your Time Flies When You’re Having Fun album, and it adds some live tracks to it. How did you decide which tracks to take from that album for this new record? Was it hard to choosing them?
SR: It was a hard choice, yes, but I just picked some songs that I felt would fit in with the ones that I picked for the live thing.
MR: For that album and for Now and Then, your new album, you have the song “Don’t Know Why,” which was the Norah Jones song.
SR: Yeah man, that was written by Jesse Harris, and that’s a wonderful song. I love that song–I loved that song the first time I heard it–and I started to record my Time Flies When You’re Having Fun CD about four years ago when that record was out. I heard it and I loved it, so I wanted to record it. See, I recorded all those songs in the studio, live, and we had a great time. I just loved that song, and it’s a familiar song, so that’s why I included that one on the Cracker Barrel album.
MR: Also, didn’t you co-write something with Brian Ray, Paul McCartney’s guitarist?
SR: Yeah, we did a song called “One Heartbeat.” Brian had “One Heartbeat” done, basically, when he brought that song to me. He’s a hell of a guitarist and a great songwriter. That particular song was practically done.
MR: Hey Smokey, do you have any advice for new artists and new songwriters?
SR: Yeah man–love it. That’s my first advice to them because it’s hard. Everybody wants to do it, so the competition is fierce. So, you’ve got to be able to withstand the knockdowns that you’re going to receive and the doors slammed in your face. If you love it enough to withstand that, then go for it.
Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney