Motown star Smokey Robinson (born 1940), cofounder of the Tamla record label, has been a composer and performer for more than 30 years. Smokey Robinson, the "poet laureate of soul music," has been composing and singing rhythm and blues hits for more...

William "Smokey" Robinson did more to define the Motown sound than anyone except founder Berry Gordy. Involved in all facets of the operation—songwriter, producer, vice president, member of the Quality Control board that approved...

William "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. (born February 19, 1940) is an R&B and soul singer, producer, former record company executive, and songwriter. Robinson is noted for being one of the primary figures associated with the Motown record label, second only...

Smokey and I met back in the 60s when he was with the Miracles. Back in the day, Motown Records had groups like The Temptations, The Miracles, The Four Tops, The Supremes, and The Marvelettes. They would decide what disc jockey in what...

Philadelphia Tribune, The 10-30-1998 Smokey Robinson recalls The Temptations There's a far away look in those famous green eyes. Smokey Robinson is thinking back to the day the Temptations walked into Motown for that first audition. "It's hard to believe that was...

Today is Monday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2007. There are 315 days left in the year. This is Presidents' Day.Today's Highlight in History:On Feb. 19, 1945, during World War II, some 30,000 U.S. Marines began landing on Iwo Jima, where they commenced a...

The studios that released "Dreamgirls" have apologized to Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. for any confusion the film generated about the label's early days. DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures offered their apologies to Gordy, whose Motown Records and experiences are widely thought to be the basis...

[Smokey] is still virtually a ghetto singer. For some reason, we can't seem to accept and come to terms with his greatness. That's all the more extraordinary in view of the current success of his old contemporaries, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. Eight years ago, the three of them were running parallel, the top male exponents of "New Wave R & B."

The influence of sixties' rock on its black counterpart is more often overestimated than underestimated. With events occurring on the scale of the Watts riots, the murder of Martin Luther King and the rise of militant groups such as the Panthers, the nature of black Americans' social self-awareness was changing rapidly and profoundly. A new audience, in effect, was emerging that demanded an appropriate perspective in the songs provided for it by its musician-spokesmen. (p. 199) In general, inc...

Smokey Robinson is that rare pop singer whose rhapsodic lyricism hasn't diminished with approaching middle age. Indeed, time has added a metaphysical depth to his art. The postadolescent Romeo who created "The Tracks of My Tears" and "Ooh, Baby Baby" exudes the same sweetness today he did fifteen years ago…. Smokey Robinson's faith in the redemptive power of erotic love continues unabated. In Robinson's musical world, sexual happiness isn't the ...