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The Music of Smokey Robinson

Twenty tracks from the man Bob Dylan reportedly called America's greatest living poet — and the person who gave a whole radio format its name.

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Smokey was the man back in the day! If he wasn’t crooning and making the ladies go wild, he was writing/producing for others that had the same effect. No late-night Quietstorm playlist would be complete without a Smokey classic…

Smokey Robinson

William "Smokey" Robinson is one of the few figures in popular music whose importance is genuinely difficult to overstate. He was the first artist Berry Gordy signed, became a vice-president of Motown, wrote or co-wrote an enormous share of the label's catalogue for other artists, and had a career as a performer that ran from 1959 into the present.

As a writer his signature is the extended conceit — a single image turned over and examined for three minutes — and the willingness to put genuine sadness inside a pop song without flagging it.

As a singer he has a high, light tenor used with remarkable precision. He almost never pushes, and the restraint is what makes the emotional content land.

What to listen for

"The Tracks Of My Tears" is the best-written song here and possibly the best-written song of the Motown era — the central image, the melody, the guitar figure and the bridge are all doing separate work and all pointing the same way.

"Ooo Baby Baby" is the vocal showcase, and "The Tears Of A Clown" is the one that became a transatlantic number one three years after its release when Britain discovered it.

"Quiet Storm" is the historically important one. The 1975 album and its title track gave the late-night radio format invented at WHUR its name, and effectively defined a whole category of music.

"Cruisin'" is the solo-era masterpiece and one of the great seduction records, and "Being With You" was the comeback hit.

"I Second That Emotion" and "Going To A Go-Go" are the uptempo Miracles records, and "More Love" is the one he wrote for his wife after a miscarriage, which recontextualises it entirely.

"Just To See Her" and "One Heartbeat" are the eighties comeback records, and "Ebony Eyes" with Rick James is the outlier.

Go deeper

A Quiet Storm (1975) is the essential solo album and the one with the most historical weight.

Then follow his writing for others: The Temptations' "My Girl" and "Get Ready", Mary Wells's "My Guy", Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar". That catalogue alone would make a career.

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