Smokey Robinson

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
R and B Money.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Honey, we are.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Take volati. We are the authority on all things.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
R and B.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
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,

(00:43):
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?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah? Him, the one and.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Only, the one and only.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Smoke tak. I'm taking you everywhere I go for that introduction.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
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

(01:51):
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?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
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

(02:29):
and a lot of people singing, and other would not
have thought that something like this could happen for them.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Man.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
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

(02:57):
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
for granted. And I don't triple on Smokey Robinson and
all that, you know, that's just that comes along with

(03:19):
this territory, you know what I mean. And when I
see people come into show business and they have a
hit record or get a little note and stuff like that,
and they start tripping on themselves and think that, well,
the world is aware of them now, so it can't
possibly do without them. That's so stupid, man. I think
I've seen thousands and I'm not exaggerating now, I've seen
thousands of people come through show business, man, you know

(03:41):
what I mean. So I just I'm blessed man, and
I'm very, very very happy to be able to live
this life that I love so much.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
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

(04:18):
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
for me and my brother Jay Urgent. Off top. Well,
we got these eyes on us off top. This is
the fiftieth anniversary, of course, talk about that, man.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
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

(05:05):
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
entertainment complex. So he wanted to make movies and do

(05:28):
TV specials and stuff like that. And Los Angeles was
the capital of that at that time, you know, for
doing stuff like that, and Alli he came out and
made ladies things the blues and you know, mahogany, you know,
and so that was his that was his thought for
for Motown. And I came out here kicking and screaming. Man,
I came out to Los Angeles because I didn't want

(05:48):
to move from Detroit. I thought we should stay there.
You know, they even called Detroit motown and that, you know,
so I thought, hey, man, we should stay here. So
I was anyway, he convinced me that I had to move,
and at the same time, I was retiring from the Miracles.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
And how old were you at this time.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Man, oh wow, you know back in the days.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
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

(06:50):
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
for Jackie Wilson's manager. Jackie Wilson was my number one
singing idol as a kid growing up. I would have
walked twenty miles to see Jackie, man because Jackie was

(07:11):
the man. Okay, but anyway, we got to change. Jackie
was from Detroit too, and we got a chance to
go to audition for his managers and we did, and
we went to and I tell everybody it was a
god day because we went to audition for his managers
and like I said, we had a girl in a
group and I sang Hi, and rather than singing songs

(07:31):
that were currently popular about other artists, we said, Okay,
we're gonna sing five songs that I've written because I've
been trying to write songs since elementary school. So I
had a goofly note but full of song. So we're
gonna sing five songs that I've written. So they could say, Okay,
these kids got their own material, so we're gonna definitely
sign them. Wrong. They didn't like us at all. Man,

(07:52):
they did not like it because we work hearing to
the Platters as far as they were concerned, because Flatters
had Zula Taylor and Tony the guy sang high and all,
we had the same for him, and they said, we
don't need another Platters. Y'all got this girl in the
group and the old So you'll never make it because the.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Platters already out. You'll never make make it.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
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

(08:31):
older than nineteen or twenty at this point, you know.
And I think he's sitting there because he's gonna audition
after we finish, you know. And so we sang the
five songs and they rejected us, and we're going out,
and we're going out down the hall and the young
man who had been sitting there watching came out behind us.

(08:53):
He said, Man, wait a minute. So I turned around.
He said, what'd you get the songs from?

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Man?

Speaker 2 (08:59):
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.

(09:22):
I see, you still think yeah, so I said, yeah, man,
I said, well, well, thank you very much, man, he said,
he said, no. When I buy records, even today, man,
I look to see who wrote the music. I want
to see who composes me if it's if it's a
band singers, I want to know who actually wrote this
music these people are doing here. So I do that.

(09:42):
I always have done that. So now I got all
of Jackie Wilson's records. Okay, So this dude says to me,
he said, yeah, man, he said, I'm very gordy. What
how could you possibly be very gordy? Man, I say,
you mean very gordy? Who rolls's for Jackie? He said yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I said, so he was a guy already. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
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.

(10:25):
He was there to turn in some new songs to
Jackie Wilson. He actually had lonely teer right, lonely teer
dress with him that day. You know, he was gonna let.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Had lonely tears drop. He was gonna let jacket here
all day.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
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

(10:58):
he just critiqued him. So he started to work with me,
and and and about a year and a half later
he he put us with the record label. And because
there was no there was no Motewn at the time,
and uh, he put us with a record label out
of New York End Records, and they had Little Anthony
Imperials and the Chantels and people like that on the label.

(11:19):
We were very excited. So I'd written this song called
got a Job, in answer to the Silhouettes song get
a Job, which was number one in the world at
that time. So he recorded it on us and got
a job. There was three charts at the time. There
was the R and B chart, what they call the
pop charts where all the white artists were, and then
the classical chart, you know. So on the R and

(11:41):
B chart, got a job, went to the top five,
so we know that. Okay, that's that's that's a hit,
you know. So we had four sizes with them, two
forty five, you know, it was four sides. And so
so come time to pay the royalties, man, this dude
sent Barry check for the producer's royalties, the publishing, the writing,
Irish royalties for three dollars nineteen cents, you know, for

(12:05):
four CIDs three nineteen cents, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
So I'm trying to put together inflation, baby, yeah, three
nineteen nineteen.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
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

(12:36):
a vice president. So he's telling me when I was
when I was in Detroit, he told me, he said,
and my office was designed to induct new talent. I
brought a lot of new talent into into Motown and
stuff back in the day. And I love that. And
then so he finally convinced me to move out to
Los Angeles. Left I retired from the Miracles, and he

(13:00):
he said, man, he said, you're my best friend. So
I'm gonna change your office. I mean, he's gonna be
the financial office. You're gonna sign all the checks. All
the check's gonna come to you except for the payment
of the records. And that's what you're gonna do. So
I'm cool, man, and I've been, you know, on the
road all over the world sing with the Miracles. I'm
just do my job as a vice president, be there
every day. Oh this is great, you know. And then Claudee,

(13:22):
who was my wife, then we just had our two
our two old oldest kids were born at that time.
My son was four, my daughters two. You know, so
I get a chance to stay at home, my family
and all that and be there. So I'm going out
there and you know, so, man, at first it was
the bomb. I loved it because I'm going to the

(13:43):
office every day. I'm going home every day. After the office,
I'm signing a check. And when I first started signing,
my name is William Robinson Junior. Man, So I started
signing a check like that, William Robinson Junr. And after
they signed a thout, you ought to see my signature.
Now it's like that a thousand chicks. You know what
I'm saying, You're gonna figure out something. So anyway, so

(14:07):
I'm doing that, man. And after about two two and
a half years, I found myself miserable. I was fucked
up on the inside. I was just miserable. Man. Every
day I was miserable. I was sad. And I'm not
a sad person. I'm you know, I'm you know. One day,

(14:29):
after about three years or so, Barry came to my office.
He said, hey, man, he said, I need you to
do something for me. I said, okay, man, what do
you want me to do? I thought he's gonna tell
me some corporate stuff, you know, because I've been doing
my my my my status vice president like that. I
would travel, I would go to New York and make
deals with publishing companies. Dude, you know so, I thought

(14:50):
he's gonna tell me something like that. You know. So
he said, I need you to do something for me, man.
He said, I need you to get yourself a band
and going to the studio, make a and get the
fuck out of here. I said, well, what's wrong, man?
I said, I'm not doing my jo. He said, no,
you're doing a great job, mate, But you're miserable. He said,
you think you had that ship from me? He said,

(15:10):
I'm a nigga from Detroit too. I'm a street nigga
from Detroit. So I peeped you. You're my best friend,
so you can't hide from me. He said, I see
you miserable. It makes me miserable. I don't want to
be miserable. So I need you to get the fuck
out of my face.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
All sounded like me, so.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
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.

(15:58):
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
Quiet Storm. Man, and my youngest sister, who I had
two sisters, and my younger sister was fourteen when I
was born, but she was a hell of a lyricist, man,
you know. So I started Quiet Storm, and I knew, Okay,

(16:23):
I'm gonna be working for the rest of this album.
I'm gonna do an album now, Man, I'm getting out of here.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, yeah, you ready, You're ready, I'm.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
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.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Man.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
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

(17:01):
changed his show to be the Choiirt Storm, and then
radio stations all over the country started to have a
Choie Storm.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
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

(17:32):
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.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Better believe it overnight or overnight.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
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.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
I've done a few, I've done plenty.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
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.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
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

(19:01):
it just happened like that. Man. I hadn't planned it.
I didn't even thought of that. Man, you know, I
hadn't thought of that. When I write a song, I
want to write a song. And I mean by that
that I want to write a song.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
I want to write.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
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

(19:38):
a song, I might go in the studio and record it.
On myself or somebody else and not give it the
right treatment. I'll give you a couple of stories on
that too, that'll show you what I'm talking about, and
not give it the right treatment. And later on, if
it's a song, somebody could pick it up twenty years
when I says, oh, I like the song and record
it and it'd be a hit. You know, if it's
a song, it's got that chance. So I want to
write a song.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
I want to be baited. Man.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
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.

(20:24):
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,
you know, and she would play. I know once once
I was playing Rutgers University with the with with the
Miracles man and B. B. King Uh. They had re

(20:44):
released Lucille.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
And and and and and.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
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

(21:15):
and three days in row she wouldn't play nothing but
Beethoven and Bach and Chopin and people like that. And
then she would play the Five Blind Boys and the
Voluntaires and Award Singers and you know, Mahiriot Jackson. And
so I'm getting all this. And then I got two sisters,
like I said, my younger sister fourteen where I was born.
So now they're playing Count Basie and Duke Kellington and

(21:36):
Sammy Davis and Frank Sinatra. And so I'm getting a
great dose of music growing up, you know. So I'm
I'm into all kinds of bulk and music and and
what you know, listening to it and loving it. But anyway,
like I said, you know, I never I never dared

(21:57):
to dream that some of these songs would do what
they what they have done, and what they have done
for me, you know. But what I was gonna say,
as far as as Barry goes with the with the
not being satisfied with stuff, the greatest example I can
give you probably is shop around. Okay, So shop Around.

(22:21):
We had this artist, Barrett Strong, who had money. That's
what I want, the best thing in life up for
a year, you know. So he's got a really big
hit there, and Barry came to and say, hey, man,
I want you to do an album on Barrett Cool
when we're doing ELM on Barrett Man. So I'm thinking
about Barrett. You know what you got, the money, That's
what I want. What you do with money, you shop.

(22:42):
So the first song I'm gonna write is known be
about that. So I'm gonna write shop Around. So I
wrote shop around, and shop Around was one of those songs.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Man.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
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,

(23:11):
and Barry's an accomplished pianist, you know. So we go
down the piano and I started singing shop round, you know,
and after a while he starts playing on it. He said, hey, man,
he said, wait a minute, No, I want you to
sing this song. No, Barry Man, I wrote this song
for Barrett Man. Money. That's what I'm all shopparound. Come
on man, you know. No, No, Man, I like the

(23:32):
way you sound on this. I want you to sing
this song. Oh, come on, Barry, No, No, I'm on
to jaff. We went through twenty five minutes of that,
so he finally said he Man's going to the studio
and recorded on You and the Miracles.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Man.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
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,

(24:03):
and then you know all that you know, and it
was kind of like slow and rocking and shit. So
we put the record out. Record's been out for at
least two weeks on the radio, okay, and three o'clock
in the morning one morning, my phone rings and uh
I pick it up. I said, hello, hey, man, it's me.
It's very I said, yeah, man, I said, I kind

(24:24):
of recognize your voice. I said, what do you want?
He said, what's happening? Man? I said, what do you mean?
What's happening? Man? It's three o'clock in the morning. What's happening.
I'm sleep, man, that's what's happening. He said, Well, chaperon
won't let me sleep. I said what he said, chaperon
won't let me sleep. You did the wrong thing to it.
You give it the wrong treatment. You did not give

(24:45):
it the right treatment. It's a really good song and
you fucked it up. So I got to do it again.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
It's on the radio.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
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,

(25:14):
I said, but you know, he said no, no, no,
he said, I'm changing everything. I said, okay, man, I'll
see you tomorrow. He said, no, no, no, I mean right now.
I said, running now ThReD Cid in the morning. Man,
he said, don't care. He said. I called all the musicians.
He said, I called them, and so you get the group,

(25:34):
y'all come to the studio right now. We're gonna do
it again. Thank god, thank god. We won and did
it again because he changed everything. If you could hear
the one I did and here the one that's the
popular one, it's a whole another record. But that's what
he did, he said. So see, he changed it, and
the rest is history. It was the first million sell

(25:55):
that Motown every yeah, yeah, the first million sell that town.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
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.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
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
had to you know, all those people in Detroit. And

(26:41):
I tell him, and I really believe this, in every village,
every city, every township, every area where there are people gathered, Okay,
probably ratio wise, there's that same amount of talent we have.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
We had Barry go. You know what I mean, somebody
got to bring it all together.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
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

(27:25):
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
hanging place. We have always had what we celebrated as
the Motown family, because that's who we were, man, and

(27:46):
that's who we are, those of us who are still alive,
we still celebrate the Motown family. But we were a
family because we weren't just stablemates. We see the temptations
walking through the hallway. Hey man, how you doing. No,
we hung out with each other. Yeah, that was our
brother my brothers and sisters. We hung We want each
other's homes. We had dinner, each other's houses, We had picnics,

(28:09):
we had outings, we did everything together. When you went
back to Detroit, you could have been on fifty one
night a tour, and when you got back to Detroit,
first thing you did was get yourself together, bet your
clothes and go to Hittsville. Why because everybody was over there,
and you knew whoever was in town was gonna be
over there, and you're gonna hang. That's what we did.
We hung, and we had the family kind of thing,

(28:32):
and all those people we were brothers and sisters. And
I go back now and I look at the pictures
in the museum and stuff like that, and eighty five
percent of them are gone. Eighty five percent of them
are gone. And when you when you when you're a
kid like that and you're growing up with all those
people there, and the last thing you expect to see
them dead. You don't expect to see nobody dead, you know,

(28:54):
especially when when when it's your close partner, part like
Marven for me, you know, dude that I was with
every day all day long, damn near of my life,
you know. Now respect to see him dead, damn.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
You know.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
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,

(29:29):
drag out competitive against each other. The producers and the
writers and people are trying to get records out on
the artists and stuff like that. And see the thing
about Motown, which is nothing made it so unique is
that if you were a producer or a writer and
you had a song that you thought fit so and so,
you could take it to so and so, and if
they liked it, you were free to record it on them.

(29:50):
It didn't matter who had the last hit record on
them and all that stuff. It didn't matter about all
that you got a song that they like, you can
record it on them. So that's why the competition was
so fierce. And every Monday morning we had meetings in
Barrie's office and only the creative people were allowed in
those meetings. Only the writers and producers. No secretaries, no

(30:11):
people from the sales department, no, none of that of
us up, just the writers and producers. Meetings start at
nine a m. On Monday morning. If you got that
nine oh one, you were locked out. You couldn't get in.
You know, I'm saying it. But we go in there
and we curitique each other's music, even though we were
competing against each other. Like I said, the greatest competition
ever had for getting records out on the Temptations was

(30:33):
Norman Whitfield and Baard Strong. Norman could be in the
studio working on something on Barrett, And like I said,
we hung out there all the time all everybody and
say hey, smoke, come in here, man. I want you
to say ooh, I want you to stomp your feet
or clap your hands or something like that. And I
would go do it. Even though I know he was
competing against me for record out on the Temptations, he
would do the same thing for me because that's how

(30:54):
it was. That's how we did. And in the Monday
morning meetings, we just came in and critiqued each other's music, man,
trying to get it better, trying to get I'll give
you a great example of that, uh uh tracks My Tears.
Tracked My Tears was one of many, many, many songs

(31:15):
that the origin of that song is my guitar. So
it's passed on now. Guy named Marv Tarplin with his guitar.
He would put those guitar rips on the tape for
me and give them to me until I could come
up with a song for his music, you know. And
so he had done that for the tracks of My Tears,
and I just had him playing the guitar on tape
and finally one day I came up with the three

(31:36):
lines for the chorus. They're good, look at my face, smile,
look at tray, close the sezar. The trays that you're
gone and I'm here. No, the seasons are trays that
I still love you, but you don't love me. No,
Caesar are trays that I went through a lot of those, man.
So one morning, this is so ironic. One morning I

(31:56):
was in mirror and I'm shaving and I don't I
don't have to shave it like once thy four or
five days because hell won't grow on my face. I
hated that in the in the sixties and seventy when
of the guys the motown were growing beards and I
couldn't grow one. I hated that.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Man, You see that?

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh yeah, warm thoughts. Man, you see a little pature.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
I'm pature, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
You gotta be from the snow Joy that took.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
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

(33:06):
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.
Five years. It took me something to come up with
something for cruising. And then once again it was by
quite by accident, I come up with the first three
lines of the course you Don't Fly Away. I'm glad

(33:29):
you're going my way because I love it when we're
traveling together. No, I love it when we're doing this.
I love them and shit, man, I had that tape
for five years, and one day it was at Christmas time,
December here in Los Angeles, and I'm from Michigan, where

(33:52):
in December the winters are brutal. I mean brutal, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Maybe.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
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.

(34:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
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

(34:59):
in the studio, what do I see?

Speaker 2 (35:01):
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

(35:21):
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
put the vocal down on cruising. I took it to

(35:42):
Jean when I say, here baby, that's why I got back.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
So he hired the string.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, he hired the string. He but he did
the arrangements.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Arrangements, so he's he's Quincy Jones right now doing that.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, indeed, the bass player, this is what you do,
and and this is all these are all live instruments.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Still, you like to sing while they're playing, ask.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
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

(36:43):
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
do something else. You know what I'm saying. So it's
it's it's it's inspirational. So so yeah, so I love
recording when when they record.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
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?

Speaker 2 (37:16):
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.

(37:36):
I hope that that happens all the time.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
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?

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (37:47):
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

(38:09):
a talented young man, and he sang it, and I
was flabbagasted, and in fact, they surprised him he did.
I forgot what the TV show was now, but anyway,
he was gonna do this TV show and he was
singing cruising and they called me and told me what
was happening. And so the TV show starts and he

(38:32):
gets there and he sings the first verse, and then
they had me walk out to sing the second person.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
It was we in the mall.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
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.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
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,

(39:08):
and you know y'all.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Need to be more creative. You said it, I didn't.
Y'all said it?

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah stupid.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, there goes the answer to that.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
That is what it is, absolutely because first of all,
like I said, it, flattery and then you're going to
earn some money.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
So why would you protest that that?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Why would you protest that?

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Speaking of speaking of money, speaking of money.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
The best things in life are free, but you can
give them no.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Money.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
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

(40:05):
side and you know, the royalties and different things that
a lot of artists didn't know for a long time.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
No, you were part of the business.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
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.
In nineteen and Barry had just started Motown and I

(40:36):
was making five dollars a week because I was there
was only five people who worked there there him and
four others of us, you know, so it was considered
our car fair to get there. But we made five
dollars a week, and you just but I was nineteen
and I got married because I thought I was a man.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Because I was going to ask you why you got married,
and I stoked, I was a man.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
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.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, you shutting, shutting down, saying but I thought I
was a man.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Man that was me. Find out a week we started motime.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
You see this five dollars you know that I can
take you place.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Absolutely man. But yeah, so it was it was. It
was something man.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
It was.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
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,

(42:06):
Barry's then wife, and lady named ray Noma, and me
and Barry and Barry set us down and he said, amen,
He said, I'm gonna start my own record company. Anybody
paying set I'm own record company, and we're gonna be
the crew. And we're not just gonna make black music.
We're gonna make music for the world watching. See, We're
gonna make music for we will we will always have

(42:27):
some great beasts and some great stories and that's gonna
be our quality control to have that when we put
our records out. But we were gonna make music for
the world.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
So yeah, I did it, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, And we shop around being like like you said,
it was the first million seller for y'all.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Did you see real money on that?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
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.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
So they were withholding.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
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?

(43:36):
Who's gonna come and say if you go there and say, well, no,
we know we sold one hundred thousand records and distribution,
No you didn't. He's so fifty. Who go, who's gonna know?
You know what I'm saying, Who's gonna know that? That's
what happened. So yeah, they But like I said, the
great thing for us, man, was we bombarded them. We
kept them so they would give us our money before

(43:58):
we even send some records because they wanted those records.
You know, it got the front. Like the radio stations,
a lot of the companies were paying and they have
their records played. You know what I mean. The guys
would call us and say, hey man, please let us
have a new Supreme record before you get and I'm
talking about white stations. Let us have the new Supreme

(44:19):
record before you give it to anybody else. We'll play it.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
We kicked their ass. Man.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Were y'all making money on the road? Oh yeah it was,
but not much.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
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

(44:53):
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.
In fact, they closed it down and it's going to
be closed now for three or four years while they renovated.
You know. But if they tear everything else on one
hundred and twenty fifth Street down, I hope they leave
the Apollo standing. The Apollo is Black music tradition. When

(45:17):
the Miracles on our first one in there, man, the
fair first time we're on the ray Child Show. We
go there and like I said.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
We just kids.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
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

(45:50):
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.
Yet he wanted his money. Hey man, we didn't even
make enough money to get out of the hotel at

(46:12):
the end of the week. We didn't. He was only
Now there's five of us and he's only paying us
like seven hundred dollars and we're in New York from
New Charge. He's only seven hundred dollars a week. We
got a hotel. The hotel is more than that, you
know what I'm saying. But he wanted that back.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Give me that back.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Who was your favorite artist to write for?

Speaker 2 (46:50):
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

(47:12):
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
don't even speak English. Sixty percent of the people in
that audience don't even speak English, okay, and they hear
boom boom boom boom boom, and they know the song,

(47:39):
they know the words. So stuff like that has happened
totally unexpected as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
But it just.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
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

(48:18):
I said, I'm just blessed man, unfortunate. I get a
chance to live my life doing something that I absolutely love,
have a job that I look forward to going to.
Because we were getting ready to go out, let's see
next week, the end of next week, and we've been
off now since December, so I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Have you ever done anything else like as an occupation
as it always because you said.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
You started that? Ever? You mean ever, have you ever
had another job?

Speaker 2 (48:49):
I've had every job you can think of it.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
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

(49:15):
my man because my sister came and I had another
sister who was younger than her, and she didn't have
no kids. And she could have said, okay, well I'm
I'm gonna take my brother, and but my older sister
who had all those kids, say I'm taking my brother,
you know. And he could have said, no, you ain't
I all these kids who work. But he treated me

(49:36):
like I was his own son, you know what I mean.
He never ever made any difference between any of us.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
I was gonna go with my brother.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
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,

(50:09):
could you give me a job? They call me smoking Joe.
At the time, everybody in the neighborhood called me smoke
at Joe.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Why did they call you smoking?

Speaker 2 (50:16):
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.

(50:37):
They had guitars and they saying and so I loved them.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Man.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
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.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
We need cowboy names, give us cowboy nassy before the
day is over.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
I need a cowboy name.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
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,

(51:18):
I named myself Smokey Robinson. But that's been my name
all my.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Life, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
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

(51:45):
and be a cowboy that sings and have a horse.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
That's what.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
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

(52:13):
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,
I'm going to pursue this. I'm going to be a
baseball player. And I think about it now and if
I had been the greatest baseball player in the history

(52:33):
of the game since they came up with baseball, the
greatest person to ever pick up a batter or a
glove or a ball, if I had been that person,
my career would have been over fifty years ago. You
know what, I'm fifty years ago, man, because you know
I think about in sportsman, you get old fast. A Kareem,

(52:56):
who is my brother. Kareem called me. He's getting ready
to retire from the Lakers. And I had sang the
national anthem at the World Series in Boston and he
saw me. So I said after that, I'm never gonna
sing it again. I'm never gonna sing the national anthem
for a sports event again. I did it. That's what
I wanted it. So Kareem called me. He say, Man,
he said, I'm gonna reay retire. He said, So, I'm

(53:19):
retiring this this Saturday night, and then they're doing a
big thing for me at the at the game, and
I won't you come down sing the national anthem? I said, Kareem, Man,
you know, I said, when he said, man, this is me,
come on down sing national anthem. So I said, okay,
So I get down there all in the forum and
shit like that. This signs up on the old man.

(53:43):
The old man is retired.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
And they ring like a rocket share the old man.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Is retiring on this was thirty three.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
I always would retire.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Three three. He was old man, you know, so wow wow.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
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

(54:34):
until you said it, I had never put a number
on it. You know, when I was a kid, I
thought Kareem.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
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.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
He's but even in that, yeah, how many more.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Hits did you have after forty?

Speaker 3 (55:06):
You know what I mean, Like you still had ha,
you know, just the record you have.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
You're eighty five? Yeah, oh, let me think.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Five. You say that and I can't wait.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
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,

(56:00):
we do well because like when you get there, it's
like what you set out for your music to be.
That is the place where that statement is made because
that is that is all walks of life.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
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

(57:02):
the week, with the exception of Monday, and you did
two shows a night, sometimes on Saturday. Every other Saturday
you did three because there was a breakfast show you
did that. It was a slave house. As far as
I was concerned, Las Vegas was someone, you know, shit,
I don't want to play here. I am not going
to play it. And then they had to kind of
change what they were singing and singing, you know, top

(57:24):
hat and cane kind of music and some some of
those kind of songs, you know, and I don't wanted
to do that. So my agent called me in nineteen
eighty they said, hey, man, you want to play Vegas.
I said no, I told you, I don't want to
play Vegas. He said, no, I got a different deal
for you. He said, Dean Martin, he's playing at the MGM,

(57:46):
and he's got two shows a night like everybody else.
He's gonna do the eight thirty show, but he don't
want to do the eleven o'clock show. So you want
to go and you can just do the eleven o'clock show.
He's to be one show a night. I said, yeah,
he's saying you can sing your own music. When I said, okay, cool.
So that was my first time going and doing a
residency in Las Vegas. So but I played it where

(58:09):
in Vegas? Man, that was at the MGM. Now, my
main residency was at the Desert End. Steve win brought it.
Now it's the Wind Hotel. Okay, but I was there.
I had residents there for four years, you know, and
so he you know, he bought the hotel, change up everything.
So now, for a while, Vegas was considered and I

(58:33):
would tell young young X about going to play Vegas
and they said, no, man, I want to play that.
It's the graveyard because that's what it had become because
Steve Winn and some of the other powers that be
in Las Vegas had started buying up. They bought up
all the golf courses and I played golf. They Barbalo,
and they were trying to make Vegas into a family

(58:55):
town because they wanted the money from the from the
average dude lived in the neighborhood. And they were, you know,
high rollers came there. When I first started play Vegas
Man in nineteen eighty, people came there, came to the
show in tuxedos and laid hand them downs and shit
like that. You know, it's high rollers and that's what
that's who was coming to those shows and stuff, you know.
And there was a name act at every hotel on

(59:18):
the strip at that time, Lizman, Nelly and this. Rather
there's a name making every hotel. So it changed because
they tried to make it a family town because they
wanted that money from the guy who lived in the
average neighborhood. They weren't satisfied with just getting money from
the high road people had it, but they wanted them
to be able to bring his kids there and while
he gambled, they could have a theme park or some

(59:39):
shit like that. So they started doing that and they
killed Vegas Vegas just went into the dodrooms. You know,
people stopped coming. They killed it, you know, But now
it's back again, and you know, all the young people
are playing there. I can't wait to see new addition
because they said, they told me that they're just racking
it back out there here, So I can't wait to see.

(01:00:00):
And I have a home in Vegas also, so I'm
gonna go see them when I go home to Vegas.
But everybody's playing there again now, and it's it's alive
again now. So I have the residency now at the Venetian,
and I'm really happy about that too, because as far
as I'm concerned, the Venetian is the most beautiful room
in Las Vegas, just like a miniature Cartergate Hall or

(01:00:24):
something like that, you know there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
So it's just the Venetian, are you talking about, like
the main suite, actual theater, theater?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
I thought it was the Venetian showroom?

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Is it? I think so? But you performing there, so
you believe anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
What's the date for April third fifth and six.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Third fifth and six. I'm putting that in my I'm
putting that in my calendar.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Come on down, Yeah, I need I need to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
I got to say, brother eighty five, you look a
thank you, vin what you're doing? You juicing?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
What what you got going on here? What's the health?
What's the regiment? Baby?

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
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

(01:01:30):
anyone can do for their lives. Really, yes, Why because
as you get older, you start to shrink, and I
mean you shrink, and this is no bullshit, you actually shrink.
I used to be six feet tall, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
You used to be six feet tell yes, when I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
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,

(01:02:15):
as you get older, it starts to slow down, which
gives you arthritis or what you know, cramps and all
stuff like that makes you stiffen and shrink. Okay, when
you see old guys and you see that you just
scoliosis and all that kind of stuff like that, those
are things that you have to combat. Okay. So yoga

(01:02:39):
keeps your body and your muscles and your veins and
all the keeps the blood flowing, keeps his fluid flowing,
It keeps your body, keeps your muscles uh loose or
limber like, keeps you keeping and it's just so good

(01:03:01):
for your health to keep that happening like that. But
like I said, also now, I've always been active. So
every other day I lift my weights and I I'm
back to doing something too that I hadn't done in
a long time. I'm doing some chin ups now. Because

(01:03:23):
when I was when I was, when I was younger man,
especially when I was playing sports, I could do fifteen
twenty chips man. And so one day I go down
to the gym, and this is probably about two months ago,
and I said, well, I guess I do my five chinups.
I did one. Well that's one y one?

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Are you the only person with two stars on a
walker than.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
As far as I know, miracles and singular?

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Yeah and solo? Maybe you're Michael Jackson, because did Jackson?
I should be.

Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
Yeah, they should be Yeah you Mike Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Kennedy Center Honoree, Library of Congress, Gershwin Prize a Popular Song?
What happened to you? Done that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
You know what, do you see yourself as a villain
or you want to say the day? Are you a llawyer?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
I don't care if it is a nice part, it
doesn't matter that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Come on, come get the young man. Let him be
a instructor.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
My brother, straight young you know what you be doing?

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Yoga? But he guilt James two weeks ago?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Oh Freddy dead? You know he killed him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
So you never got in any of the Motown movies. No,
you guys were making them. No, you really was against it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
When I when I think about.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
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

(01:06:02):
best doing the best work together. It's the best musicians,
it's the best conductors, it's the best songwriters, the best
like it's all of these things that come together that
I think it is so different now, you know what
I mean, like the idea of but I feel like
it's coming back of Like even with my kids, my

(01:06:26):
daughters and her listening to older sounding music, you know,
wanting to see older sounding bands because a lot of
these new new bands like Overseas and all over the place,
like they're grabbing the Motown formula to make their music.
It's very nostalgic, very nostalgic, and it's it's it's just

(01:06:48):
stood the test of time in a way where it's
just like I mean, I don't think there will ever
be another Motown.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
No, No, people.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Want each other spots. They don't want to work together,
killing each other killing right instead of working with each other.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
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

(01:07:59):
one and go right back to Hitsville and hang out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
So yeah, that that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
But before you go there, because you know, I got
you know, I listen, I am known for the foolishness.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
So I gotta asked.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
You know, smokey, don't don't, don't yoga me, don't punch
me an eye.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
I gotta ask about gang banging. I gotta ask about
gag banging.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
It's it's such a viral thing in the hood that
we all randomly just bust out start singing all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
A message, very serious song.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
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

(01:09:09):
have as men. You know, it's it's it's it's such
a it's such a shame because of the fact that
many times I've said this, I wish we could be
attacked by Zetra, you know, some planet from out of
space or something like that, and we would be attacked
by them, and we have a four or five day

(01:09:31):
war which we would win. Or to give us a
chance to see they were all fucking earthlings. We're all
the same. We have different colored skin, we have different
color eyes, and different textures of hair and a but
we're human beings. And you don't get no bigger than that.
You don't get no better than that, and you don't

(01:09:52):
get no better than anybody else who is a human being,
you know. So for men to be hating on each
other because of the color of this, because of some
religious belief, or because of any reason, it is absolutely absurd,
you know. So gang banging is that message. And like
I said, you don't even know where it started. You

(01:10:15):
have no idea where that shit started. All you know
is you grew up and somebody told you to hate
this person. Somebody told you to hate him because he
lives on that side of the tracks, or he lives
in this block and you live in it. Or he
got on red and you got on blue. Somebody told
you to hate him. Why do you hate well, because
that's the tradition. That's where it came down like that.

(01:10:38):
I'm supposed to hate him because it came down from
your great great great great grandfather started some shit like that.
And you haven't come to your senses enough to see
that we're all human beings or the same thing. If
you skinned everybody alive, you would know who was. All

(01:11:00):
of our veins are in the same place. Our hearts
are kidneys, you know what I mean. We're gonna hate
on somebody because outwardly they're different. Bullshit, And it's ridiculous.
It's the most ridiculous emotion that we can have as people. However,

(01:11:23):
it's being combated by love, which is the most powerful.
Even those who are like the ones I just mentioned,
those who are hating, they hate calling themselves loving something
to hate for I hate you because you're black, I'm white.
I love my race. So that's a love thing happening.

(01:11:46):
But I hate you, well, I hate so and so
on and so on and so because see they hate
for protecting. They call it that's protective love. But it
is a form of love. They're loving something that gives
them the reason or the excuse for hating something else.

(01:12:09):
So but we need to get that together because you know,
and especially here in the United States, we need to
get that together. Every powerful nation that there's ever been
in the history of Earth has fallen from within and
about war about somebody can want with taking this ship.

(01:12:30):
It's about us killing ourselves within. Like every other powerful
nation in the history of mankind. You know, they've all
fallen from within because somebody gets the notion that they're
better than somebody else.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Uh? Well, I have to be retro on you man.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Let's go come, Let's go on.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Jackie Wilson, Sam Cook, Yes, rach y'all, Clyde McPhatter, and
Nolan Strong.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Oh going there? Five.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Do you know who Nolan Strong was?

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
I do not know who knows.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
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

(01:13:45):
I first saw him, he was like ten years old.
He was like a little manager. But I called him
Jackie Brown because he was a cross between Jackie Wilson
and James Brown. And he was doing them, I mean
doing them. He's ten years old, And I think about Michael,
and Michael was so extremely talented. You know, when you

(01:14:08):
look at Michael, Michael changed the look of show business.
He changed the entire look of show business. Because all
the kids nowadays are dancing with the dancers on the
stage and this and that and other. Michael started that.
Michael was on stage with thirty dancers who had been
dancing since they were five years old. There was the

(01:14:28):
profession that's what they did professionally, and he was out
dancing all of them.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
Michael Jackson come along and hires and hires professional dancing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
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,

(01:15:06):
I think about that all the time. You know, Michael
did the moonwalk on Mojohn twenty five and people say.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
Oh, he made that up.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
Yeah, he was just were you there the day they
came in auditioned?

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Like, what was that? What is the like, Yeah, what's
the conversation after you see that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
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

(01:16:19):
the most renowned.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Artists ever ever.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Yeah, you know, do you immediately start hearing songs as
a songwriter when you see them, You're like, Okay, I'm
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
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

(01:16:51):
about twenty one years old.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Cause Who's Loving You?

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
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
it's his song. You you know what I'm saying. If I

(01:17:30):
do a smidgeing of it in person and young people there,
they come to me and why are you singing Michael
Jackson's song, because that's whose song it is? Now baby,
thank god? Because he made it a standard. Yeah yeah,
and everybody that you hear singing and now sings it
like Michael. You know, so thank god he recorded it.
But like I said, here's a little due eleven years old.
He don't even fuck he's singing about and sing it

(01:17:52):
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
You know, my whole life, I thought you wrote it
for the Jackson See, I'm like I knew you wrote.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Yeah, I thought you wrote it for them.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Well apparently I did without I did, but not even
knowing it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Okay, brother Smoky your top five R and B songs.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Do it, I grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
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

(01:18:53):
since I could hear. You know, I've been listening to
songs and music. The first voice I ever remember hearing
in my life was Sarah, and I forgot what songs
she were singing is whatever it was because my sister
were playing her. I had to be two or three
years old. But that's the first voice I ever remember hearing.
So I've been hearing songs all my life. I love songs.

(01:19:14):
I can't tell you what my favorite songs are. I
can tell you my favorite album, Ok, my favorite album
of all time is What's Going On by Marvin Gaye.
I have a front row seat to that album. I
was with him when he was writing it. I be
at his house he's writing it, and he said to me, smoke,

(01:19:37):
I ain't writing this album. Man, God is writing this album.
I'm just sitting here. I'm the catalyst, and God is
writing this album. When I listen to what's going on.
I believe him because it's prophecy. It's more poigned today
than it was when he wrote it than it was
when it came out. It was pointed, but it's more

(01:19:59):
pointed today then it was then. Everything that he's talking
about it's happening right now in abundance. Okay, it's my
favorite album of all time. I haven't heard anything that
I thought matched it as an album.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
All the songs off that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Album absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
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

(01:20:49):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
Yeah, okay, I got the vocal. What else do I need?

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Perform style?

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Performance style that would have to be Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
Okay, okay, you're versed in.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
Between Michael Jackson and Jackie Wilson, it would be.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
Okay, okay, Michael Wilson. Okay, yeah. Uh. Styling, the style
of the strip, the clothing apparel.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
Well, you know, back in the day, the Miracles not
a real sharp.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
We were real shure. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
Some styling, the miracles, the passion of the artists who
mean it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
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

(01:22:06):
a young artist that you know, you think you can sing,
let me take you to my church on Sunday. You're
her sister Maybell Clanton. Yeah, you ain't never heard of life?
Who were seeing you under the table? You know what
I mean? She mean it absolutely so you know, but
if you don't have that, man, you're not going to
make it. And like I said, many artists have it

(01:22:28):
and they're not going.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
To make it. Give me one that has.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Just pick one that has what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Now that you've seen you're just like, oh yeah, they
got the passion.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
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

(01:23:05):
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
by without it. But most people have that passion, and
especially nowadays, you know, you look online and there's a
million kids online, man, that have that passion. That's struggling

(01:23:28):
trying to get just their voices heard or something. That's
why it's so difficult nowadays that first of all, there's
no record business. That's out of the question, and there's
so many you know, people downloading and taking people's music
free and doing all the things that are happening now.

(01:23:49):
It's a whole other world. But the passion.

Speaker 6 (01:23:55):
Is there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
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,

(01:24:19):
and so many challenged people see it. It's a different
world because challenged people can just play themselves now. They
don't have to wait for a record company or anybody.
They can just put their own selves out there. So
there's thousands of them.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
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,

(01:24:55):
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,

(01:25:21):
we got we got my fashion. Oh listen, Yes, yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):
Marvin Gay was one of the most passionate people I've
ever known. I've ever worked with him, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
I used to love working with him because Marburn was
always late.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
Him my song Man going down boy.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
When he got to Motown because he's from d C.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
He was already in his late twenties when he got
to Motown.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
Yeah, yeah, he came late.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
Didn't know that, Yeah, he came late.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
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

(01:27:33):
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
had left, so he wanted to hire another member. So
they were in Washington, DC, said, and Marvin came and

(01:27:53):
sang for him. So he hired Marvin. Marvin's a new
Moon Glow. So we're having a Christmas party one year,
and he brought Marvin to the Christmas party and so
we're down in the Hitsville studio and stuff like that.
That's what the main stuff that people all over the
Hissfield building. But a lot of people gathered in the
studio where all the instruments were blah blah blah, just

(01:28:13):
mingling and having a good time. So Marvin goes over
to the piano and he sits down and he starts
playing the Christmas song and singing it chest Nuts roast.
So he gathers the crowd, everybody starts because his voice
was just one of the crowd gathering voices. So him
back gets around in me saying it. And so Anna,

(01:28:34):
who was Barry's sister, went up to the control and
to Barry say, you need to come down here. This guy,
you know, because Barry came down heard him and he sang.
And that was when he first you know, Barry asked
him if he wanted to come to Motown. He said
he couldn't because he was the move over. The Harvey
was standing there. Harvey said, man, you had to come
to Motown. He said, I even work for Motown. Now,
you had to come to Motown. So he did. And

(01:28:58):
when he first came, he didn't want to be Marvin Gay.
He wanted to be Nacking Cole Well, Frank Sinatra, somebody
like that. That's why, that's how you wanted to sing.
And so we recorded some mister Sandman.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Y'all were doing this type of record and.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
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,

(01:29:39):
Stubborn kind of Fella, and that was the beginning of
Marvin Gay.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
Last quality for you're vault trying who's writing for this
artist that you just put together?

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
Kenny Edmonds and Dining Warren?

Speaker 6 (01:30:09):
Hmmm, yeah, the face and dying.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
Man was yeall was standing on the.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
Extremely talented man.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
How underrated is he as a vocalist? To me? I
think he's one of the girls.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
They talk about him as a rock star.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Yeah, but Rick was a great talent.

Speaker 1 (01:31:14):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
He was a great talent musically.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
He was just yeah, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Where did ebony eyes come from?

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
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

(01:31:49):
a mini movie video because we shot it for three
days all over Los Angeles and I had a film crew.
We went all over shooting it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
You high every day at gotta hear record as record.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Rick was a musical genius.

Speaker 3 (01:32:16):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):
Okay, when you say funked up, do you mean fucked
up high or just fun up?

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
Any wherever you would like to go? Wherever you wherever
the smoke le.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
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,

(01:33:17):
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.

Speaker 5 (01:33:25):
Says, boy, man, oh, that Daffie Duck is a smart motherfucker,
like Daffie Duck had written that.

Speaker 4 (01:33:40):
Y'all, So how about that? How is that good enough
for you?

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
Daffy Duck is a smart mother.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
What man? Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
I thought that was what else you want to know?

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
It is something, It is something that I do want
to know.

Speaker 3 (01:34:52):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
Yeah, right. Do you feel that we need gatekeepers again?
That is just too open.

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
It's just like the fields are just too free for
all control. Like do you feel like we need gatekeepers again?

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
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
you had record companies. You had record companies and a

(01:35:39):
lot of them weren't paying people, but they were still
record companies where you had a place where you could
go and know that some type of organization or something
like that is going to release your music and have
some kind of keep watch on it and so on
and so forth. We don't have that anymore, and we
will never have it because of the computer. You know,
I really think that the computer will probably be our

(01:36:04):
demids eventually later on down in light.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
In our society.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
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,

(01:36:28):
that's that's really deep man.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Yeah, you know that's real.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
That's scary.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
I don't think that will ever happen again, like I said,
because it's too free for all.

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
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,

(01:37:10):
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
that squeaks gets the oil. So all the the negativity

(01:37:32):
is what's put out front. See that bugs me about
people talking about the kids who rap. You know, they're
gonna base all rap on some negative rap. You know,
there are negative songs in every genre you can think of.
Maybe maybe not classical because there's no words and you
can't you can't real with thee but thinking. You know,

(01:37:54):
but when I was a kid man, when I was
a teenager, and I don't know how this could ever happen.
I never figured out how you could do it. But
they said, if you play this record backwards, you're gonna
get a satanic message.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
Right, you know, all the time. Yeah, because you heard that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
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.
Back in the day, Man, we be on the bus
and we like, we're doing a mototime review or something
like that, and we've been going on the bus all

(01:38:30):
and the guys who were on the bus we were
laughing talking about Man, you know what, these days, somebody
can make it. Ready, give me some pussy, and we laughing,
give me some pussy. It's a nerd lyric nowadays, you
know what I'm saying. That's a nerd Yeah, that's a
nerd lyric, you know. So it's just that there's no census,

(01:38:51):
so people can say anything they want to say and
it's wide open.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
You're not necessarily the powers or even the the machine
itself is not running on music. It's running on engagement.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
It's running on whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:39:15):
How do we get attention? Whatever?

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
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,

(01:39:40):
you know, listenable to it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
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

(01:40:04):
go back and get it. And that's the power of
of of what you were able to do.

Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
What do you think about the people whore knocking Beyonce
for singing country music?

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
I think Beyonce should be able to sing whatever she
wants she like singing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
That some of the original cowboys, those black men. Yeah, yes,
I think that.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
Too bad.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
It's too bad.

Speaker 3 (01:41:40):
Because and we need artists of Beyonce's stature.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
To say, hey, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
And also, if you study music history for the United
States of America, all American music started in the cotton field.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
Who's in the cot All of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
Whatever, you know everything.

Speaker 2 (01:42:19):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:42:50):
You know, you don't hang out with smoking today, right probably,
but I'm hanging out with smoking today.

Speaker 1 (01:42:55):
I don't know what you're doing. She's hanging out with smoking.
She watched me get dressed. You you got smoking.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
Oh you guys, this is so loose.

Speaker 1 (01:43:04):
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

(01:43:26):
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,

(01:43:49):
you're the king. It's your day. You say you can.
You can do that if you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:43:55):
I just got to ask one thing too on air,
Will you be our mentor.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
If there's something I can mentor you in it's gonna
positive make something positive happen in your life? Almost only will.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
Knowledge advice, Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:44:30):
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

(01:44:52):
was born. You know, So my dad was an older guy,
and you know, I would hear him and his friends
talking about stuff, and I would think that they were
ignorant I think, Okay, here I am, and they don't
know as much as I do because I'm out on
the streets and I'm doing that was so stupid. H

(01:45:12):
I will never my dad's gone now, but I would
if he had, I would never have known as much
as he knew. Because the greatest teacher that we have
is time. And if you're looking and if you're listening,
you learn all the time. You learn something new all
the time, you know what I mean. So there's no
way I could have ever caught him, you know. So

(01:45:35):
that's what's happening now. You have to let people know that,
you know, time has taught me a little more than
taught you so far, because it's the greatest teacher we have.

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
Well, I'm gonna be calling, yeah, because I got questions.
We got.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
Call come on over. And I love the thing. I
love the fact that you guys even doing this. Man,
this is beautiful.

Speaker 5 (01:46:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46:05):
Yeah, that's what we run on there. You.

Speaker 2 (01:46:10):
I really really hope you guys get a chance to
come to Vegas.

Speaker 1 (01:46:14):
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

(01:46:38):
all right, Smoky to safe. Yeah yeah baby, yeah yeah baby.
I was here, all right,

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Tank

J. Valentine

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