Smokey Robinson: Motown’s First and Foremost Architect

By Scott Shea

There are a lot of architects of the classic Motown sound; the Detroit-based family of record labels formed in 1959 and owned and operated by Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy himself is one, having set the blueprint as a co-composer and producer of about half a dozen Jackie Wilson hits and implementing his grandiose vision. Others include Barrett Strong, Mickey Stevenson, Ivy Joe Hunter, Harvey Fuqua, Johnny Bristol, Hank Cosby and Clarence Paul, but, in my opinion, the Mount Rushmore of the Motown Sound are Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland and William “Smokey” Robinson (I’d also find a spot to chisel in Norman Whitfield too).

Smokey was the only one of those who had been with Gordy from the beginning. They first met in 1957 when Smokey’s band, the Matadors, auditioned for Jackie Wilson’s management team in a Detroit office building. Gordy was there on an unofficial scouting trip and chased after the group when they were rejected. He’d heard something in the young singer. The 17-year-old was also a songwriter and recognized the 28-year-old Gordy by reputation. They slipped off to a room with a piano and Smokey sang a few of his songs. Gordy came away so impressed that he left the building as their new manager and one of the greatest partnerships in pop music history was born. Smokey’s group eventually morphed into the Miracles, featuring Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore, Ronnie White, Marvin Tarplin and his wife, Claudette, and between his prolific songwriting, their records and the entire team’s production development, Motown became a musical juggernaut and a household name in less than seven years.

On July 16, 1972, approximately 4,200 music fans filed into the Carter Barron Amphitheater in the heart of Washington D.C. to watch the final performance of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. Probably next to nobody in the audience purchased their debut single, “Got a Job,” released 14 years earlier on the New York-based End Records label or were even old enough to. Most, however, had jumped on board during their wild ride that lasted the entire decade of the1960s and included hits like “Shop Around,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Mickey’s Monkey,” “Ooo Baby Baby,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” and “Tears of a Clown.” Now, here they all were saying goodbye to Smokey Robinson who was transitioning from performer to Motown Vice President as the company was moving its headquarters and main studio from Detroit to Los Angeles. Would they ever hear him sing again? That was a serious question many were asking.

It seems strange that Washington D.C. was chosen over Detroit as the final performance location, but perhaps fitting as Smokey and Motown didn’t belong exclusively to them anymore. They were now international. Motown may be far greater than the sum of its parts, but Smokey Robinson was pretty darn important for its growth and quality of music. Here are five songs either written, produced or sung by him that shaped the classic Detroit era of Motown, the Sound of Young America, and made the label and the man pop music standard-bearers. And believe me, paring it down to only five was incredibly difficult, but here we go, nevertheless.

You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me (1962)

“Shop Around” was the Miracles first hit in 1960, and a bigger one at that, and although it put them on the map, it really wasn’t emblematic of their signature sound. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” is and it has a bit of a cooler legacy. When this song was presented as a candidate for the Miracles’ next single at Motown’s quality control meeting, where Gordy would famously ask if you were hungry and had $1, would you buy this record or a hot dog, it was selected as the B-side to the jumpier “Happy Landing.” For the decision makers, it was a case of getting back to basics. “Shop Around” was an up-tempo number, as were their initial hit follow-ups, but the Miracles hit a snag with their grandiose, mid-tempo follow-up, “I’ll Try Something New,” which barely scraped the Pop Top 40 and peaked at #11 R&B. Disk jockeys disagreed and flipped the record over. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” got the Miracles back to the Pop Top 10 and #1 on the R&B for the first time since “Shop Around.” Smokey wrote the song in the vein of Sam Cooke’s recent gospel-ish hit “Bring It on Home to Me” while on a business trip to New York back in the Summer. In England, it was released in March 1963 but didn’t chart. Nevertheless, it made an impression on the Beatles who began sessions for their second album in mid-July. Along with “Please Mister Postman” and “Money (That’s What I Want),” it was one of three Motown songs featured on it, showcasing the label’s broad reach overseas. Around the time of the sessions, John Lennon was inspired to write “This Boy,” the eventual B-side to “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” based off the Miracles’ 1961 single “I’ve Been Good to You” and McCartney’s 1966 “Revolver” track “Got to Get You Into My Life” was a tribute to the Motown sound as a whole.

My Guy (1964)

There are so many interesting facts wrapped up in and around this Mary Wells song that make it all the more interesting and entertaining. Smokey wrote this song from a female’s point of view; something he was able to do with ease, growing up with his encouraging mother Flossie, two sisters and a bevy of nieces and female cousins. He’d written plenty of songs for female labelmates like the Supremes, the Marvelettes and Martha & the Vandellas, but this one was specifically for biggest the star of them all, Mary Wells. She was the top female singer at Motown at the time and she and Smokey had already forged a lucrative partnership with six Pop Top 40 hits over the last two years, including Top 10’s “The One Who Really Loves You,” “Two Lovers” and “You Beat Me to the Punch.” Each song grew Motown’s reputation and fine-tuned its sound, but “My Guy” was something special beginning with Mary’s playful and sultry delivery. She was beautifully complimented by in-house female backing vocalists the Andantes. It was Smokey’s most compelling arrangement yet and captivated the listener immediately with its exotic intro that featured a blend of trumpets and trombones playing in diatonic harmony. At the March 2nd session, when Smokey and the Funk Brothers had trouble juxtaposing the shifting tempo from the intro to Mary’s opening vocal, trombonist George Bohannon suggested using the opening measure of Hugo Winterhalter’s 1956 hit “Canadian Sunset” to bandleader Earl Van Dyke and it fit like a glove. “My Guy” came out of the gates on fire and never let up, right down to Mary’s Mae West impression at its closing. It would become Motown’s third #1 Pop hit, Smokey’s first and its biggest seller at that point. It would also be Mary Wells’ Motown swan song. She got a lucrative offer from 20th Century-Fox, moved to New York City and never came close to matching her success at the little Detroit label that could.

My Girl (1964)

The Temptations were playing a set at the 20 Grand in Detroit one evening in 1964 when Smokey Robinson squeezed backstage looking for David Ruffin, the group’s newest member. “Ruff,” he called to the tall, lean, bespectacled singer from Whynot, Mississippi, “I’ve got a song for you.” What made Smokey Robinson the top producer and one of the top artists at Motown was his ability to stay one step ahead of his colleagues and that’s certainly the case with this song. The Temptations had lingered around the Hitsville U.S.A. building since 1961 when their debut, “Oh Mother of Mine,” was released on the short-lived subsidiary label Miracle. Their seven subsequent singles did next to nothing and were on the verge of being dropped. Then Smokey got a hold of them and took over songwriting and production duties. In late January 1964, they released “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” which went to #11 Pop and #1 R&B. Eddie Kendricks lilting falsetto graced that record and everybody who’d had a hand in producing Temptations records began tailoring songs to suit him. But Smokey knew the gritty, emotional power of David Ruffin’s vocal, which could shake the rafters and lift the foundations, so he fashioned “My Girl” specifically for him. David was new to the group, having replaced founding member Elbridge Bryant around Christmas 1963, and he had to bide his time. But he was overconfident, antsy and volatile and if his talents weren’t utilized quickly, it could spell trouble. Smokey recognized this and decided to go one step further in his antithetical approach to the Temptations’ next single.

“I figured if I could get him to sing something sweet, the girls would love it,” Smokey told DJ Vlad in 2023, speaking about David.

Released four days before Christmas 1964, it hit #1 in less than three months on both the pop and R&B charts where it stayed for six weeks. It added a new dimension to David Ruffin, and one that neither he nor the knew he had. It became their signature song and Smokey’s biggest songwriting hit ever. It also transformed Motown into a cultural institution and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. That opening throbbing bassline by James Jamerson is instantly recognizable the world over and if Motown had only hit with that song, it would be remembered forever.

The Tracks of My Tears (1965)

Some songs can define a moment in time with just their melody and “The Tracks of My Tears” by the Miracles certainly does that for the 1960s. Berry Gordy has since called it “a masterpiece.” The year 1965 was a transitional one for music, bridging the decade’s more innocent first half to its culturally divisive second and the changes are noticeable. Film director Oliver Stone portrayed this disparity in his 1986 Academy Award-winning Best Picture “Platoon,” which depicts the travails of a platoon in the 25th Infantry Division at the height of the Vietnam War, and he used “The Tracks of My Tears” to great effect. The song isn’t controversial and doesn’t address any of the hot button issues of the time. It just perfectly encapsulates the cultural shifts taking place in the mid-1960s with just its melody, which was created by Miracles guitarist Marvin Tarplin. He joined the group in 1958 and became one of Smokey’s chief writing partners, giving their collaborations a rhythmic guitar-based foundation evident in hits like “I Like It Like That,” “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” “Doggone Right” and many others. His presence was also felt in hits he didn’t co-write like “If You Can Want” and “Baby, Baby Don’t Cry,” and he even continued to write with Smokey after he went solo. Like many guitarist-songwriters, Marvin would commit his song sketches to tape and pass them on to Smokey. If one caught his ear, he’d craft lyrics to it. With this one, Marvin had been listening to Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat Song” at the wrong speed, which slowed it down and formed the basis for his iconic riff. It caught Smokey’s attention, and he came up with the first stanza and most of the chorus quickly, but got stuck on what should come after, “If you look closer, it’s easy to trace…” The answer came to him shaving one morning when kept pondering on what would leave a trace on the face of a heartbroken man. Then it hit him. TEARS! “If you look closer, it’s easy to trace the tracks of my tears.” The recording was a profound blend of Marvin’s guitar, Smokey’s plaintive, tender vocal and some sweet harmony by the Miracles with wife Claudette’s honey vocals standing out in front. It’s spoken about and played now like it was a #1 hit, but it only peaked at #16 on the Pop charts, but hit #2 on the R&B. It also went Top 10 in the U.K. in 1969 and has gone on to become a 20th century standard thanks in part to Johnny Rivers’ Top 10 hit with his version in 1967. No disrespect to Johnny, but the Miracles version is superior to me.

The Tears of a Clown (1970)

Around the time this song was released as a single, Smokey Robinson was getting ready to leave the Miracles and hang it up, at least for a little while. Not so fast! Around three-and-a-half years earlier, at the Motown 1966 Christmas party, 16-year-old music prodigy and fellow label star Stevie Wonder sought out Smokey to him play a musical demo he and Hank Cosby had produced. There were no words to it, just a playful circus-type melody that Smokey loved immediately. Stevie asked to come up with some lyrics if he could and he got right to work. He wanted to highlight the circus-theme of the music, and he thought of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s 1892 Italian opera Pagliacci, which told the story of Canio, a clown who descends into jealousy and rage after learning of his wife Nedda’s infidelity. It wasn’t exactly a stretch for Smokey. He’d used this motif twice before, most recently with “The Tracks of My Tears” where he sings “Just like a clown since you put me down/My smile is my makeup I wear since my breakup with you.” More direct, however, was a forgotten 1964 single he’d co-written for 15-year-old singer Carolyn Crawford called “My Smile is Just a Frown (Turned Upside Down),” which contains the closing line, “Just like Pagliacci did, I keep my sadness hid.” Smokey recycled that line for the coda, but the rest was completely fresh.

After it was completed, there was no cheering or high fiving over having recorded their next hit single. It got buried as the closing track to Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ ninth LP, “Make it Happen” and was completely forgotten about. The song was dusted off in England by EMI, Motown’s British distributor, in 1970. They were looking for a follow up to “The Tracks of My Tears,” which just peaked at #9. A secretary there named Karen Spreadberry happened to the president of a local Motown fan club, so a few executives called her in for assistance. They handed her a copy of the “Make it Happen” LP and told her to get to work. Since “The Tracks of My Tears” was four years old, they were probably looking for something a little more dated to better match its sound. Nothing stood out until she got to “The Tears of a Clown,” where she exclaimed to herself, “That’s a #1 record!” The executives agreed. They released it on July 17, 1970, and it took off like a rocket, hitting #1 in August. It came as a surprise to everyone, especially Smokey when he received an unexpected call from Spreadberry who broke the news to him. He thought the Miracles were over. Now, they’d have a rash of dates to fulfill across the pond, and it got even bigger when Motown released it domestically in September. It followed suit, hitting the top of the pop charts on December 12th, making it Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ first #1 hit and giving them steady, top-rate bookings for the next two years. Retirement would have to wait. It’s funny to think that a three-year-old song made the group relevant again and got Motown off to a rollicking start in the new decade.

Quiet Storm

Many of these songs were celebrated at Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ final concert in Washington D.C. in 1972 and those in attendance were privileged to witness something spectacular. Claudette Robinson, who came off the road in 1964 to be a full-time mom, even joined them. Smokey would indeed go on to take an executive position, but it didn’t take long for the performance itch to return. He’d been a Motown VP since 1963, but Berry Gordy gave him a lucrative job signing checks to shut up his protestations against the label’s move to Los Angeles. He couldn’t shake the nagging feelings of guilt for leaving his band who was still out there performing with 23-year-old Billy Griffin in his place. He wrote a song called “Sweet Harmony,” which he wanted to record and privately press as a gift for them. Motown A&R executive Suzanne de Passe convinced him to make a full record, which was released less than a year after his final concert with the Miracles. It opened the floodgates, launching a solo career that’s still going strong. He hit the Top 40 Pop charts 10 more times, including the Top 10 hits “Cruisin’,” “Being with You,” “Just to See Her” and “One Heartbeat.” His exquisite 1975 album “A Quiet Storm” even inspired a radio format of the same name, created by Howard University student Melvin Lindsey, which featured slow, romantic songs by predominantly black artists.

The list of honors and recognitions that Smokey Robinson has received is ridiculous and too long to mention here, but he is one of 27 artists to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, first as a solo artist in 1987 and second with the Miracles in 2012. In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine listed him as #23 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time, which seems a little low to me. There’s a phantom quote out there from Bob Dylan circa 1967 where he calls Smokey Robinson “America’s greatest living poet.” It’s actually something that Al Aronowitz, his biographer at the time, attributed to him following a request from Motown PR man Al Abrams. “That sounds like something he’d say anyway,” Aronowitz told him. Dylan has never denied it and the quote is certainly accurate. In perhaps the most creative and fertile eras in pop music history, Smokey Robinson not only stood shoulder to shoulder with Dylan, but also Lennon-McCartney, Brian Wilson, Leonard Cohen, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, James Taylor, Van Morrison and so many others. And he hasn’t stopped. He dropped a new album, “What the World Needs Now” back in April and continues to perform live.

Deep Tracks

As a music lover and a songwriting aficionado, I love scouring the catalogs of great writers and finding gold nuggets and unheard gems. It’s even better when a songwriter also wrote for others and Smokey Robinson certainly fits that bill. I’d be remiss if I didn’t list my Top 5 favorite Smokey Robinson deep tracks written and/or sung by the man himself during the classic Detroit Motown era of 1959 to 1972.

5. Point It Out (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles), 1969

It’s hard to call a song that charted in the Top 40 a deep track, but here we are. “Point It Out” was released as the final Smokey Robinson & the Miracles single of 1969 and peaked at #37 pop and #4 R&B, but it’s one of those songs that rarely got any play on oldies stations in the ensuing years. The first time I ever heard it was the release of the Complete Motown Singles Vol. 9: 1969 box set in 2007, and I asked myself, where has this song been all my life? It was another mid-tempo co-write with Marvin Tarplin (and Al Cleveland) that featured a jamming guitar intro complimented by James Jamerson’s funky bass throbs. It followed three other chart duds with Motown giving less promotion to older artists following the rapid ascent of the Jackson 5. Highly recommended.

4. Malinda (Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers), 1968

Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers came to Motown from the town of the same name in British Columbia and featured future comedy legend Tommy Chong (of Cheech & Chong) on guitar. They were signed to Motown in 1968 and had an unexpected Top 5 R&B hit “Does Your Mama Know About Me.” This song, co-written with Al Cleveland and ex-Flamingo Terry Johnson, was their second follow up and hit #16 R&B and #48 pop. This sugary sweet love paean is similar to the Four Tops’ 1967 smash hit “Bernadette” where the protagonist sings of how desirable his lover is to all men, but she only desires him. Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers eventually parted ways, and he never duplicated the success of his Motown debut. They did, however, make a big contribution to the label by discovering the Jackson 5 at a “Battle of the Groups” event at the Regal Theater in Chicago in July 1968.

3. Your Heart Belongs to Me (The Velvelettes), 1966

This is one of those old-fashioned love songs where a boy goes off to serve his country overseas and his steady girlfriend begs him to not forget about her. This one was written by Smokey alone and first released by the Supremes as a single in May 1962. The “No-Hit” Supremes struck out again with it but inched ever closer to their breakout year of 1964. Smokey produced this superior version with another female Motown group, the Velvelettes, four years later, but it remained in the can until their Motown Anthology in 2004. There are a couple of factors that separate this one from its original. First, by 1966, the Motown sound was much more refined and identifiable and it’s all over the Velvelettes’ silky-smooth rendition. Second, lead singer Carolyn “Cal” Gill delivered a sultry vocal with a touch of aching vulnerability that suited it much better than Diana Ross’ much younger and shakier inflection. I don’t know if this song would’ve gotten the Velvelettes back into the R&B charts, but it’s sad that the listening public was deprived of this song for 38 years. Unfortunately, in 1966, the Vietnam War was falling into public disfavor, and a song of this nature just didn’t have a place. Thank goodness for time and rationality.

2. That Day When She Needed Me (The Contours), 1964

The call-and-response vocal technique was one that Smokey Robinson utilized greatly and to varying degrees during the early Motown years. It can be heard in “A Love She Can Count On,” “I Like It Like That” and “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.” It was a Lloyd Price staple in the 1950s, featured most notably in his hits “Personality” and “I’m Gonna Get Married.” Chuck Berry used it in “Almost Grown” and Ray Charles in “What’d I Say.” Smokey’s most ambitious attempt at it was this 1964 song by the Contours of “Do You Love Me” fame. This sweet, slow love song was the flip side to the unfortunately titled “Can You Jerk Like Me,” which peaked at #47. It was recorded over a year before its release and was a radical departure from the group’s trademark rowdy and raucous dance style. Berry Gordy couldn’t believe it was the Contours when he heard it and told Smokey to shelf it. His logic was sound, but a bit myopic in retrospect and similar to the decision to make “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” the B-side to “Happy Landing” two years earlier. The Contours were in essence pigeonholed and systematically bound to only pedal-to-the-metal twist and watusi numbers, which would become as extinct as the Contours in 1967. It’s a shame that Motown shortchanged their fanbase by making a B-side out of this slow jam before that was a thing. Maybe he should’ve given it to the Four Tops.

1. Satisfaction (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles), 1971

This is another Smokey Robinson & the Miracles deep cut recommendation that charted, albeit much lower than “Point It Out.” It peaked at #20 on the R&B charts in late 1971 but didn’t break through the Pop Top 40 at all, which blows my mind. It’s one of the most enjoyable latter-era Miracles recordings, embodying the sweet, melodic and mid-tempo elements of Smokey Robinson’s style all in one. My only guess is that lazy radio programmers dismissed it because the title perhaps suggested it was a cover of the Rolling Stones’ signature 1960s hit. I have no doubt that Smokey Robinson could handle that but sounds terribly uninteresting on the face of it. Not only that but “The Tears of a Clown” was such a massive hit, and still getting tons of airplay, that every subsequent single charted disappointingly, eventually spelling the end of the Miracles. The group only released two more singles before Smokey left. This isn’t another collaboration between Smokey and Marvin Tarplin, but the guitarist’s signature is all over it from its sublime introduction to the guitar solo upon which Smokey does some fine hum-singing. This is an example of how not every great song was a hit and how music lovers should always do their digging.

These important songs and recommendations are not definitive and I’m sure by the time this is published I will have thought of 20 more songs that I should’ve included. But that’s a testament to the talent and proficiency of Smokey Robinson. You just can’t go wrong with his music. What are your favorite Smokey Robinson songs and are there any deep tracks you’d recommend?

Further information

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