![]() ![]() “My mom used to say: ‘You’re going to have to take care of him after I’m gone, so you love him.’ I don’t know how she knew that. ![]() Although his parents divorced when he was three, they remained united as parents. His two sisters were born to the same mother, but different fathers. William Robinson Jr was born in Detroit to working-class parents who had little money but plenty of love. You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me has one of music’s greatest first lines (“I don’t like you, but I love you”), while the lyrics to The Tears of a Clown (“Now if I appear to be carefree / It’s only to camouflage my sadness / And honey to shield my pride I try / To cover this hurt with a show of gladness”) show why Bob Dylan called him “America’s greatest living poet”. Nobody wrote about love and desire like Robinson. Photograph: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Elton John Aids Foundation Smokey and his second wife, Frances Glandney, at Elton John Aids Foundation’s academy awards party in March 2023. Oh yes, and he was vice-president of Motown. He is said to have written more than 4,000 songs. And the solo hits, such as Cruisin’ and Being With You. Then there are the classics with his group the Miracles, including The Tears of a Clown (written with Stevie Wonder and Hank Cosby), The Tracks of My Tears (written with Warren Moore and Marvin Tarplin), I Second That Emotion (written with Al Cleveland). He has written numerous hits for other artists – The Way You Do (the Things You Do), Since I Lost My Baby, Get Ready and My Girl for the Temptations, Ain’t That Peculiar for Marvin Gaye, Don’t Mess With Bill for the Marvelettes, to name a few. Motown’s first No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Mary Wells’s My Guy, in 1964, was written and produced by Robinson. He was part of the team at the launch of Motown (then Tamla Records) in 1959, with his great friend Berry Gordy, the founder of the Detroit label. It’s impossible to overstate Robinson’s influence on soul music. The voice, the energy, the enthusiasm and the smarts all make him young. ![]() Even if he allowed his hair to grey, his teeth to yellow and his skin to sag, Robinson would be youthful – possibly more so. The look might not be 100% natural, but it works. His hair is jet black, his eyes golden-green, his skin taut, his teeth Alpine white. But today he is in New York publicising Gasms. Robinson lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Frances Glandney, a successful interior designer. OK, chronologically, I’m 83, but it’s not really my age.” So yes, I have a different attitude to it, but I still feel sexual. When you’re young and you have those exploratory feelings about sex, you haven’t lived long enough to know the value of it. Has his attitude towards sex changed since he was a teenager? “I still feel the same way, only I’m wiser with it. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Smokey Robinson (front) and the Miracles, circa 1963. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |