William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. (born February 19, 1940) is an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was the founder and frontman of the pioneering Motown vocal group the Miracles, for which he was also chief songwriter and producer. He led the group from its 1955 origins, when they were called the Five Chimes, until 1972, when he retired from the group to focus on his role as Motown Records vice president. Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist the following year. He left Motown in 1999.
Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and awarded the 2016 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for his lifetime contributions to popular music. He is a double Hollywood Walk of Fame Inductee, as a solo artist (1983) and as a member of the Miracles (2009). In 2022, he was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.
William Robinson Jr. was born on February 19, 1940, to an African-American father and a mother of African-American and French descent, in a poor family in the North End area of Detroit. He had two maternal half-sisters, Rose Ella and Geraldine, and his parents divorced when he was three years old.
Robinson's ancestry is also part Nigerian, Scandinavian, Portuguese, and Cherokee. His uncle Claude gave him the nickname "Smokey Joe" when he was a child. In 2012, Robinson explained:
My Uncle Claude was my favorite uncle. He was also my godfather. He and I were really, really close. He used to take me to see cowboy movies all the time when I was a little boy because I loved cowboy movies. He got a cowboy name for me, which was Smokey Joe. So from the time I was three years old if people asked me what my name was I didn't tell them my name was William, I told them my name was Smokey Joe. That's what everyone called me until I was about 12 and then I dropped the Joe part. I've heard that story about him giving it to me because I'm a light skinned black man but that's not true.
When Robinson was 10, his mother died, and he began living with his older sister, Geraldine, with her husband, who had 10 children together. He attended Northern High School, where he was above average academically and a determined athlete. However, his main interest was music, and he formed a doo-wop group named the Five Chimes. He and Aretha Franklin lived several houses from each other on Belmont; he said he'd known Franklin since she was about five, overhearing her play the piano when he had come to play with her older brother Cecil after her family first moved to Detroit.
Robinson's interest in music started during childhood after he heard the groups Nolan Strong & the Diablos and Billy Ward and his Dominoes on the radio. He has cited Barrett Strong, a Detroit native, as a strong vocal influence. In 1955, he formed the first lineup of the Five Chimes with childhood friend Ronald White and classmate Pete Moore.
Two years later, they were renamed the Matadors and included Bobby Rogers. Another member, Emerson (Sonny) Rogers, Bobby Rogers' cousin, was replaced by his sister, Claudette Rogers (who would marry Smokey Robinson in 1959). The group's guitarist, Marv Tarplin, joined them sometime in 1958. The Matadors began touring Detroit venues around this time. Eventually they changed their name to the Miracles.
1957–1969: The Miracles and Motown
In August 1957, Robinson and the Miracles met songwriter Berry Gordy after a failed audition for Brunswick Records. At that time during the audition, Robinson had brought along with him a "Big 10" notebook with 100 songs he had written while in high school. Gordy was impressed with Robinson's vocals and even more impressed with Robinson's ambitious songwriting. With his help, the Miracles released their first single "Got a Job", an answer song to the Silhouettes' hit single "Get a Job" on End Records. It was the beginning of a long and successful collaboration. During this time, Robinson attended college and started classes in January 1959, studying electrical engineering. He dropped out after only two months, following the Miracles' release of their first record.
Gordy formed Tamla Records, which was later reincorporated as Motown. The Miracles became one of the first acts signed to the label, although they had actually been with Gordy since before the formation of Motown Records. In late 1960, the group recorded their first hit single "Shop Around", which became Motown's first million-selling hit record. Between 1960 and 1970, Robinson would produce 26 Top 40 hits with the Miracles as lead singer, chief songwriter and producer, including several top ten hits such as "You've Really Got a Hold on Me", "Mickey's Monkey", "I Second That Emotion", "Baby Baby Don't Cry" and the group's only number-one hit during their Robinson years, "The Tears of a Clown".
Other notable hits such as "Ooo Baby Baby", "Going to a Go-Go", the multi-award-winning "The Tracks of My Tears", "(Come Round Here) I'm The One You Need", "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage" and "More Love" peaked in the Top 20. In 1965, the Miracles were the first Motown group to change their name when they released their 1965 album Going to a Go-Go as Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
Between 1962 and 1966, Robinson was also one of the major songwriters and producers for Motown, penning many hit singles such as "Two Lovers", "The One Who Really Loves You", "You Beat Me to the Punch" and "My Guy" for Mary Wells; "The Way You Do The Things You Do", "My Girl", "Since I Lost My Baby", "It's Growing", and "Get Ready" for the Temptations; "Still Water (Love)" for the Four Tops; "When I'm Gone" and "Operator" for Brenda Holloway; "Don't Mess With Bill", "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game" and "My Baby Must Be a Magician" for the Marvelettes; and "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar" for Marvin Gaye.
After the arrival of Holland–Dozier–Holland and the team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, Robinson was eclipsed as a top writer and producer for the label, and other Motown artists such as Gaye and Stevie Wonder began to compose more original material. Later in his career, Robinson wrote lyrics and music for the Contours such as "First I Look at the Purse", as well as the Four Tops' "Still Water" and The Supremes' "Floy Joy". The other Miracles—Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore, Ronnie White, and Marv Tarplin—collaborated with him as writers on many of these hits, and Pete Moore also doubled as co-producer with Robinson on several of them.
By 1969, Robinson wanted to retire from touring to focus on raising his two children with his wife Claudette, and on his duties as Motown's vice president, a job he had taken on by the mid-1960s after Esther Gordy Edwards had left the position. However, the success of the group's "Tears of a Clown" made Robinson stay with the group until 1972. His last performance with the group was in July 1972 in Washington, D.C..
After a year of retirement, Robinson announced his comeback with the release of the Smokey album, in 1973. The album included the Miracles tribute song "Sweet Harmony" and the hit ballad "Baby Come Close". In 1974, Robinson's second album Pure Smokey was released but failed to produce hits. Robinson struggled to compete with his former collaborators Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and former Temptations member Eddie Kendricks, as all three had multiple hit singles during this period.
Former Beatle George Harrison featured the track "Pure Smokey" on his 1976 album Thirty Three & 1/3 as a tribute to Robinson. Harrison's fellow Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney were also fans of Robinson's songwriting and the group covered "You Really Gotta Hold on Me" on their second UK album With the Beatles and US album The Beatles' Second Album, respectively.
Robinson answered his critics the following year with A Quiet Storm, released in 1975. The album launched three singles – the number-one R&B hit "Baby That's Backatcha", "The Agony & The Ecstasy" and "Quiet Storm" (the radio format quiet storm, originated by DJ Melvin Lindsey, is named after the album). However, Robinson's solo career suffered from his work as Motown's vice president, and his own music took the backseat. As a result, several albums including Smokey's Family Robinson, Deep in My Soul, Love Breeze and Smokin, saw poor promotion and received bad reviews. At this point Robinson relied on other writers and producers to help him with his albums.