Rhythm & Soul Heritage Award

William Robinson, Jr., known and loved around the world as Smokey Robinson, is the recipient of this evening's ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Heritage Award. Closely associated with Detroit's Motown Records since the label's beginnings 50 years ago, Robinson's songs and recordings are a cornerstone of R&B, Rock and Pop. The recipient of accolades from across the cultural spectrum, Smokey's many honors include the Grammy Living Legend Award, NARAS Lifetime Achievement Award, Honorary Doctorates (Howard University and Berklee college of Music), a Kennedy Center Honor and the National Medal of Arts Award from the President of the United States. In addition, he has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

A brilliant songwriter and performer, Smokey gained early fame as the leader and writer for the Miracles, a vocal group he founded while still in high school. Beginning with "Shop Around," (Motown's first-ever #1 hit), Smokey and the Miracles became long-term residents of the R&B and Pop charts with their recordings of Robinson compositions like "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," "Ooo Baby, Baby," "The Tracks of My Tears," "Going to a Go-Go," "More Love," "I Second That Emotion" and "Tears of a Clown" (co-written with Stevie Wonder). In the 1970s and 80s, Smokey began recording as a solo artist, scoring hits with "Cruisin'," "Quiet Storm," "Being with You" and "Let Me Be the Clock."

Robinson also wrote and produced hits for other Motown artists including The Temptations, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and others. "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "My Girl," "Get Ready," "You Beat Me to the Punch," "Don't Mess with Bill," "Ain't That Peculiar," and "My Guy" are just a few of the Smokey-penned classics of the 1960s.

A dazzling array of stars from many genres have covered Smokey's songs over the years, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Carpenters, Al Green, George Benson, Manhattan Transfer, Jerry Garcia, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Costello and hundreds more.

A new album of Smokey originals will be released in the summer of 2009, titled Time Flies When You're Having Fun. In a telephone interview with ASCAP's Jim Steinblatt, Smokey recounted his beginnings as a songwriter.



You grew up in Detroit at a time when Rock & Roll and R&B were coming to the forefront. What made you become interested in music?
SMOKEY: My birth. I have been interested in music all my life. I grew up in a household where there was always music.

Did you sing in school and church?
SMOKEY: I never sang in church but I did sing in school – glee club, choir, plays, etc.

Did you imagine that music could be your career?
SMOKEY: No, I thought that was way too far-fetched. I wanted it so much, but didn't think it was possible. I grew up in the ghetto area of Detroit. It was a wild dream. But a lot of people from my neighborhood made it in show business – Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Temptations, the Four Tops were all from the area. I always sang and I always wrote songs – my first one at the age of five when I portrayed Uncle Remus in a school play.

Did you play a musical instrument?
SMOKEY: Sure, it was the alto saxophone.

Were you in musical groups growing up?
SMOKEY: Yes, there were a number, but the first serious one I was in was called the Five Chimes during junior high. We sang at city functions, around the neighborhood, vocal group battles.

The Five Chimes evolved into something else?
SMOKEY: Our first name change was to the Matadors, which later became the Miracles.

How did the new label, Motown, come to notice you?
SMOKEY: Growing up, I had about five people I considered to be my singing idols, with Jackie Wilson being number one. Whenever I bought his, or any other, records, I used to check to see who wrote the songs. In fact, when I was a little boy, listening to my mother and sisters' records of Count Basie, Duke Ellington or Sarah Vaughan, I'd notice who wrote the songs – George & Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter.

Anyway, I had all of Jackie's records and I knew that Berry Gordy was the writer of many of the songs. As soon as I graduated from high school, the Miracles and I went for an audition with Jackie Wilson's managers, who were in Detroit scouting for talent. When we did the audition, we performed about four or five songs I had written. There was a young man present whom I thought was going to be auditioning next. We were rejected by the managers and left, but the young man came out behind us and said, "Hey, man, where'd you get those songs?" I told him I wrote them, wondering why he was so curious about my songs. "You sang some songs I really like," he said. I thought to myself, "So what? We've just been rejected." But I politely asked him if he wanted one of my songs to audition with. He said, "I'm Berry Gordy." My mouth hit the ground. Then he asked if I had any more songs and he shouldn't have asked that, because I had a loose leaf notebook with a hundred songs I'd written over the years. He listened to about twenty of my songs that day and never once got tired. He said he'd help with my songwriting and added that he liked my voice. We were all excited about that. About a year and a half later, we started Motown.

Motown was, more or less, an experiment, wasn't it? You had no way of knowing it would be a phenomenon.
SMOKEY: It was an experiment, yes. But we never thought about failure. When we first started we had five employees and we did everything, from packaging up the records. The first record we had was "Come to Me" by Marv Johnson. I remember, we got the records from the plant, brought them to the radio stations, etc. And then we started to grow and had hit after hit. The rest is history.

It's hard to ask a songwriter's songwriter about how he creates songs. How did you write all those songs – did you just sit there with your loose leaf notebook, or did you play the melodies on a piano?
SMOKEY: For me, songwriting is a gift from God. You might say something during this conversation that might give me an idea for a song. It just happens for me. I'm not one of those songwriters who needs to take two months off to go to the mountains or the jungle or the beach. It doesn't happen like that for me. It happens on almost a daily basis wherever I am. On the bus, plane, car, the bathroom. It could come from a billboard or something someone says. Most every day, melodies come to me.

The enduring quality of your songs is impressive. And you were quite comfortable giving a lot of great songs to other artists.
SMOKEY: When you hear one of my songs originally done by another artist, I wrote it for that specific artist.

The lyrics and titles of your songs have become part of our language.
SMOKEY: As I said, I am very blessed. I'm living a life that I absolutely love. It trips me out that here I am getting awards for something I love to do that is my gift. I don't do this for awards.