Smokey Robinson

29:48That's how close and tight they were, and Melvin was way down on the bottom, and Eddie was way up on the top, and everybody was in between them, and they were just, their harmony was, I used to call them the five deacons because they had that gospel sound to me. You know, I called them five deacons, you know, just as a friendly thing. So I wanted to write something for them where that harmony was displayed. Okay, so the Miracles and I on the road and on the way back one day, you know, there were three of us who drove and so after we got about 200 miles off from Detroit, it was my turn to drive again.

30:22So everybody else was asleep and I'm driving the car and I'm thinking, what can I write for The Temptations that's going to display that harmony? And, you know, it's like I said, I'm not a songwriter who needs to go to the mountains or to the desert for two months and isolate myself so that I can write. You know, it just happens for me, man. It just happens for me. I'm in the car and I started to hum something that I thought would be them singing. Gotta smile so bright and I could hear them singing that and so I started to write the way you do the things you do in the car and got back man and I told Barry I said man I got a hit for the temptation I got it he said you got it he said it's too late I said what you mean I'm too late he said I already recorded a hit on them and it's coming out next week it's all pressed up everything is coming out next week so I said man I said you're making a mistake I said I got a real hit for them he said man it's a real hit too man I said, so we used to have contests.

31:24Man, we would go out and stop cars in front of Hitzville. Pull people, hey, hey, hey, you want to hear some new Motown music that you never heard? Yeah. They'd come in, we'd give them a pencil and a piece of paper and play five songs from them. Write down the words you like the best. Or get the people from around the office. Write down the words you like the best, you know. So I told him, I said, man, I said, I'm telling you, I got a real smash hit for them. He said, mine is a real smash hit, man. I said, well, I'll tell you what, man. give me two days to record my record. He said, okay, man, if you think you do it, I'm going to give you two days, man.

31:57He said, but I'm telling you, you can't beat my record, man. I said, okay, cool. So I had two days to record the way you do things you do, and I did. And so we had this contest. We invited some people from off the streets. We invited some people from around in the offices, secretaries and people like that. And we played these two records. So they played his record first, and everybody was jamming, man. And he was like, oh, this is a great record. But it was a kind of slow mood, but it was a great record. I think it was Dream Come True or something. I forget the name of it. But anyway, so I'm sitting there and I'm worried now because we got this$100 bet, me and him.

32:34So I'm so worried. And so then they put on the way you do the things you do. And it starts off. Everybody jumps up, starts dancing. and his record got one vote and that was his. So I teach him about that all the time. He got one vote and that was his. But that was what started the Temptations to roll in. And I used Eddie Kendrick's voice to sing the basic lead for that song. So everybody at the company, all the writers and producers, they jumped on the Temptations bandwagon and they started using Eddie to sing everything. You know, Eddie was singing, Girl, Why You Want to Make Me Blue? everybody was using Eddie then so I said okay that's cool with me because David and Paula are in that group so I'm going to write something sweet for David Ruffin to sing because David had that voice he was like him I used to tell him in Teddy Pendergrass y 'all scared the chicks into loving you because but they were really singing and they could really sing you know so I knew that David was there and I said I'm going to write something sweet for him to sing to the girls.

33:49And so I wrote My Girl for David to sing to the girls. I had no idea that My Girl was going to do what it has done, man. My Girl, for me as a songwriter, has become like my international anthem or something. We're preparing an overseas job now for June. But we go to places in Europe and a lot of places, they don't even speak English, man. And 60 % of the people in that audience don't even speak English. Okay? But we play My Girl in our live concerts. And as soon as they hear, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, they know what's going to happen. They sing it verbatim. They don't even speak English.

34:34And they sing it verbatim. So now I knew My Girl was a good song, I thought. But I had no idea there was going to be what it is. You know? And so anyway, I recorded my girl with David. And then everybody, she all told me I'm using David to set the beat. But that's how Barry and I started off competing for the Temptations, you know. And I beat him. Is it true the way you do the things you do was a bit influenced by, because you were listening to a lot of Curtis Mayfield at the time and Impressions? Oh, yeah. Is that accurate? Well, I'm sure it was, man, because Curtis and the Impressions, man, they had some of the tightest harmony that you ever wanted to hear, you know.

35:20And, yeah, they had those songs like that, like It's Alright and all those songs like that. Yeah, I'm sure that that was influential because I knew the Temptations had that kind of sound. They had that kind of harmony. And never once have I ever, when I was recording the Temptations, made up a background vocal for them. I'm teaching the lead whatever I want the lead to learn and all and they're over in the corner making a background as I'm showing the lead what he's doing you know and there are parts of my girl man that are just as popular as the lead hey hey hey and all that stuff like that so Temptation made up all that stuff you know talking about my girl they made up all that Was that true of all artists you were working with that you gave them some sort of some level of artistic freedom too or was it case by case It was case by case man Okay.

36:08But you knew with them you could. Yeah, I knew with them I could, they just had leeway to do whatever it was because they were going to come up with something great. Right. You know, so all the songs I ever recorded on them, I never made up a background over there. They just made up all their own background, except for the way you do things you do, which I had them all singing it together, you know. After this last break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Smokey Robinson.

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39:52And he allowed me to go in and produce records on the miracles in me, just the miracles in me at first. but then he saw I could do it, so he started to assign people to me, man. When Tim came, he assigned me to do an album on them and Mary Wells and Marvin Gaye, and when they came, you know, he said, hey, man, I want you to write some stuff for them, so I did, and that's how I started to write for everyone. But he allowed me to produce the records. Eventually, thank God, Stevie started producing and Marvin started producing their own stuff, thank God. But, you know, I was the first artist that was allowed to do that.

40:27I mean, thank God, but also thank God you were there, too, because, I mean, you gave Marvin some incredible songs and some incredible hits, you know? Well, Marvin was my brother, man. Marvin was one of the best singers, I think, ever in life. You know, Marvin was a guy. Marvin and I were very, very, very close, man. You know, Marvin lived right around the corner from me. and we were together almost every day of our lives doing something, playing some basketball or some golf or just hanging out. We were together all the time. So Marvin was a great singer, man. When he first came to Motown, he didn't want to be Marvin Gaye.

41:11He wanted to be Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra. That's how he came. He wanted to sing, that kind of stuff. and how we became aware of him is that, do you know who Harvey Fuqua was? The Moon God. Moon Glows. Moon Glows. Yeah. So, man, I had known Harvey and I had liked him since I was a kid growing up because we, in the hood, when Moon Glows came out with a record, man, you know, everybody got Moon Glows' record, man, and the Moon Glows always had those great backgrounds where if you sang in a group, you learned the background before you even learned the lead because they had those great backgrounds.

41:43Ta-ku! And all that stuff they were singing, you know. But eventually Harvey came over to Motown, man, and he married one of Barry's sisters, Gwen. And he came over to Motown, and he had hired a new singer for the Moonglow's because one of his guys had retired, and he hired Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye was from Washington, D.C., so Harvey met him in D.C., so he hired him to take the place of the guy who had left. And so we were having a Christmas party. We had them every year at Christmas. And all the artists came. Everybody was there. You made sure you weren't on the road at that time so you could come to the Christmas party because they were great.

42:27And so Harvey brought Marvin to the Christmas party. And we had him in the Hitzville building and down in the studio. People were all over the building, but everybody was hanging out, mostly down in the studio where the piano and the instruments and all that stuff like that are set up. So Marvin goes over to the piano, and he sits down, and the party's going on. He starts to sing the Christmas song, Chestnuts Roasted, and everybody starts listening to him and starts going over and surrounding the piano, and he's playing and singing. He could really sing. So we signed him up, and he wanted to sing songs like that.

43:03His first song that we released on him was Mr. Sandman. Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, because he wanted to sing that kind of stuff. Didn't do anything. Eventually, we had a... Did you think it straight like that, too? Like, it wasn't like a... It didn't sound like... It sounded like Marvin Gaye singing Mr. Sandman, man. That's what it sounded like. Marvin Gaye could sing the phone book. You know what I'm saying? Good point. That's what it sounded like. So, anyway, our A &R director at the time, our first A &R director ever that Barry hired was a guy named Mickey Stevenson. And Mickey was also a songwriter and a producer.

43:39and so he got together with Marvin and said hey man, if you want a hit we got to do some different kind of stuff so he and Marvin wrote this song called Stubborn Kind of Fella and recorded it and that was when Marvin started to be Marvin Gaye and the rest like I said, the dude could sing anything I worked with Marvin, man and Marvin was always late for everything Marvin was late for everything you're talking about CP time Marvin was late for everything man so I got to the point with Marvin man if I was going to record him and his session was going to start at 8 o 'clock in the evening I would tell Marvin it's going to start at 6.30 and he would still be late he wouldn't get there until 9 anyway he would be late Smoke I tell you man a so and so happened I said okay man cool but I knew that when he got there and I showed him my song I used to tell him all the time he Marvinized my songs because he'd do stuff vocally that I hadn't even thought of while I was writing it he'd just come in and just kill

44:49Marvinized my songs I didn't care if he was late I knew he was going but he could sing anything man one of the greatest voices of our time did you have a relationship with Tammy Terrell too? Yes. Yeah. Had a relationship with everybody there, man, because we all had relationships with each other. Tammy Terrell was my baby, man. She was a sweetie pie. She was a wonderful, fun person. Tammy Terrell was, you talk about fun. She was just a fun woman. She just, when she came in, she brightened up the room. You know what I mean? She was just a fun person. She unfortunately had a brain tumor at a young age and, you know.

45:29But, yeah, Tammy, we all hung up. Like I said, everybody knew each other, man. Her and Marvin together were, I mean, that was unbelievable. Well, Marvin had history with all the girls at Motown, basically. Kim Weston, Diana Ross, you know, Tammy Terrell, Valerie Simpson. I know you were, like you say, really, you were tight with everyone, but you and Marvin were really tight as well, hung, lived near each other. When Tammy passed, there's stories that that really affected him. Oh, yeah. Shook him up for a long time. Shook him up for a long time. He didn't even want to sing with any of the other girls for a while because he thought he was bad luck.

46:10How are you bad luck, man? She had a brain tumor. You didn't give it to her. You know what I'm saying? You had nothing to do with that. But he was shook up for a long time. They were very close. And how did you guys, as friends, as a label, how did you guys handle for instance Marvin being in a in a funk like that you know because I'm sure you want to help him out and I mean I'm sure you want him also to you know use his gift well uh he he wasn't in a funk to the point where it's like he stopped recording for months at a time or so he didn't do that okay just personally you know he was shook up he just you see I I I feel that way about a lot of them, man, because when you're young, you're a kid like that, and we were all kids together, growing up there together.

47:04The last thing you ever expect is to see one of them dead. You're not even thinking about death or anything like that. And I buried so many of them, man. And it just, it's a shake-up, you know? Yeah, it's a shake-up. Like I said, you know, when Aretha passed, man, you know, she was my longest friend. All the kids in our neighborhood, everybody was dead. Except for Diana. So now Diana is my longest friend. And you guys still keep in touch, I'm sure, right? Yeah. I brought her to Motown. She was my pet project that I brought to Motown at first. Because she lived right down the street. They moved to a place called the Brewster Projects after we started Motown.

47:54and she called me. She said, hey, Smoke, I got this group, and I want you to hear us, man. The Primates, because the Temptations were the Primes. So the Primates, I want you to hear us, because we can sing. So I said, come on, audition. So I auditioned them, and Barry wouldn't let me sign them, because they were still in school. They were still in high school. They were about to graduate, but they were still in high school. And he said, man, he said, you know, we already got Stevie, and when Stevie travels, he's got to have tutors and an entourage and all the people because he has to do his homework on the road.

48:26So I don't want to sign another person like that or another group. So I had to wait until they graduated from high school to sign them and they got signed and they became Diana Ross and the Supremes. It's unbelievable, man. All you guys were so young. You mentioned Stevie, right? Stevie's there as young as can be. You know, I think about that now. I wasn't thinking about that then, but I think about it now. We were kids, man. We were just kids. My first marriage, man, I got married when I was 19 years old to the girl who was in our group, Claudette. And she had been my girlfriend since I was 14, since she got in the group.

49:07But when I was 19, and I thought I was a man. I thought I was a man. It started Motown. We were going there. I was making$5 a week. I was working at Motown. My friend was making$5 a week. I thought I was a man, man. And I look back on that, that's funny. There's no way that one of my kids would come to me when they were 19 and said, Hey, Dad, I want to get married. And I would have said, okay. Like, all right, this is a good idea. Yeah, you know what I mean, man? But heck, I did. But I look back, we were all kids, man. We were just kids. But it was a great place to be because it was all energy.

49:47and like I said, we were kids and we were young and we all hung out together. Would you guys listen to music together? Like if you'd go to Aretha's house, would you put on records and listen? We used to have talent shows before when we were kids. I mean, before I met Barry and all this. I'm talking about when we were 10 and 11 and stuff like that. We had talent shows on Aretha's back porch. And every time Aretha or Irma would win because Irma was Aretha's sister, oldest sister. But we used to have talent shows and stuff like that, man, on her back porch. Unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. Because Barry was a little older than you guys.

50:29Yeah, Barry's actually 10 years older than me. So were you the conduit for the temptations coming to try out for Motown? And like you said, you knew Diana from the neighborhood. You were kind of the person who knew all the talent in the neighborhood. Basically, yes. It seems to me. Yeah. And so, you know, Barry had set up this great structure for you guys to thrive in and to be this tutor, but it seems like you were maybe like the A &R without being officially the A &R, you know? Well, I did. I brought a few people in, man. I brought a few people in. Even after we got started, man, you know, Gladys Knight and people like that, I brought them in, too, because Gladys had been my friend since I was 18 years old on the road, you know.

51:10And she was with the Pips, and we were out there traveling on the road, doing those one-nighters and stuff together and stuff, so I knew them. And when they wanted to leave their current record company, I brought them to Motown, Chuck Jackson, you know, Ashton Simpson, and like I said, Diana Ross. And I didn't bring the Temptations, but I knew them before they came over to audition. But yeah, yeah, a lot of people, man. And like I said, Ron White, who was in the Miracles, bought Stevie. So, hey, man. Yeah. You mentioned you have some tour dates coming up in the spring. Yes. You have a Vegas residency.

51:50Yes. How do you prepare for tour now versus then? You know, when you're on the road with the Gladys Knight and... Well, back then, basically, like I said, we were kids, man. So, you know, you just get in the car and there we go. We had caravans. It wasn't like we were traveling on a tour bus or anything like that. Everybody basically had their own individual cars. There'd be seven cars going down a highway behind each other. That's what was going on when we were doing those tours. But I think that, you know, you're traveling around like that, and I just can't find anything that gives me the same thing.

52:34I can't find I've tried man I tried retirement one time when Barry first moved Motown from Detroit to Los Angeles I came out to Los Angeles kicking and screaming because I didn't think we should leave Detroit I told Barry man you know this is our home this is our roots we started here and you know we all grew up here they even call Detroit Motown now so why are you moving to LA he said because LA is the entertainment capital of the world right now, which it was. Say we're going to go out there, we're going to make some movies, do some TV specials. We're still going to be a record company. I'm going to leave a skeleton record thing here in Detroit, but our basic rock operation is going to be in L.A.

53:16But we can do entertainment things. We're going to become an entertainment complex. Lady Sings the Blues and Mahogany, you know, Temptation, Dineros specials, and stuff like that. So we got into all that stuff, but I came out kicking the streaming, man, because I did not want to move to Los Angeles from Detroit. Eventually, I was glad that I did. But when I moved out to Los Angeles, I retired from the miracles. And I told them before I was going to retire, my first wife, Claudette, and I had been trying to have a baby. And when my first son was born, finally, I wanted to spend time with him, man.

53:56And two years after he was born, my daughter was born. So I wanted to spend time with my kids, man. And the Miracles and I had done everything that a group could possibly do two or three times. We'd been all over the world, you know. And I was tired, man. So I told them, I said, I'm going to retire. They laughed at me. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, man, you're going to retire. That's good, man. You know, they laughed at me. So then we were having a Christmas party, man. And this was in 1967. 1967, we're having this Christmas party, and Stevie comes in, and he comes to me. He said, Smoke, he said, man, I recorded this musical track, man.

54:36He said, and it's the bomb. He said, but I can't think of a song to go with this, man. I want you to listen and see what you can come up with. So I said, okay, man, give it to me. So he gave it to me. I took it home. I put the tape on, and it started off.

54:53So I heard that. I said, man, that's Ringling Brothers. That's Byron Bailey right there. So I'm going to use this track to write something about the circus. But I don't want to write about animals or trapeze artists or anything like that. I want to write something personal for people. When I was in elementary school, I had a social studies teacher, a guy named Mr. Smith. He was German. And he told us the story of Pagliacci. Now, to this day, while I'm talking to you right now, I don't know if Pagliacci was real or just mythical. But I thought about that and I said, I'm going to write this song about Pagliacci, but I'm going to make it personal.

55:28Because Pagliacci was the Italian clown that was the star of the circus. When the circus came to town, people came to see Pagliacci mainly. The animals and all the stuff there was secondary to Pagliacci. They loved him. They cheered him. More and more, they cheered him. And then he would go back to his dressing room and he would cry. Because he didn't have that kind of adulation from a woman. from a personal woman. He would cry about it, you know. So I said, I'm going to write this about Pagliacci. So I'm going to write. So that's where Tears of a Clown came from. So Tears of a Clown comes out on an album in 1967.

56:07In 1970, a girl who worked for Motown in England was in the office, and she was playing that album in the office. And a guy who ran our office over there was a guy named Peter. So Peter comes by. I get the story, and he says, what's that you're listening to? She said, Peter, we should release this record over here because this is a hit. So we should release it over here. I don't care what they're doing in the States. We should release this over here. So they put Tears of a Clown out in the UK. Number one. Motown ain't never had the number one record in the UK ever yet until that point. Goes and then starts to blossom all over Europe.

56:45So I had another record ready to go in the United States here. So I told Barry, I said, I got to say, he said, no, no, no, man. We put out Tears of a Clown. So we put out Tears of a Clown here in the States. And Tears of a Clown, to this moment, is the biggest single record that I've ever been associated with in my life. Really? Okay, yeah. Tears of a Clown is, I mean, you know, it just sold all over the world. That was out. And so the guys came to me and said, hey, man, you can't retire now because Tears of a Clown's out, and this is the biggest record we ever had. so our money's going to go up and all that stuff, which it did.

57:22So I said, okay, man, I'm going to give you all another year. So I did. I gave him another, and I said, but I want you all to start looking for people because I'm retiring, and I don't have to help you look for somebody to replace me because I'm not going to be there, and you all got to live with whoever this is that's going to come in. So they look for guys all over the country, and they finally found a guy named Bill Griffin in Baltimore. So for the last few months, about four or five months of my touring with the Miracles, Bill traveled with us to see the show and to learn it and blah blah blah blah so then I retired and I moved out to Los Angeles and I moved out to Los Angeles and when I lived in Detroit my vice presidential office was to induct new talent and I loved that because I saw talent all over the world and go to New York I see talent I say okay you can come we'll audition you so I loved doing that you know so we move out to Los Angeles and I get out and Barry says hey man he says you're my best friend he says so I'm going to change your office function.

58:19I said, okay, man, what do you want me to do? He said, I'm going to make you the financial office. You're going to sign all the payroll checks. All the checks that come into the company are going to come through you except for the payment for the records. So that's what you're going to do. So I said, okay, man. So I'm ready for that, man. I'm ready to change. I'm not going to be on stage. And my thought at that point was to never, ever be on stage again in my life. I was never going to record myself again. I might record some other people and do some other songs on some other artists and stuff like that.

58:49I wanted to do that, but not for me. I'm going to be at home with my kids and my wife, and I'm going to do my vice presidential thing here at the office. I'm going to sign these checks. So when I started to do that, my name is William Robinson, Jr., after my dad, and I was signing the checks, William Robinson, Jr. William Robinson, Jr. And after I had signed about 1 ,000 checks, I said, this is not going to work. So you see my signature now? My signature is, it's just a little thing like that. I had to change it at the banks and everywhere, man, because when you're signing like that. So the first couple of years, man, I was in vice presidential heaven.

59:34And then also my job, he would have me to go to New York and make deals with publishing companies. I was in vice presidential heaven. But then I started to hurt inside. I started to hurt inside. I was missing something. And so it got to the point where, as after about two and a half years, I was miserable. My insides were miserable, but I'm smiling on the outside. It's like tracks of my tears or some stuff like that. I'm smiling on it because I don't want Barry to think, okay, I can't handle this. I let him down. I don't want Claudette to think, okay, I don't want to be at home with her and the kids.

1:00:11So I'm just miserable, man. And I am so miserable, man. I go in. So one day, after about three years, man, Barry came to my office. He said, hey, man, I want you to do something for me. I said, okay, man, what do you want me to do? He said, sit down for a second. Let's talk. I want you, I need you to do something for me. So I'm thinking he's going to tell me something corporate. I got to have a meeting with someone on something. I got to go to this place. So he said, I need you to do something. So I said, what do you need me to do, man? He said, I can't use profanity on this interview. You can.

1:00:43I can? I can say verbatim what he said? Okay, verbatim. He sat down and said, I want you to get yourself a band and go into the studio and make a record and I want you to get the fuck out of here. I said, what did you say to me, man? He said, you heard me, man. I said, no, I didn't hear you. I said, what did you say to me, man? He said, I want you to get yourself a band and go into the studio and make a record and I want you to get the fuck out of here. I said, what are you talking about, man? He said, no, it ain't about that, man. He said, you're miserable. He said, I see you coming in every day and you're miserable.

1:01:15You're my best friend. I know when you're miserable, man. You can't hide that shit from me. So I know you're miserable. So when I see you miserable, it makes me miserable. So I need you to get the fuck out of my face. So I just hugged him. I was so happy. I just hugged him. And so that was my best friend peeping me, man. Wow. He peeped me. He saw my misery. it fills me up right now but it was such a anyway I went home I was very very happy and Claudia said what you saw me and I said well I told her what happened she said I agree with him you know so I said okay I've always considered myself to be a quiet singer but I'm going to go back man I'm going to take show business by storm and I thought about what I just said I said, wait a minute, Quiet Storm, that's a great idea.

1:02:17So I went to the piano. That's how that comes about. I went to the piano, I started to write A Quiet Storm, man. And my youngest sister, who was actually 14 when I was born, but she was a great lyricist, man. And so I started the song, and I was going to do this whole album now. I'm going to do a whole album now, because I'm going back to show business. So I'm working on that, and I took it to her, and I said, hey, baby, finish this song up, because this is going to be the title cut for my... So she finished it up, and I recorded it, and we recorded A Quiet Storm, and it was my debut back in the show business, and it became something that I had no inkling that it was going to become.

1:02:54I was just writing something to come back in the show business. I wasn't thinking about what it was going to do. And then there was a young man who was a night disc jockey in Washington, D.C., named Melvin Lindsey, and he had a show that came on in the evenings. His show started probably about 9 o 'clock at night and went through midnight. And he started, he named his show The Quiet Storm. Okay? Radio stations all over the country started to have a Quiet Storm format. Now, I'm not thinking that this is going to happen, man. You know, I'm just writing a song to come back into show business. But it has become a radio format.

1:03:36and this year we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the debut of A Quiet Storm and our tour this year is going to be called The Quiet Storm Tour it's amazing the penchant for again, you want to get into show business you meet Barry Gordy and then this whole company gets created around it this whole ecosystem that lifts up you and Barry and so many other people And then it's, I want to get back into show business. You write A Quiet Storm, which not only is like an incredible entree back into show business, but creates this whole other radio format, like you're saying, almost this whole other genre within R &B music for other people that people realize that, oh, I like this vibe.

1:04:22and there's compilation CDs now that are Quiet Storm. And, you know, it's just, so this, that sort of knack in your life of the sort of things that are, it's almost like, you know, similar maybe to like what's going on. The way Marvin, it's a, it's a, it's a thing that was probably very personal to him, but just resonates out so widely that it just, you know, So that's it. Whatever was happening with you guys at Motown in Detroit, even Aretha, who wasn't part of Motown, but just in Detroit. No, her dad wouldn't let her come, man. I talked to her about coming and he felt like we were not strong enough for her.

1:05:08He wanted her to be with Columbia and Capitol and all those people like that, which she was at first. She was with Columbia and they had her singing standards or what they call the Great American Songbook. because Aretha's one of those people, she could sing anything. Aretha did the most amazing thing that I think I've ever seen a singer do. We were having the Grammys one year, and I forgot which year it was. But Aretha was going to get something there, you know. And so Paparatti was supposed to come and sing this song in Italian. And he was going to be on the Grammys, and he got sick. And the producer came to Aretha and said, Hey, Aretha, Paparatti is sick.

1:05:46we need somebody to sing this song Aretha goes and takes the song and listens to Paparazzi singing in the dressing room and learns it in the dressing room and sings it you know what I'm saying unbelievable she was Aretha man so he wanted her to be with Columbia and she was with them and she sang her songs but nothing was happening and then I think it was probably Jerry Wexler or somebody like that approached her and said hey you know we could do something for you and she said man she asked me what do you think I should do I said I think you should go over there and be Aretha so I think you should do so she did Was there any part of you that thought though wait a second maybe you could go to Atlantic but maybe come to come I said you know I want you to come her dad wouldn't let her because he didn't think we were strong enough.

1:06:48He didn't think we were established enough. But, you know. Everything's what it's supposed to be, but that would have been pretty incredible. Oh, that would have been, you know what I'm saying? But then, you know, we didn't have her, but we had Gladys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, yeah. You guys have more talent than you could. I mean, come on, man. Everything about people like Bobby Taylor and Bobby Taylor in Vancouver is like, you know, that's there. And it's like, he's an incredible singer. Bobby Taylor was the one who brought the Jackson 5 to Motown, man. Is that true? Yeah. I didn't know that.

1:07:19Yeah, Bobby Taylor bought them. You know, they first started to tour with Diana Ross, so I think at first people gave her credit for bringing them there, but Bobby Taylor bought the Jackson 5, man. And he was working with them, and people asked me what is one of my fondest memories about Michael. Okay, when Michael first came to audition at Barry's house, when the Jackson 5 came, he was so incredible to me. He was this little dude, man. He's about this tall. He's 10 years old. And that day I dubbed him James Wilson because he was a cross between James Brown and Jackie Wilson at 10 years old. I mean dancing his little ass off, you know, and singing and just a bundle of talent.

1:08:12I always thought his life was so paradoxical because when he was a kid, he was a man. And when he was a man, he was a kid, you know. But he was just dynamic. And people said, well, what do you remember? I remember that. And then Bobby Taylor and I used to play golf together all the time, you know. So we started taking Michael to the golf course with him. He'd be on the cart with us. Michael had never even seen a golf club. The first time he went out there with us, he was telling us how to play golf. you know so I love that you know you hit a bad shot I'd be like why you hit the ball over there like that you're supposed to hit the ball but he was a cute little guy but I love that memory but yeah he was he changed the face of show business Michael Jackson changed the look of show business you know I look at him and I look at he was such a bundle of talent like I said Michael watched everybody we'd be doing those shows and Michael was standing in the wings and he watched everybody.

1:09:15He idolized the dancing and the stuff of Jackie Wilson and Fred Astaire and James Brown and those people like that and he worked his dancing skills like that. Like I said, I could even understand him doing James Brown and Jackie Wilson, but Fred Astaire, the Nicholas Brothers, how do you even know about them? You know what I mean? when Michael did the moonwalk on the Motown 25th anniversary and people saw him do it I said oh this is fantastic Michael got the moonwalk from the Nicholas Brothers a movie called Stormy Weather unbelievable they did that in Stormy Weather Lena Horne was the star of that movie so you know how long ago they were 1920 something they're doing the moonwalk you know but Michael was just an incredible talent man and like I said he'd be dancing with those he'd have 15 dancers who had been dancing since they were 5 years old.

1:10:14It was their profession. They were professional dancers. And they're dancing alongside of him and he's out dancing all of them. Insane. Unbelievable. It's incredible. Well Smokey, I'm excited to see you back on tour. I'm excited to go. We've been off for a minute now. So as they say, I'm Rhett. Well great. I appreciate talking to you. Thank you for coming and talking. Thank you very much man. I appreciate it. Incredible honor. My pleasure, babe. Come on, man. Cool. All right. Happy birthday to the great Smokey Robinson. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite tracks of his in the episode description or by visiting brokenrecordpodcast.com.

1:10:55And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Toleday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.

1:11:33Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman.

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