|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other authors named Smokey:
|
|
|
|
Author's popularity: 0
Vote:  
|
If you like or dislike this author in general or one or more of their quotes in particular, please give us your feedback by clicking on the icon to vote for, or the icon to vote against them.
|
|
Popularity: 1
Vote: | And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | As a kid, this is what I wanted my life to be. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever dare to dream that it would be this. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | As human beings, we're very materialistic and have all this stuff - furs and cars and diamonds and money. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Coming from the showbiz world, I'm especially aware of the spotlight that is brought on artists that are in the public eye. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Drugs are in every walk of life - doctors, lawyers, preachers, the guy who works for IBM, teenagers on the street, teenagers in school. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | First of all, you being a young person are making your own music and you love my music enough to include it in your own. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Had I not come out with an inspirational CD, you perhaps would have never known that I feel like I feel, that all songs, all the music I've ever done is a gift from God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | I had been stockpiling Gospel songs for other artists, and had planned to submit them to Gospel artists. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I know everybody in the gospel world just like I know everybody in the secular world. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I left Motown because of the regime of people who were there. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I played golf all over Detroit. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I really haven't strayed too far, musically, from my roots. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'm a gumbo connoisseur. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I've been speaking at churches for years, as well as juvenile jails, rehabs and hospitals, and I always talk about my faith. That is a declaration of my relationship with God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I've eaten gumbo everywhere they have gumbo, and this is top-notch gumbo. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | I've known God since I was a child, growing up in the ghetto section of Detroit. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | In fact, I wouldn't really call this a Gospel album, I call it more an inspirational album. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Motown will always be a heavy-duty part of my life because those are my roots. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | My mother was a churchgoing lady, so I always heard about God at home. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Now I'm a believer in the hereafter, so I know that when you leave this place, none of the stuff you've accumulated is going. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Once you're a Motown artist, that's your stigmatism, and I was there from the very first day. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | One thing I can say about the Motown acts is that we were a family. That's not a myth. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Originally I was not writing songs for myself. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | People still look at Michael Jackson as being a Motown artist. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Show business is not exclusive to drugs! |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it - only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Some songs have to do with my personal relationship with the Lord, others are about certain situations that I've gone through. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | Songwriting is my gift from God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | That's because we did not set out to make black music. We set out to make quality music that everyone could enjoy and listen to. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The only thing you're taking out of here is your spirit and your soul, so we need to be conscious to try and develop that part of ourselves, because we're all spiritual creatures. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | There are very few courses around Detroit I haven't played. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | There's so many wonderful gospel people out there, and I don't necessarily want to compete with those people. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | To the rappers who've sampled me, I want to say - no, sample all of mine! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | We're all going to be victims of temptation at several points in our lives. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | We're very physical creatures, and we worry about how we look sometimes more than our spiritual selves. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | When someone picks up one of my songs and records it, I'm a flattered man, it's a blessing to me. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | When you write a song, a song has longevity. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | You know what, I'm probably one of the most blessed people there's ever been, and I thank God for it. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | You know what, life is full of temptations. |
|
Biography
|
William "Smokey" Robinson (born February 19, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American R&B and soul singer and songwriter.
Of both African-American and Caucasian ancestry, Robinson was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. In 1955, Robinson helped found the Miracles and became lead singer. The group issued a few somewhat successful singles on End Records and Chess Records. In the 1950s, Robinson met Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of Detroit's Motown Records, which became his label. The two men had a synergistic relationship, with Robinson providing a foundation for Motown's hit-making success and Gordy acting as a mentor for the budding singer and songwriter.
The Motown song "Shop Around" (1960) was the first big hit for the Miracles. This was followed by "Mickey's Monkey" (1963), "I Gotta Dance to Keep From Crying", "I Second That Emotion" (1967), "The Love I Saw In You Was Just a Mirage", "Ooo Baby Baby", "Baby, Baby, Don't Cry", "The Tracks of My Tears" (1965) and "You Really Got a Hold on Me" (1962). Later, Mary Wells and the Temptations had big hits with Robinson originals, "My Guy" (1964) and "My Girl" (also from 1964), respectively.
Legendary singer and songwriter Bob Dylan described Robinson as "America's greatest living poet." Robinson's numerous hit ballads also earned him the title "America's poet laureate of love." Over the course of his almost 50-year career in music, Robinson has over 4,000 songs to his credit.
After marrying Claudette Rogers, a singer with The Miracles, Robinson started towards a solo career. Albums were released as "Smokey Robinson & the Miracles" after 1967. The group faltered somewhat in the early 1970s, though hits such as the #1 "The Tears of a Clown" (1970) still did quite well.
Robinson left The Miracles in 1972. They went on for a while, even having another #1 hit, "Love Machine", in 1976. In 2001, the group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. By this time, Robinson was a vice-president of Motown and he helped helm the label's shift towards an urban, contemporary soul sound. This genre is now called "Quiet Storm" after a radio programming format named for Robinson's biggest solo album title track, Quiet Storm. He was also a guest judge for American Idol Season 2, during "Billy Joel Week".
His nephew Eric West has a debut album being released in 2005 titled Half | Life.
...(more on Wikipedia)
|
|
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Smokey Robinson".
|
|
|