Smokey Robinson Just To See Her Free Mp3 Download
Karisa Freije
SUMMERS: That office is also our office. The video was from Anderson .Paak's Tiny Desk concert. That's where musicians, known and unknown, play stripped-down concerts. And that starts the chain of communications, which results in Smokey Robinson, who has, at this point, played just about every other type of venue there is to play in music, singing from behind a cubicle at his own Tiny Desk concert.
ROBINSON: It's whenever it comes, you know? I don't write like I need to go somewhere and isolate myself or something like that, or I'm going to take these two weeks to go write. It just comes. It's just there. It's - you know, it's just - I write all the time.
ROBINSON: Well, first of all, see, if you going to talk about that for me, my answer to that is, first of all, Berry Gordy. You know, Berry Gordy is my best friend. And for a dude who - with a high school education, to pull off something like Motown, you know, that's a special guy. You know, back in those days when Motown got started, you know, a lot of record companies were run by attorneys or other guys who had money, and they just wanted to get into as a novelty or something like that - in the record companies. And very few of them were run by music men, but we were.
ROBINSON: Music itself inspires me, you know? So I don't know what's going to come. Like I said, I don't know. It just comes. So I have no idea what's going to come to me next musically, but music itself.
I love music. I love all kinds of music. You know, I grew up in a home where I heard every kind of music you can think of all day of my life. You know, I had two older sisters. They played jazz and bebop, you know? My mom played the Five Blind Boys and The Ward Singers and all those gospel groups. And then some days, she would just play Muddy Waters and B.B. King and the blues and all that. And then sometimes she would play Bach and Beethoven and Chopin and - you know, so I had a great dose of music growing up, and I love all kinds of music.
It was highly energetic. It was so energetic and competitive and loving and wonderful at the same time. It was all that, because we were not just stablemates. We were not just some artists who recorded for the same label.
And you just told me that you're going from here. You're going back out on the road to perform tomorrow night. You're still doing this. And people want to hear those classic songs, right? Does it ever get old for you?
I just had the party, man. I just had the party for two-and-a-half-hours or however long. I was partying. I said, now my party is, I'm going back to my hotel room, and watch me some TV until I fall asleep, because I just had the party.
"Yes, we did," he replied, before saying how long it lasted. "About a year. I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened. But it was beautiful. She's a beautiful lady, and I love her right till today. She's one of my closest people. She was young and trying to get her career together. I was trying to help her. I brought her to Motown, in fact. I wasn't going after her and she wasn't going after me. It just happened."
\"Aretha and I were just tight,\" he said. \"We had a wonderful, wonderful friendship that lasted throughout her entire life. Up until the day before yesterday, Aretha was my longest friend on earth.\"
In addition to writing hits for the Miracles, Robinson wrote and produced hits for other Motown greats, including The Temptations, Mary Wells, Brenda Holloway, 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 his songwriting triumphs during those years. He later turned to a solo career where he continued his tradition of chart-topping hits with "Just to See Her," "Quiet Storm," "Cruisin'," and "Being with You," among others.
"You're headed to Milwaukee again, you were just here last year and his time around you're coming to the world's largest music festival known as Summerfest. What have you heard about Summerfest?" asked TMJ4's Andrea Williams.
MR: Yeah, it takes on more that just songs made famous by Smokey Robinson such as "The Way You Do The Things You Do" and others that The Temptations covered. So when you heard what Randy was working on with this roster of duet artists, did anything surprise you?
SR: Oh yeah, there were surprises of course. In fact, almost every track was a surprise because he made them sound brand new. He made them sound like they had never been heard before as far as I was concerned. Those were old songs and he made them sound fresh and new, the artists' take on them was fresh and new, it was just incredible. I think the two biggest differences as far as the arrangements and the feel and the sound would have to be, "Ain't That Peculiar" with James Taylor and "My Girl."
SR: No Mike, it doesn't amaze me, man, but it certainly satisfies me as a songwriter. When I sit down to write a song, every time I try to write a song, I'm trying to write a song that people would've sung fifty years ago, now, and fifty years from now. When people record my songs, for me as a songwriter, that's just a dream come true. That's why I write them. I don't write them necessarily just for me or whoever I wrote them for in the beginning to sing them. I hope everybody sings them from now on. It doesn't amaze me that they do that because my intentions for writing them was to write a song that will get reactions from people, but I am very flattered when they do it because there are millions and millions and millions of songs, Mike, and most people who have re-recorded one of my songs are songwriters themselves. So with a choice like that, for an artist to pick one of my songs is incredible to me.
SR: Yes it did, man. I didn't expect that, but A Quiet Storm was my debut back into show business. I had retired totally, I just recorded those albums because Suzanne de Passe, who was our A&R director at the time just asked me to do it. I was retired, I wasn't thinking about being in show business at all period after I retired from The Miracles. Then after about three and a half years of doing my vice-presidential duties and going to the office every day and stuff like that, Berry came to me and to make a long story short he told me he felt like I was miserable doing what I was doing and I needed to be in show business so I should get back. He was my best friend, he feels me and I was miserable. He said, "There's no sense in you being around here, you should do what you love." So I said, "Okay, I'm going to change my whole format, I'm going to lower my keys, I'm going to prepare myself to play places like Las Vegas, I'm a quiet singer and I'm going to go back and take show business by storm. Wow, that's a good idea, A Quiet Storm."
SR: The future for Smokey Robinson is basically like my present, man. I do my concerts now because I love that. That's my favorite part of my work because I get to go one on one with the people and have a great time with the fans for two and a half hours every night. I love all of it, I love being in the studio, I love writing especially and the creativity of all of it, but my favorite part is to go and see my fans, man, and visit with them so I'm still going to be doing that. I don't know when I'm going to retire from doing that again. If it comes along I'd like to do a nice role in a great movie. I don't mean necessarily starring in a movie or anything like that, but just a nice role in a great movie if it comes up.
SR: I think it's just the way of the world. We're evolving. The technological part of our lives is evolving at a pace that is unfathomable. That's in every area of our lives, so of course it's going to filter down to music. A kid can do a complete track on his telephone now. That's just where it's going. I think perhaps there's an advantage to it because back in the day in the piano rooms, you as a pianist were playing the piano and visualizing the rest of the stuff going on in your mind as you were writing your song if you were doing that--that's the only complete thing you'd get until you got into the studio and started to record it. Nowadays a kid can have a piano riff in mind and put that down on the telephone and then do the bass and the drums and all that. Before he even gets to the studio he can record a record on his phone. There's a huge difference in that.
IN: Ted Young engineered and mixed Rain Plans. Ted is my guy. That was something I always thought was cool about old school records. Artists really had engineers who were more like a part of the band than just some hired gun. I don't like adding strangers to the mix. Ted is a rock and one of the best, and I'm told if I can come up with a nice Neve console, he might move down here to TX. Anyone have a really cheap Neve console for sale?
IN: I feel that the process is always changing for me and that there is never just a true form or some universal idea of creation. Ultimately, I believe in being honest. Having something to say and a need to say it. But beyond lyrics, I also firmly believe the music should represent those elements as well. With Rain Plans, the band and I really got into using the studio as an instrument and applying a focused lens on the sonic side of things. I really wanted to make a record that sounded and felt like my home and the land around me. I also purchased a 16-track Studer tape machine which we tracked the whole album too. That is definitely part of the process at least in the studio. It's about a group of trusted friends, and the only people who should be in the room, coming together and unifying as one. For me, it's about being a real musician, a real band. But at the end, I think if you just do what you are supposed to do in this life, it will be alright.
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