Music legend Smokey Robinson reached out to a new generation of performing artists Friday, telling them they were starting out as he did: “with a love for doing something creative.”
Robinson, 72, visited Duke Ellington School of the Arts, named for the jazz great whose music Robinson said was the first he heard in his life because it was always playing in his Detroit home.
With students standing nearby, Robinson said any of them could follow him as a singing sensation, because “everybody starts with a love for doing something creative.”
“If you see somebody and they are 15 and you say `Oh, there’s a new artist.’ No, they’ve been doing it since they were 6. Everybody starts with that love, so of course, some of these kids will do that,” Robinson said.
Robinson said he started singing the day he was born “according to my mom.” He sang in various bands in high school, including The Miracles. Just after high school, he connected with Berry Gordy, with whom he would later form the Motown label. The label’s first hit was Robinson’s “Shop Around.”
He went on to make hits such as “Cruisin’,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me,” “Tracks of My Tears” and “Tears of A Clown.”
“I thank God for my life because as a baby when I was 3, and 4 and 5 years old I wanted to be a singer, but I grew up in the ‘hood in Detroit and I didn’t know if that was possible, so I am living my wildest childhood dream right now,” he said.
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