Music / Business & brands
Smokey Robinson
born 1940 · singer, songwriter, record producer, record executive
North End native who founded the Miracles, gave Motown its first million-seller and wrote many of the label's defining hits while serving as its vice president.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 86- Birth name
- William Robinson Jr.
- Also known as
- Smokey
- Detroit years
- 1940–1972
- Field
- Music, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Robinson grew up in a poor household in Detroit's North End, a few houses from the Franklin family; he knew Aretha from the time she was about five and remembered hearing her play piano. At Northern High School he formed the vocal group the Five Chimes, which became the Matadors and then the Miracles, and he graduated in 1957. That year the group met Berry Gordy at an audition, beginning one of Motown's founding partnerships. The Miracles' "Shop Around" (1960) became the company's first million-selling record. Working out of Hitsville U.S.A., Robinson wrote and produced for Mary Wells ("My Guy"), the Temptations ("My Girl"), Marvin Gaye and others, and by the mid-1960s he was Motown's vice president. He left the Miracles in 1972, the year Motown moved to Los Angeles, and returned as a solo artist. He entered the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2005.
Highlights
- The Miracles' "Shop Around" (1960) was Motown's first million-selling single
- Wrote or co-wrote "My Girl", "My Guy" and "The Tracks of My Tears"
- Motown vice president from the mid-1960s until 1988
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987); Library of Congress Gershwin Prize (2016)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1950s–1957
Northern High School
Closed · 1916–2007
His high school, where he formed the Five Chimes (later the Miracles); Northern closed in 2007 and the building has housed the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men since 2023.
Recorded here · 1959–1972
Motown Museum
Where the Miracles recorded and where he wrote and produced for other Motown acts. Motown's first headquarters and Studio A on West Grand Boulevard; since 1985 the Motown Museum.
Lived here · 1940s–1950s
Childhood neighborhood (North End)
Status being checked
He grew up in the North End, a few houses from the Franklin family; private home, no address given.