Name: Smokey Robinson on Letterman, May 3, 1983
Uploaded: 2016-04-25T03:14:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Smokey Robinson on Letterman, May 3, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-04-25. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Smokey Robinson on Letterman, May 3, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-04-25. Transcript available.

For over 25 years, my next guest has been one of the leading figures in
American popular music on Monday, May 16th.
He will be appearing with dozens of other stars on Motown 25, Yesterday, Today,
and Forever, right here on this very television network.
We're delighted to have him with us tonight. Welcome, please, Mr. Smokey
Robinson.
Very nice to meet you.
Yeah.
No, I'm just a nut who came up on the elevator.
It's really a thrill and a treat to meet you, and I'm glad you could work us
into your schedule.
We've got to go away for station identification, but we'll come back.
Do we have, got to go right now?
Shop around, you really got a hold on me.
My girl, the way you do the things you do.
On and on, since I lost my baby.
Go on to a go-go, oh, baby, baby.
On and on and on.
Many, many more that this man is responsible for.
And we're going to go away for station identification, Smokey Robinson.
We'll be right back.
Darn nice, wasn't it?
Paul Schaefer and the gentleman put together a little Smokey Robinson medley
for us,
and we enjoyed that.
You folks, unfortunately, didn't get to hear it, but we, coming up later,
Roy Firestone will be here tomorrow.
Billy Crystal, Lorraine Newman, and producers of television's greatest
commercials,
Joey Albrecht and Scott Guerin.
So you know the security will be tight tomorrow night.
Smokey, you know, I was just looking over this list.
These are, this is just not a list of the songs you have made popular,
but a list of songs that have been covered by other groups.
And this is an impressive compilation here.
Get ready.
Pretty hot.
Now, tell me about the show.
25 years of Motown.
Yes, the 25th anniversary of Motown, and it's a great reunion.
In fact, there are several reunions within a reunion there,
because we have several groups that haven't been together for many, many years,
such as the Jackson 5 with Michael, of course.
And Michael will be doing Billie Jean on the show also by himself.
But with Jermaine, Jermaine hasn't been with the group for eight years.
And the Miracles, Claudette, my wife, she hasn't appeared with the group in
about 16 years.
And we have Diana Ross and the Supremes, Mary and Cindy.
Now, how did this, how did that work out, all of these reunitings?
Would that work out pretty well?
Well, yeah, it worked out great.
In fact, it was like a big homecoming for everybody,
because of the fact that I say once a Motown or always a Motown at heart, you
know.
Now, you were the, you were pretty much the franchise for this label for a long,
long time, weren't you?
You were the first big act, right?
Yes, well, I'm happy to say that.
We were the first act that was signed there.
And we started recording in 1959.
How did that come about?
It came about really because of an audition at the Miracles.
We had gone to this audition for Jackie Wilson's manager.
And at the time, Barry Gordy, who is the founder of Motown Records and the Motown
Industries,
was writing songs for Jackie Wilson.
And he happened to be there.
And the guy that we went to do the audition for hated our group.
And however, we had sang a bunch of songs that I had written while going to
high school.
And this was impressive to Barry, because he was a songwriter,
and he wanted to know where we got the material from.
So he met us outside, and we started to talk about it.
And he started to tell me, you know, what was wrong with my songs and so on
down the line.
And we became the best friends, and here we are today.
What was wrong with your songs in those days?
Everything.
What did Barry tell you?
Well, he said I was nuts.
No, no.
What was wrong?
I was not, my songs were not, they didn't flow.
You know, I had a, I was a great rhymer.
You know, I could always rhyme things very well.
But they had no continuity as far as telling a complete story.
You know, I would binge off on different ideas throughout the first verse.
Yeah.
There would be five ideas in the first verse.
Do you have an example that comes to mind readily or not?
Oh, well, I can give you sort of an example.
Say, for instance, in the first two lines, I said,
Well, it's really good to have you in my arms again, and I love you being here.
And that would be rhyming, of course.
And then in the next two lines, I would say,
I'll be glad when you come back, because I haven't seen you in ten years.
But that would be rhyming, too, you know?
And so it was, it wasn't like that.
And he explained to me that a song should be a story.
It should be like a book in two and a half minutes.
We used to be confined to two and a half minutes in those days.
Now, how did that, when Barry Gordy signed an act, did he let him alone?
Obviously not.
He had a lot of ideas about how they should function, perform.
Of course.
I would say he is probably the genius of the record business,
because he started something that had never been done before,
and that will never be done again, such as a special.
I mean, a special is one of those things.
It will probably never be done again with all those people on stage.
I mean, we had, like I said, Diana Ross and the Supremes.
We had Marvin Gaye.
We had The Four Tops, The Temptation.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Let me go back to the right of you guys signed here.
What we had was, we had a school there.
It was called Artist Development.
Yeah.
And when you signed with Motown Records and you made a recording contract,
it was mandatory that you went to Artist Development.
You didn't have a choice, you know.
There was no saying, well, I just want to make records and I don't want to go
to school.
You had to go to school, and at Artist Development, you learned everything.
You learned how to walk down the street.
You learned how to greet people who would come up to you and talk to you as a
stranger.
You learned how to do interviews.
You learned how to do things on stage, stage presence, choreography, harmonies.
You learned hygiene.
You learned everything that there was to learn, really, at that school,
and it was very good for all of us.
Was he responsible for the, you mentioned the choreography,
all of the precision moves that the groups were doing and became a trademark?
Well, only at first for the miracles, you know.
Because, like I said, we were the first group and we were the only group there,
so he had a lot of time to work with us.
So he used to make up routines for us and everything.
But after we really got started, I mean, we hired other people to run Artist
Development.
Artist Development was headed up by a man named Harvey Fuqua,
who was formerly with the Moonglows.
And he had on his staff Charlie Atkins, who was our choreographer,
and Maurice King, who taught harmonies and vocal arrangements,
and Johnny Bristol, who did, like, lighting and so on and so forth for shows.
What would you learn in a hygiene class?
Hygiene.
Yeah?
Yeah.
We need one of those.
We should have just a couple hours every afternoon.
We'll conduct hygiene classes here for the staff.
We're going to go away, but don't worry about nothing.
We'll be back with Smokey Robinson.
Smokey Robinson, the group originally was not the Miracles, was it?
No, originally we were the Matadors, and when we went for this audition,
my wife's brother was singing with us while we were the Matadors,
but he had had his mother to sign for him to go to the service,
and he went to the service, and this audition came about,
and we took her with us because she was in a sister group called the Matadorettes,
and she knew all of our stuff, so we took her with us,
and when we finally met Barry and we got a chance to record and everything,
we had to come up with a name that was suitable for guys who had a girl with
them.
I mean, we couldn't very well be the Matadors, and she was in there.
Greg Ehrlichin was the sister of the guy who went to the service.
Yes, and so we put a bunch of names into a hat, and the Miracles came out.
I mean, we had a bunch of names that would be suitable for that.
What were the other names in the running?
Oh, we had the gardenias and the sparrows and the trees and the flowers and the
birds.
You know, many names, but...
No, Miracles makes it. That was a good choice.
I think you lucked out there.
You mentioned that this show, you taped about four hours of performances for
the program
and cut it down to two hours.
Yes, unfortunately, we had to cut it down airtime for two hours,
but eventually, perhaps, the entire thing will be shown.
We hope so, but on the 16th, it's going to be shown for two hours on NBC at 9 o'clock.
We have less than a minute of what you're going to see on that program.
Do you know what we're going to look at here, Smokey?
I don't know exactly what we're going to see,
but I'd just like to mention the fact that we are being hosted by Richard Pryor,
who is a former Motowner, and we're going to have Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye
and some guest stars like Linda Ronstadt and Dick Clark and Tim Reed and Howard
Hessman
and several people.
One guy from England, Adam Ant, who has a big record on Where'd Our Love Go?
So you guys aren't messing around here with this special, aren't you?
No, we're not. That's right.
All right, so let's take a look here.
This is what you'll see when you watch the Motown special right here on NBC on
the 16th.
This is what you'll see when you watch the Motown special right here on NBC on
NBC on NBC on NBC on NBC on NBC on NBC.
This is what you'll see when you watch the Motown special right here on NBC on
NBC on NBC.
Like a snowball rolling down the sand of a snowbird hill, it keeps growing.
So many days you set me by, you saw the chills standing in my eyes.
You wouldn't stop to make me feel better, probably been me a kind of electric.
When I look in the mirror, you'll comb my hair, I see your face just a-smiling
there, nowhere to rise, nowhere to hide.
That's great.
That's great.
Well, those are great moves, too.
Those are just killer moves.
Oh, wasn't that fantastic?
Very nice stuff.
Artist development, see?
Yeah, that's right.
Isn't it amazing to you?
Now, tell me how many of these people who were with the original group came
after you to Motown.
How many of them were actually out of the Detroit area?
All of them.
Now, isn't that astonishing that that pocket of the country would produce a
dominating influence in modern music like that?
Well, you know, David, I think that every area of the country has that same
amount of talent.
It's just waiting there to be discovered, and it just so happens that Barry Gordy
was in Detroit, which was very good for the talent in Detroit, and he started
the complex there, and it gave Detroit an outlet for their talent.
And so, of course, the talent came in droves.
I mean, we could not possibly have signed all the people who came to be signed,
but I'm sure that every, especially every large city and probably every township
and everything has an abundant amount of talent, but it's just the fact that
they don't have an outlet like Motown to be discovered through.
Well, it's an amazing piece of history, and from the looks of this, the show is
going to be a lot of fun.
And it was a pleasure meeting you, Smokey.
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you very much for meeting you.
Smokey Robinson, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll be right back.
Roy Firestone is here, all the way from Los Angeles.