Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and you're listening to Rolling Stone Music Now.

Last year I had a great conversation with Smoky Robinson, who was a great singer and one of the greatest

songwriters to ever live.

We talked about some of his most famous songs for Motown and a whole lot more and today we're going to have an on-court presentation of that interview and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Hey, I'm Brian Hyatt and this is Rolling Stone Music Now.

Couldn't be more excited to have with me one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived,

Smoky Robinson.

He's got a new audible release out

called Smoky Robinson, grateful and blessed.

And that gives us a reason to look back

at his entire career and to dig into the writing of some of his greatest songs.

Smoky, thanks so much for being here. Well Brian, thank you for that introduction man.

I don't know what to say after all that.

We'll call it a wrap.

I'm taking you with me everywhere I go.

So according to some accounts,

it was actually partly your idea. According to

Bury Gordy, your own record, you said to Berry Gordy, your good friend.

You said, why should you let the man take the royalties? Why not sort of be the man yourself?

Is that how you remember him?

Barry was a record producer and a songwriter in Detroit when I met him. And nobody had been paying him. He had

been writing a lot of songs for Jackie Wilson and Eddie James and people like that,

...