This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross.

Today we have more of our favorite music interviews from the Fresh Air Archive.

We begin with Smokey Robinson, one of the greatest soul singers ever,

and one of the most important figures in the development of Motown Records.

He performed with the miracles, and they had the label's first big hit, Shop Around,

which was followed by many more, including you've really got a hold on me,

U Baby Baby, the tracks of my tears. I second that emotion and tears of a clown.

In addition to writing and producing most of his own records, he also wrote for other Motown acts,

including the temptations, the Marvelettes, Marvin Gabe, and Mary Wells.

From 1961 until 1988, Robinson was a vice president of Motown. Here he is on one of his hits.

Oh, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, baby, baby, me.

When Terry spoke with Smokey Robinson in 2006, he told her how he first met Barry Gordy.

My number one singing idol was Jackie Wilson, which was how I actually met Barry Gordy,

because the group that turned out to be the miracles and I went for an audition for Jackie Wilson's

managers in Detroit. And at that time, Barry Gordy had written all of the hit songs that Jackie Wilson

had out, and Barry happened to be at that audition. And rather than us singing songs that were

currently popular by other people, we sang about five songs that I had written. And so Jackie Wilson's

managers rejected us. They told us we would never make it because we had a guy singing lead high,

and there was a girl in our group, and there was already the platters who were very, very,

very popular at that time. And so they had a guy singing high and a girl in the group. And so we

would never make it because of the platters. And Barry Gordy happened to be at that audition.

And he was impressed because he had never heard any of the songs that we sang.

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