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 rap. I'm taking you with me everywhere I go. So according to some accounts, it was actually probably your idea to start Motown records

that 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 very was a record producer and a songwriter in Detroit when I

met him. And nobody had been paying him. He had

been writing lots of Jackie Wilson and Eddie James and people like that, you know,

and nobody really was paying him. And then when he started to manage the miracles and me he put us with the record company there was no more town at the time he put us with a

record company called End out of New York and they had a lot of popular artists at that time

so we had a mild hit record with them

and we had four sides with them.

And didn't you get a check for about $3?

A $3.19 to be exact. You know know and that was for the writing and the producing and the artist

royalties and all the royalties that were along with those four sides and like I said the first record got a job job was a hit because it was in the top five in the R&B charts at that time.

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