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Smokey Robinson is an American singer, composer, record producer and former executive director of the record industry. He was the founder and lead singer of the Motown group The Miracles. He was also the group’s main songwriter and producer.
He was the group’s leader from its inception in 1955 as “The Five Chimes” until 1972, when he stopped focusing on his job as vice president of Motown. The following year, however, Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist. After selling the company in 1988, Robinson left Motown Records in 1990.
Robinson was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and received the 2016 Gershwin Prize from the Library of Congress for lifetime contributions to popular music. He received a star on the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame in 2022.
Early years and education
William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. was born on February 19, 1940 to a poor family in the North End neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. His mother was of African American and French descent.
Robinson descends from Nigerian, Scandinavian, Portuguese and Cherokee ancestors. When he was a kid, his uncle Claude called him “Smokey Joe.” Robinson said this in 2012:
My favorite uncle was Claude, who was also my godfather. I was really really close to him. When I was a little boy, he used to take me to cowboy movies all the time because I loved it. He gave me a cowboy name.
It was Smokey Joe. So when I was three years old and people asked me what my name was, I told them my name was Smokey Joe instead of William. Everyone called me that until I was about 12 years old when I stopped saying “Joe.” I heard that he gave it to me because I am a light skinned black man but that is not true.
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He attended Northern High School where he excelled academically and was a talented athlete. Nevertheless, music was his main passion and he founded the Five Chimes, a doo-wop group. He and Aretha Franklin once shared a home in Belmont.
He once said he had known Franklin since she was about five years old when he came to play with her older brother Clarence after her family moved to Memphis. When he arrived to play with Clarence, he said he heard her play the piano.
Robinson developed an interest in music as a child after hearing it Nolan Strong and the Diablos and Billy Ward and his dominoes on the radio. He has also said that Barrett Strong, who is from Detroit, was a big influence on his voice. In 1955, he formed the first Five Chimes band with his childhood friend Ronald White and a classmate named Pete Moore.
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Is Smokey Robinson gay?
No, Smokey Robinson is not gay and his sexual orientation is straight. Robinson married Claudette Rogerswho was also a member of the Miracles in 1959.
The couple had two children: Berry Robinson, born in 1968 and named after Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown’s first record company, and Tamla Robinson, born in 1971 and named after Gordy’s first label, “Tamla”, which later became Motown.
During his marriage to Claudette, Robinson had a son with another lady named Trey, who was born in 1984. After claiming he had a child with someone other than his wife, Robinson filed for legal separation and later a divorce .
In 1986 they officially separated. The Robinsons also split up in 1974. During this time, Robinson had an affair outside his marriage, which inspired the song “The agony and the ecstasy(later featured in A Quiet Storm).
Robinson was married to Frances Gladney in May 2002. They own a property in Pittsburgh that they use to produce wine.
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