Seventy-six year old Smokey Robinson, as important a figure as Berry Gordy in co-creating Detroitap Motown Records and its sound, a songwriter’s whose songs have been covered by D’Angelo, Dean Martin, Dolly Parton, Brian Ferry, Billy Bragg, Phil Collins, Hall and Oates, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and once called “America’s greatest living poet” by Bob Dylan, sang (and joked) his way through an hour-and-forty-five minute Las Vegas-style set on Saturday night at Fiddler’s Green, covering most of the legend’s 55-year show business career.
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Opening with his 1981 hit, “Being With You,” the fairly diverse crowd sang and smiled along throughout the show. Nothing could top Robinson’s trademark smile, though as he, his regular band and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra recreated iconic love songs that Robinson either recorded himself or produced, and/or wrote for other Motown acts back in the 60s. Among them were his own hits with the Miracles (“I Second That Emotion”, “You Really Got A Hold On Me”, “Ooh Baby, Baby” and the Stevie Wonder-co-written “Tears of a Clown”) and a medley of hits he wrote for The Temptations (“The Way You Do The Things You Do”, “Get Ready” and perhaps his greatest composition, “My Girl.”)
The well-paced set included “Quiet Storm,” the Robinson song that all-but created that genre of smooth, sensual, R&B radio in the ’70s. While his voice at 76 isn’t what it once was, he still cooed, oohed and wooed with his exquisite falsetto, earning yelps and moans of approval from all over the arena.
During latter material, like “Love Bath” and the hyper-sexual “That Place,” he seemed more seventy-sex than 76. It was pure aural aphrodisiac. Ending the show with an emotional one-two punch of “Tracks of My Tears” and an extended sing-along of his late 70s comeback hit “Cruisin,” the greatest make-out song of the ’70s if not ever.
“Let the music take your mind…” he sang.
It took your mind, your heart and your reproductive organs.
With more and more quintessential recording artists from the mid-to-late 20th Century passing each month, we ought to take time to appreciate the dwindling few still with us, while they’re still around. Far from a mail-it-in “victory lap” show, Smokey Robinson showed why he’s among the greatest songwriters and vocalists of his era.
Set list: Smokey Robinson, 09/04/16, Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater
- Being With You
- I Second Your Emotion
- You Really Got A Hold On Me
- Quiet Storm
- Oooh, Baby, Baby
- Temptations Medley: The Way You Do the Things You Do, Get Ready, My Girl
- The Tears of a Clown
- Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)
- Love Bath
- That Place
- Just To See Her
- Tracks of My Tears
- ܾ’
