Smokey Robinson told a story about how he had written more than 100 songs by the time he was 15, but actually there were a lot more.
Robinson was the keynote speaker at SXSW in Austin, Texas this week. He said he had already written 100 songs by the time he met Berry Gordy. He had been writing since he was 5.Gordy recognised that the verses had completely different stories and told Smokey that he actually had a lot more songs than he thought because every verse was a different idea. “I was just a kid who loved music,” he said in his keynote interview.
Robinson wrote Motown’s first ever million seller ‘Shop Around’ in just 25 minutes. He said he wrote it as a sequel to Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want). “Barrett had written a song called ‘Money’ and I wrote ‘Shop Around’ as a follow-up about something to do with the money,” he said.
Robinson wants to be remembered 300 years from now. He drives around listening to classical music in his car. “That music was written 300 years ago and it is still be played today. That’s how I want my music to be,” he said.
Last night he performed a showcase gig at the Austin Music Hall. It kicked off with ‘Going to a Go-Go’, ‘I Second That Emotion’ and ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’.
The set also featured ‘Ooh Baby Baby’, ‘The Way You Do The Things You Do’, ‘My Girl’, ‘Tears Of A Clown’, ‘Being With You’ and ‘Cruisin’.
