When Smokey Robinson made his Ryman Auditorium debut on Friday night, December 16, some ticket holders may have wondered if he could still put on a show. They needn’t have worried. At 82 years old, Robinson still has the vocal chops and the stage presence to capture an audience.
With his full band and a stellar pair of backup singers, as well as a Nashville string section, he appeared dressed in all red and opened with “Being with You,” adding a final verse in Spanish. The hits kept coming all night, as he followed with “I Second that Emotion,” which got the audience started singing along.
“Let’s sing another one,” he told the crowd, launching into “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.” And while a lot of veteran performers not quite his age begin to lower the key of songs and avoid high notes, Robinson never faltered, featuring strong vocals on favorites such as “Ooo Baby Baby.”
He acknowledged that playing the Ryman Auditorium was a dream come true. “I’ve been watching this place since I was a little boy,” he said. Through the evening he spoke of the influence of music from his early childhood. He performed “Fly Me to the Moon,” from Timeless Love, his album of classic torch songs. He credited the musical influence of his two older sisters who listened to 78s.
Promising that he intended “to be intimate, to get closer,” Robinson shed his jacket and announced, “We’re gonna boogie.” He launched into stories and songs from his Motown days. Recognizing the studio’s sixtieth anniversary, he said he was there the very first day and grew up at Motown.
He performed the song that “got things started,” which he said came to him while driving late at night from a show. The song “The Way You Do the Things You Do” became the Temptations first international hit. He followed with “Get Ready” and “My Girl,” both crowd favorites.
Doing an amusing impersonation of Stevie Wonder, who he said should be called Wonderful, he told of Wonder coming to him at the Motown Christmas party with a tape of a song he had composed for which he couldn’t come up with lyrics. “He offered to drive me home so I could get started right away,” Robinson joked. The song became “Tears of a Clown.”
He also sang “The Look” from his new Spanish album, noting that everything sounds more romantic in that language.
By the time Smokey Robinson performed “Tracks of My Tears,” most of the audience was standing and singing along, a perfect segue to his finale, “Cruisin’.” He brought up two women from the audience, asking each to lead half the auditorium in a competition singing the hook line, “I love it when we’re cruisin’ together.” One of the women told him, “I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old.” By the end of the night, the rest of the audience was in love with him too.
