Though there is scarcely an hour on radio when Motown legend Smokey Robinson can’t tune in to find one of his songs, when he hears them over the airwaves, he says he still gets a thrill.
His old hits still make his hips jive and his feet twist. “Smoke,” as he claims his Motown friend Stevie Wonder likes to call him, knows that his audience comes to sing them again, too, the way they have likely sung them for years, in the car, in the shower and when the spirit moves them.
Scarcely a Deer Valley Resort fan could help sing out loud to “My Girl” Thursday night. Robinson paused afterward. He asked his band to play the song again and this time held his microphone out to the audience.
“We have some singers out there this evening!” he goaded the crowd. “You sounded great!” Let’s sing another one,” he said, and continued with “You Really Got A Hold On Me.”
Robinson’s appearance at the Park City Performing Arts Foundation’s “Big Stars, Bright Nights” series marked his first public performance in Utah in his 45-year career. He hired 13 Utah freelance orchestra players on violins, violas and piano, to accompany his six-member band, three back up singers and two go-go dancers, whom he says seldom are apart from one another on tour and at home.
“They said this place was beautiful,” Robinson said. “But that doesn’t even come close to describing it.”
Smokey, 67, is still fit and has still got it. As far as fancy footwork and choreography, he rivaled his young dancers who fashioned themselves after Tina Turner in tall, heeled boots and short hemlines.
The stories he shared throughout his performance however, reminded the audience he was one of Motown’s greatest contributors. Among the dozens of top 40 singles he released, “Shop Around,” which debuted in 1960, became Motown’s first No. 1 hit on the R&B singles chart.
At the concert, he shared his memories of touring in a Motown review with the Supremes and the Marvelettes. He wrote hits for the Temptations like “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and “Get Ready,” and wrote the lyrics to a song for Stevie Wonder called “Tears of a Clown.”
Robinson sang several songs of his latest album, “Timeless Love,” covering classic American songbook singles including “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (Baby),” “Night and Day” and “More Than You Know.”
For his song “I Love Your Face,” another track on “Timeless Love,” Robinson left the stage, passed security and hopped a fence to serenade the crowd. He winked at Park City resident Melanie Otto sitting in the front row and began to sing directly to her. “I’m good for you Melanie,” Robinson told her, teasing her husband, Rick, sitting beside her. “I make him pay attention.”
Later, Otto explained she hadn’t seen Robinson since she was 16 and living in San Diego. “I think he’s better than he was then,” she said. “This was the best concert I’ve seen in a while.”
By the end of the last set, the lawn seating had poured into the area closest to the stage, lingering and cheering. Robinson did not disappoint, delivering three encores. He sang his second encore, “Tracks of My Tears,” slowly alone with his guitarist and it was arguably the best song of the night
Robinson closed the concert with “Crusin’,” once again requesting the crowd join him. He split the flood of people before him into two, and had them competing, singing “I love it when we’re cruisin’ together.”