Not long ago, someone on some chat board linked to one of my Friday 'Fro entries, telling their fellow chat-mates that "this is a cool 'fro site, but it's mostly about dead guys." Which has never been my intent, of course, but I made a mental note that I really oughta throw a living 'fro into the mix.
So, today at the office, my colleague Tony was making the afternoon go better with a Smokey Robinson (both with and without the Miracles) collection, and that got me thinking — I'd never seen our "Greatest Living Poet" (to quote Bob Dylan) sport anything beyond the most rudimentary tennis-ball 'fro. Did Smokey ever go for the big hair?
Well, five minutes of internet research turned up very little on that score, except for the above picture from the cover of his 1974 album, Pure Smokey. And, to be honest, I have to call "'fro shenanigans" on it, because that perfectly coiffed afro really looks like the work of the Motown art department, instead of anything remotely "natural". Maybe they were worried that Smokey's old-fashioned romanticism wasn't playing anymore with "the kids," and felt a faux 'fro was needed if he was gonna keep moving units like he used to. Sigh. That's simply no way to treat a national treasure...
Anyway, this all brought back some very lovely memories of interviewing Mr. Robinson for the L.A. Weekly back in 2002, so I went online and checked to see if I could find the article I wrote on him and the radio show he was doing at the time. It's still there, though does omit some of my favorite memories from the experience. I did it right after Thanksgiving, and thus I got to have the surreal experience of watching him try to heat up some leftover turkey and stuffing in his oven; I think the housekeeper was gone for the day, and he wasn't, shall we say, completely comfortable in the kitchen.
He was super smooth in every other way, though; we broke the ice talking about the Detroit Tigers (I was wearing my 80s-era Tigers starter jacket at the time), and he waxed nostalgic about going to old Tiger Stadium with his uncle back in the 1950s. But from the get-go, he really was every bit as sweet and warm and kind as his records had led me to imagine, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of our hour-long conversation.
It was also Carole's birthday that day, so as we were wrapping up I asked if he would wish her a happy birthday; without any further prompting, he grabbed my tape recorder and sang a full chorus of "Happy Birthday" to her — then added, "Hi, Carole, this is Smokey Robinson, wishing you the most joyous of birthdays! God bless you!" Pure Smokey, indeed...
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