[captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- tavis: good evening from los angeles. i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with smokey robinson as we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of motown, he is celebrating his own golden anniversary. one year after signing with motown, they became a success with his hit single "shop around " " he has his thoughts on the passing of michael jackson. we are glad you're joining us. smokey robinson right now. >> there is so many things that walmart is looking forward to

doing, like helping people live better. we are looking forward to help build stronger communities and relationships. with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. it >> i am always pleased, honored, a humble to have smokey robinson on this program. all of these years we have been featuring conversations with the great motown legends as we

celebrate the 50th anniversary of motown. before there was marvin or stevie or the jackson five, there was a guy named smokey robinson. he helped put motown on the map with their no. 1 signal -- single. his new cd is called "time flies when you're having fun." here is some of the new single. >> ♪ you will be all mine forever do not know why i did not come

♪ tavis: when i first heard this song on the radio, three things went through my mind almost immediately. but what an honor it must be to have smokey, with all of the songs he has written, to cover your song. norah jones is somewhere grinning ear to ear. smokey robinson, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, covering your song. i have heard your cover of this. smokey has still got it. the third thing is, of all of the songs to cover, why did you choose that one? >> i am a song lover. some songs give me that impact when i first hear them. that was one of those songs.

i heard it and i loved the melody. it had a calypso version of its period -- of it. it was such an abstract love song. i just loved the song. i am a song lover. tavis: when you hear a song like that of any song and you decide that you went to cover it, tell me more about smokey's process. what is your process when you decide you're going to cover the song and put your own flavor on it? >> that is what i do the first time. i hear it over and over again. i decide how i would want to sing the song if i was singing it. i do thatat verse and then i get together with my conductor.

there were two guys, there were both keyboard players. we would just get an arrangement together and go into the studio and not get out. " because you are such a genius, i hear what you do with the song. take me back to when you were working on it. what did you think you had to do with it to make it work to put your own thing on it? >> i thought i had to do is the way i felt it and not try to copy the record. tavis: does that mean changing the keys? >> i had to change keys. my key is lower. i change the tempo. i heard it's lower. hers is up-tempo. for me i heard its lower like a ballad. i tried to make it sweet. that is what we tried to do with it. tavis: what does it mean for

you -- and did you plant it this way to put out another record in the 50th year of the motown celebration? >> it just happened that way. i was just trying to put it out. i was doing it the old-fashioned way. the cd that i -- came up before this one was a cd of all standards. i had planned on recording that 1 live and never got around to doing it. i have got all of the people in the studio at the same time, which is unheard of in today's record market. you record on a computer. people who play and sing on the same record do not see each other. they are in different countries. at different times.

i said that i am going to go back to the old way and record it with everybody being there at the same time. you were not in the studio, you were not going to be on the record. you missed that one. tavis: motown is going to be on time. >> we had a ball. it is like doing a concert in a studio. everybody is feeding off of each other and feeling from each other. we had a great time. tavis: how does it feel for you to still be relevant, to still have the pipes, to still be able to do this at 50 years after motown started? >> i am blessed. i am absolutely blast. -- blessed.

when it your job is doing something that you love and you cannot think of anything you would rather do with your life, that is a blessing. i am blessed. to be around for 50 years, which is way beyond my wildest dreams, but it goes by overnight. especially when you are enjoying yourself. that is exactly how i feel about my life. tampa -- time flies when you're having fun. i cannot believe it -- i cannot believe that we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of motown. it seems like two or three years ago that berry came to me to start a record company. he said that he could beat me at something. do not even by that.

tavis: i am going to jump in here. we had berry gordy in here two or three times. he came in around the same time of -- sad time of michael jackson's passing. he was saying that he thought that he was a better songwriter than smokey. as time went on, smokey got it. >> barry is might -- berry is my best friend. when we started motown there were five people. it was him and four other people. i am starting this record company. we are not just going to make black music. we are going to make music for the world. we are going to make music with break beats and great stories. we are always going to make quality music. as far as i am concerned, motown is a once-in-a-lifetime musical event. nothing like that happen before

then. i doubt seriously that anything like that would happen again. prior to him starting motown, i considered myself to be a songwriter. i have been writing songs since i was about five years old. tavis: 5? >> the first song that i ever wrote that anybody other than my mom and me heard, i was 6 years old. i was in a school play in elementary school. in the play i was uncle remus. the old black storyteller that tells them how the animals got to be how they are. why the pig had a curly tail. whitey zebra's stripes. my teacher had a melody. can i write some words for that? she said, go ahead. rights awards. she let me sing it at the

beginning and the end of the play. you would have thought that i was george gershwin. my mom told people that she did not even know. she got the phone book and started calling people. i always try to write songs. jackie wilson was my no. 1 singing idol. i always look to see who wrote the music. i knew about berry gordy. we go to this audition for jackie wilson's managers. we saw in the five songs that i had written and said of something that is currently popular. this young guy was sitting in the corner. i was 16 at the time. he was waiting to audition. they rejected us and we went out and we were totally down. he came up behind us.

he said, hold on. he said, where did you get those songs from? i really dejected. i said that i wrote them. he said that i like a couple of your songs. i am thinking, and so what? i am being polite. i say thank you, i appreciate that. he said that i am berry gordy. my lips drawn down to the floor. -- lip dropped down to the floor. you are the berry gordy that writes songs for jackie wilson? what? he made a mistake. he said, have you got any more songs? i pulled up might little notebook. he said, let me hear some of

your songs. he takes me to a room. i must have 720 songs to him that day. he never said i am tired. i have heard enough. he just critiqued every song. he just sat there. he said that youth should have done this. i could always rhyme stuff. i would have five songs in one song. he made me see that. he pointed it out to me. he said that there is a code to writing. your songs have to have a beginning and middle and an ending to tie them together. if you do not end it, you have to give people enough information that they can and it for themselves. it all has to tie in. you have to see how people are writing.

she taught me how to write -- he taught me how to write songs professionally. i have to give credit where credit is due. tavis: how does it feel for berry gordy to admit that he ended up being the better songwriter? >> it makes me feel good because he has been my mentor. if he was going to be really honest he would admit that he -- admit that i beat him at golf. tavis: i was not going to go there. >> tiddlywinks, jacks. tavis: i want you each to hear what barry gordon had to say about you and michael jackson. watch that monitor right there. >> insiders knew about it. it was on a smoky song called

"who is loving you?" i said that that would not be one of his tour -- first three or four songs. it was like 50 years of knowing about love. i did not say it in front of smokey. he was kicking smokey's ass. there was so much passion in that. >> what do you have to say to berry gordy about that? >> i agree with him totally. when michael sang that song, "who is loving you?" is about somebody that has somebody that loves them. they do not appreciate it, so they do something wrong. but iran, they are regretting that they did that something wrong. now they're wondering who this

person is with now. that is a deep idea. michael sang that song when he was 11. when i first heard it, i had to play it again. this boy is 11. how could he possibly feel a song like that? he had it sang it like i had written in about him. he was just incredible. he sang so good. young people who hear me saying -- using a michael jackson song, huh? it is amazing that at 11 years old, he could have that much passion. michael was an old soul. when i first met him he was 9 or 10. he was old. he was a young boy because he was a prankster and he likes to do pranks and stuff like that

like any young boy. one of my great memories of him is the guy that was instrumental in bringing him to motown. he plays golf and i play golf. all of the motown guys are archrivals at everything. we are very competitive. we would take michael with us. do not let one of us miss a shot or hit the ball in the woods. he had never picked up a golf club in his life. your hand was weak. he was a great young man. tavis: house or real was it -- how surreal was it, we saw you

all at the service, you were in a clean suit. if that was my size, i would try to come to your house and steal it. how surreal was that to do a tribute to the young man who was younger than you. >> i have had three deaths to affect me in the same way. they were sudden impact. totally out of nowhere. my wife called me that day at screaming and hollering and crying over the phone. michael is dead. nope. michael to? michael jackson had a heart attack. not michael jackson michael jackson. that is not who you are talking about. the first thing was complete

silence from me. i could not accept that. my psyche would not except that. i have had three deaths like that. marvin gaye. i am driving home from the golf course. i have the radio on. the guy comes on the radio and he corrupts the song -- interrupts the song and he says that soul singer marvin gaye has been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. i remember it like yesterday. he did not just say that. he did not say that. he goes on about it. i am thinking to myself, this is april fool's day. that is what this is. i pulled into the gas station. before she said hello, she said hello. i said hey, baby.

she said that it is true. the guy that i grew up with and knew since i was 10 years old, he was one of my closest friends in life. he had been going back and forth to the hospital. he thought that something was happening with his blood count. he called me one day and he said that i am going to the hospital. he was still living in detroit. he said that i am going to keep you for a couple of days. i said, do you want to go to detroit? i said that i am going to the hospital, i am not going to die. the next day, he was gone. when you hear something like michael jackson, it is like somebody came and hit me in the chest with a 2 by 4. i have spoken at all of their

funerals. for me to be standing on that podium looking down at a casket that holds the body of my little brother, michael jackson, it is weird. it was weird for me to thinking that he is gone. he is not coming back. he is gone for good. fortunately, i believe in the hereafter. i know that he is cool. for this life that we are living here, other than the fact that he is going to live on and on forever because i believe he was the most electrifying, dynamic entertainer i have ever seen in my life and i have seen everybody. i used to think that about jackie wilson when i was growing up. if you ever saw jackie wilson, he was woo.

michael jackson topped everybody. he elevated the deliverance of a song. his songs were not only audible, but they were visual. when you saw him do them, that put a whole other touch on it. tavis: when you go through a process like that with marvin gaye, ron and al michaels, as you get older -- and now he michael, as you get older, i hope that you are still putting up records. you are still handsome. >> i love you. tavis: when you come face to face with mortality in a ron, in

marvin, in michael, what does that say to you about how you want to spend the rest of your time, whenever that is? >> it says to me to enjoy myself and to live with as little negativity in my life as possible. something happened to me many years ago. i was doing a tour in canada and i was on a bus. something happened that was really rank. i will not go into what it was. i was absolutely furious. i was so mad until it felt like i could have taken the bus and thrown it into the lake. that kind of mad. i got back on the bus and i was fuming. that is like a voice spoke to me. he said wait a minute.

do you know who you are hurting? yourself. the thing that you are mad about. the thing that has got you so upset, has already happened. there is no rewind. you cannot go back and make that unhappen. as long as you keep that furious inside of you, the more it is going to hurt you if you are going to suffer. for a short of a time as you can stay upset when something upsets you, and do get. you are saving yourself. that is how i look at life. tavis: he is a great philosopher and perhaps that is why he is the best songwriter that ever lived. his name is william smokey robinson. he has a new cd out. we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the label he helped make great.

his new project is called smokey robinson and "time flies when you're having front " " it was so much fun and this conversation happened so fast. that is airshow for the night. catch me on weekends on pebble -- public radio international. i will see you back here next time on pbs. goodnight from l.a. as always, keep the faith. >> ♪ my mama told me you'd better shop around ♪ >> for more information on today's show visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: i am tavis smiley. from the next time for a conversation with howard dean and his plans for health-care reform. that is next time. >> there are so many things that walmart is looking forward to

doing, like helping people live better. we are looking forward to tell people build strong relationshi. with your help, the best is yet to come. >> n n n nide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. working to improve financial literacy and the economic impact that comes with it. >> nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television]