Customer Reviews

Smokey Inside Life

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4 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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I am a 24 year old male, and i just finished reading this book "inside my life" about the life of Smokey Robinson, and I must tell you, that this is a very good book. I finished reading this book in 2 days and my only complaint is that I was mad when it was over. I have found a new respect for this man.For I am also a song writer, but if I was to compare myself to him, I would have to just stop writing,from jealousy alone. He is a true genius in his songs about love and affairs of the heart and soul. When he was 17 he had over 100 songs written, and he helped Motown become the legend that it is today . I found it great the way he described how he met Berry Gordy for the first time, and I laughed out loud about what he had to say about Berry Gordy's first check and what he did with it,It showed their determination and loyalty to each other through the good times as well as the bad.This book also shows how good of a person Smokey Robinson was and is, to his friends and people close to him and also that he's just a human being and even a genius can make mistakes in life. This book goes in detail about his drug addiction and how he was able to bounce back from it all. You will appriecate his honesty. So i recommend this book to you and all your friends. Thanks for reading my opinion Shawn

From page 1 until the end of this book my eyes kept reading and reading and thanking God that this man is still alive today to give us his talent and energy and love. Smokey has come a long way from the 1st page of his biography. This is one you cannot put down. Believe ME.

Smokey Robinson is not afraid to honestly and frankly outline the events that have transpired in his life. One has to appreciate the clarity and detail he uses in expressing the downfall of his marriage and his drift into drug use. Clearly a movie should be in the making.

i am so Happy I finally took My Daddy's advice & read 'SMOKEY' Singer/songwriter/ record producer/record executive Smokey Robinson's biography! It is the best I have ever read! & it came out in 1989 (20yrs ago). If U haven't read it, it is a MUST read!! Now all I need 2 do is FINALLY see him perform in person! I have so much respect 4 everything he has done in the music business! Get the book, read it & I promise U will have tons of things 2 ask Ur parents about! TRUST U will thx Me later :)


p.s.
keep in mind I am 31. & this book blew my MIND!!!!!!!!!!!

i am so Happy I finally took My Daddy's advice & read 'SMOKEY' Singer/songwriter/ record producer/record executive Smokey Robinson's biography! It is the best I have ever read! & it came out in 1989 (20yrs ago). If U haven't read it, it is a MUST read!! Now all I need 2 do is FINALLY see him perform in person! I have so much respect 4 everything he has done in the music business! Get the book, read it & I promise U will have tons of things 2 ask Ur parents about! TRUST U will thx Me later :)


p.s.
keep in mind I am 31. & this book blew my MIND!!!!!!!!!!!

I see that this book got mostly glowing reviews from the other readers, but I beg to differ. I don't know if they've read as much about Motown as I have, but I expected way more. I'll start by saying that I was raised on Motown music, despite being a child of the 80's. I remember watching Motown 25 on my floor model tv, surrounded by my family. We were even one of the first families on the block to own a vcr and I took joy in watching it repeatedly. I grew up listening to my mother and father tell me the various stories they'd heard about Motown. My father instilled a love of David Ruffin and Smokey that is unmatched by nearly anyone. I've got family from Detroit and my mother was a wealth of information about the golden days of Motown.

I'd wanted to read this book for some years but since it was out of print and people were charging too much, I never got the chance. However I've managed to read Divided Life (also by David Ritz) 2 or 3 times and knowing how fantastic that book was, I expected Smokey's book to be just as thrilling.

I read the 260 page book in about 12 hours. I kept reading it and thinking "when do we get to the good part?" I don't know if I was spoiled by other music biographies that I've read that gave me much more soul and depth than this one, but I was truly disappointed and couldn't help but to feel that Smokey wasn't giving the whole story.

To his credit, he did talk about drug use and infidelities, but in some ways I felt that they were kind of glossed over. In Divided Life, Ritz does a fantastic job of talking about how Marvin's drug use effected his whole family, and his personal and professional life but I didn't get the feeling of it being that way here. Again, it was mentioned, but not really. He also talks about his love affairs with 2 other women, but the skeptic in me has a hard time believing that a fox like Smokey only stepped out on his wife with 2 other women and he was madly in love with both of them. So there were no other affairs? Really Smokey? If there were any casual ones, he didn't mention it here, although he did state that his wife wasn't crazy enough to think that her husband didn't possibly do his thing while he was on the road.

I also found myself waiting for some inside info on Motown. I read Martha Reeves'Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva book and I read the book on Michael Jackson Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, 1958-2009 and they gave a good little bit of the inside scoop on Motown and some of their more questionable business practices (including not allowing artists to take their contracts to lawyers before signing them). Again, Smokey glossed over the whole thing, and made it seem that the artists were all simply irresponsible with their money.

While I'm sure that if you give most young kids from the ghetto a lot of money, a lot of them aren't going to know how to act. But still how can you have a roster with dozens of acts and most of them walk away nearly penniless? Or again with MJ and the Jacksons, how about Gordy's refusal to let the Jackson 5 keep their name, resulting in them calling themselves "the Jacksons" once they left Motown? Gordy even owned the names J5 and J5ive and other variations. Maybe Smokey had a different set of circumstances because he was there from the beginning and wrote most of his own hits, but I was disappointed to see Smokey act as though Gordy was just a misunderstood saint.

At the end of the day I tried to say that perhaps Smokey just had (and has) a rosy outlook on things, but still I got the feeling that despite his best intentions to be candid, he held back a lot. Perhaps it was his desire to respect and protect the guilty, and while that makes him an admirable man, it makes for a lackluster read that leaves real Motown fans unfulfilled.

this book is a good read for r and b fans.it will broaden your appreciation of smokey robinson and his travails.
david ritz bookis well written and poignant,a must read.

I finished this book the same day I picked up. This is one of the most honest and lucid memoir I ever read. Smokey Robinson is the quintessential songwriter of our time forevermore. Although I am 24 years old, his songs echos what is missing in today's R&B and pop music. Hearing songs like "Crusin", "Baby Baby", "Tears of a Clown", "My Girl", and "The Way You Do The Things You Do" are memorable classics people still sing to this day. It was a pleasure of reading such prominent literature. I learn the man behind the words of a great song. Thank you for letting fans and future industry songwriters inside your life Smokey.

This would an exceptional book by an exceptional who as Bob Dylan said he is the greatest poet of our time. He indeed is and this is just a look inside America's greatest songwriter. For all the Smokey fans this indeed a must read!

My husband wanted to read this book and I could not get it from the Library
so I ordered it thru Amazon. The used book was in great condition and I was pleased to give it as a gift to him.