Smokey Robinson: Warm Thoughts (Tamla)

FIRST LOVES die hard, if they ever do. So I'll always remember the first moment I heard Smokey Robinson's voice come over the radio, on a Sunday night in 1963, singing 'You Really Got a Hold on Me' and making me understand that statement as a simple truth. I'll also never forget the afternoon I heard his return last winter while I was cruising down Sunset Boulevard in a Cadillac. For me, Smokey Robinson has always been the perfect singer, my ideal. And with 'Cruisin'', he simply reasserted his right to pre-eminence.