Smokey is as busy as ever through the 1980s, with back-to-back Top 10 hits, “Just To See Her” and “One Heartbeat,” and well-regarded albums such as Love, Smokey. In Britain, the record takes the top spot. The following year, the singer/songwriter works with producer George Tobin to make “Being With You,” which stops only one slot short of No. It travels to the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1980. Guitarist Marv Tarplin helps to create “Cruisin’,” another Smokey success with an irrepressible riff. Nor can the man stay away from the stage: the 1978 album entitled Smokin’ is his first-ever live solo set, in which he sings an abundance of Miracles hits as well as his own. He charges into other endeavors, including a movie, Big Time, with a soundtrack album, naturally. A Quiet Storm also yields a classic, “Baby That’s Backatcha,” which is the first R&B No. Moreover, it’s the guiding light for a fresh R&B radio format: “soft, romantic soul music with a sexy bite,” Smokey recalls. “I saw seven songs carried on the back of a breeze,” he declares in his autobiography, “blowing through the record from start to finish.” Released in 1975, A Quiet Storm proves to be his most popular yet, a Top 10 R&B success which also flows through the pop charts for the best part of a year. For his third album, Smokey locates the lyrical concept he’s sought since hearing Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Two other songs, “Virgin Man” and “I Am I Am,” are Top 10 R&B hits. Before that, Pure Smokey is a second solo outing, featuring four collaborations with Marv Tarplin, the indispensable guitarist of the Miracles years. Among his creations for the trio are “Floy Joy,” a Top 20 pop success, and “Automatically Sunshine.” At the same time, his catalog prospers, with artists as diverse as the Staple Singers and Petula Clark remaking his songs, while Linda Ronstadt sends “The Tracks Of My Tears” back to the Top 40 in 1976. As in the ’60s, Smokey continues to work with fellow Motown artists, including the Supremes. Accompanying it is an album, Smokey, co-produced with Willie Hutch, which includes the socially conscious “Just My Soul Responding.” 
He also writes a song dedicated to the Miracles, “Sweet Harmony,” which becomes the first hit single of his solo career, in the summer of ’73.
But America loves a second act, and Smokey’s begins when he leaves the Miracles, gets off the road, spends more time with wife Claudette, and tends to duties as talent scout and vice president of Motown – a rank bestowed on him ten years earlier.It was Smokey who encouraged Berry Gordy to form Motown Records, and their legacy of music is playing, somewhere in the world, even as you’re reading this.
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For this son of the Motor City (born February 19, 1940), the first 15 years of his professional life are documented in the metaphorical filing cabinet marked “ Smokey Robinson & the Miracles” and celebrated in his farewell album with the group, 1957-1972.
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