Smokey Robinson:Standing Room [DVD]

Features

• Type: DVD
• Studio: eOne Films
• Language(s): english
• Actor(s): Smokey Robinson

When it comes to combining a soulful, romantic nature with an exquisite sense of pop craftsmanship, no one does it better than Smokey Robinson--Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee with over 30 Top Forty hits to his name. While countless musical styles have come and gone, Robinson's songs have stood the test of time. Robinson doesn't disappoint his audience in this high-energy performance from the Bally's Grand Opera House in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Songs: My Love, Tears of a Clown, Shop Around, I Second that Emotion, Quiet Storm, Starting Here and Now, My Girl, Save the Best For Last, Everything You Touch, Speak Low, Lady Sings the Blues, There's a Right Girl for Every Guy, Just a Mirage, Tracks of My Tears, Just to See Her. For almost two decades--the '60s and the '70s--Smokey Robinson was a Motown king of songwriting and performance, first with the Miracles, later as a solo artist. This relatively featureless DVD (which offers only a concert performance with no extras) captures a 1990 concert performance by Robinson in an Atlantic City showroom, featuring a full orchestra behind him, as well as a pair of backup singers. What it reveals is a performer who still knows his craft, even if his sweet, high voice is lower and raspier these days. Yet when he starts singing the hits--"Tears of a Clown," "Tracks of My Tears," "Shop Around," "I Second That Emotion," "Ooh Baby Baby"--you begin to understand why Robinson is ranked right up there with the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland in the songwriting pantheon of Motown history. And, at the end, when he sings a medley of songs (concluding with "Tracks of My Tears") accompanied only by spare electric guitar, you get a true sense of the power of his material. --Marshall Fine