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Smokey Robinson: A Classic Sings the Classics

R&B pioneer Smokey Robinson's silky-smooth voice has earned him the title of "America's poet laureate of love." He's been a fixture in popular music for 50 years and was one of the chief architects of the Motown sound.

Now the singer is revisiting the soundtrack of his own childhood with a new CD of classic tunes first made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and others.

Robinson is no stranger to some of the tunes in this new collection -- he first recorded "Speak Low" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" with the Miracles in 1962. Now 66 years old, he's taking the songs in new and surprising directions.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Farai Chideya
Farai Chideya is a multimedia journalist who has worked in print, television, online, and radio. Prior to joining NPR's News & Notes, Chideya hosted Your Call, a daily news and cultural call-in show on San Francisco's KALW 91.7 FM. Chideya has also been a correspondent for ABC News, anchored the prime time program Pure Oxygen on the Oxygen women's channel, and contributed commentaries to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET. She got her start as a researcher and reporter at Newsweek magazine. In 1997 Newsweek named her to its "Century Club" of 100 people to watch.