Over the years Motown has released an abundance of Christmas themed albums.  They range from The Supremes, The Jackson 5, The Temptations….  in fact, all the A-list artists.  Together with these, several compilations were also released featuring the most popular of festive songs, and a few of these are in my collection to be played once a year. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to play them at any other time.   However, to be honest, nothing can replace “A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector” which has been my go-to-album for more years than I care to remember.

Probably the first album to be released by Motown was “Christmas With The Miracles” on Tamla, during October 1963.  The bulk of the tracks were recorded in 1962 but not enough to fill an album.  So the release was held over to the next year to allow further tracks to be recorded, and to (ironically) compete with said Phil Spector’s album.  Featuring traditional Christmas songs (“Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”, “Winter Wonderland”, “Silver Bells, “Noel” and so on),  The Miracles’ album, produced by group member Ronnie White,  included only one Smokey Robinson original titled “Christmas Everyday”.  This was the flipside to “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)” released as a promotional item in November 1963.  The elpee itself charted for six weeks, eventually peaking in the top twenty, a runaway hit in the year’s most lucrative market.

By this time, of course, The Miracles had a healthy collection of hit singles to their credit, with “Shop Around” (for which Berry Gordy presented them with a plaque commemorating one million sales), and “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” among them.  The group had also released Motown’s first double-A side single, with the flip charting higher than the top side.  “Broken Hearted” and “Mighty Good Lovin’”, both written by Smokey, were produced by Berry Gordy.  Recalls Claudette, “He was looking for perfection. As perfect as you could make it.  Something that would not just be for today, but something that would last a lifetime.”   By the way, Miracle Pete Moore was missing from the front album sleeve on “Christmas With The Miracles”;  he was serving in the US Armed Forces when the picture was taken.   In 1987 the album was re-mastered for CD release.

So, staying with The Miracles now, I don’t plan this time to focus on  Smokey (nothing personal Mr. Robinson!) as he’s been a headliner since the group was born, but rather his ex-wife, Claudette, who wasn’t afforded the same column inches. However, in recent times, that changed because her public profile elevated her into the headlines. For one thing, as you know, Berry Gordy titled her ‘The First Lady of Motown’, and Claudette once explained why this was so:  “The Miracles were the very first group with Berry, with Motown, so I was the first female.  That’s why Berry gave me the title.”  And, it emerged there was more to Claudette than she liked to let on.  For instance, she is a supporter of the HAL Awards founded by Janie Bradford in 1990, authored her first children’s book Claudette’s Miraculous Motown Adventure, and is known for her unstinting charity endeavours include working with The Joy Community Outreach to End Homelessness, the Maple Community Counselling  Centre and the Beverly Hills West Links.

An exhibition, “Claudette Robinson: A Motown-Her Story”, which celebrates several aspects of HER life, was opened at the Motown Museum in Detroit in November, 2023.   “I’m honoured and humbled that the Motown Museum has given me the opportunity to share what I was able to do over the last sixty years.  While curating this exhibit, I’ve been reminded that life is a tapestry of moments, memories and relationships that have endured for over six decades.”

The exhibition – situated a spit away from the iconic sequinned glove and black fedora donated by Michael Jackson during 1988 – is actually a first for the Museum’s new associate curator, Kemuel Benyehudah, who worked side by side for five months with Claudette and her daughter Tamla, choosing material that included rare personal photographs and artifacts.  Among them are a photo of her wedding to Smokey in 1959, and a treasured skirt and jacket outfit which she wore for the cover shoot of The Miracle’s debut album “Hi! We’re The Miracles”.

Here then is an overview of the lady who was born Claudette Annette Rogers on 20 June 1938 or 1942 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and who was three years old when she sang in front of the National Baptist Convention in Monroe, Louisiana.  This performance resulted from her singing in her great uncle’s church.  In later years Claudette wondered where she’d mustered up the courage to perform in front of an audience. Usually, she shied away from anything that placed her in the spotlight.  Then, when she attended a Catholic school, the nuns constantly tried to persuade her to sing and even suggested she visit New York to join a vocal training course.  It was a non-starter:  “…I had no desire to become a professional singer,” she told Susan Whitall in Women Of Motown: An Oral History. “I always enjoyed singing and music, but I never thought I had the personality for show business.” She further told Paul Sexton for the udiscovermusic.com website,  “I wasn’t one of those people that had to be seen.  I could have been behind the curtain and would have loved it just as much.  I just never had that ‘I’ve got to be out front. I want everybody to see me’.  That wasn’t my personality.”

Let’s fill in a few gaps here. Claudette moved to Detroit with her family when she was eight years old.  From eleven, she lived on the city’s east side and attended the city’s High School of Commerce, situated next door to the Cass Technical High School.  She learned book keeping and typing, and how to operate a duplicating machine, or stencil duplicator, probably from the same family as that we used in London to print TCB magazines for Motown Ad Astra (fan club) during the late sixties/early seventies.

At fifteen years old, Claudette graduated and enrolled at the Wayne State University before joining the US Marine Corps. However, her life’s journey was to take her away from everyday life, when her brother Sonny introduced her to William “Smokey” Robinson.  “I fell in love early, at the age of fourteen, with my childhood sweetheart,” he wrote in his autobiography Smokey: Inside My Life.  “I married her when I was nineteen…and for three decades, she was the love of my life.  Ours was a fairy tale romance we thought would last a lifetime.”

That lifetime sadly proved to be limited as Smokey became distracted by drugs and affairs, events he openly admitted in his book.   Claudette was aware of his dalliances and they had an unspoken mutual understanding, Smokey wrote, because she was aware of what went on while he was on the road.  He gave an example. If Claudette intended to meet up with him while he was touring, she would always phone him.  “She’d never show up unannounced.  When she arrived at my hotel, she’d ring from the lobby…I respected her for being wise enough to avoid the possibility of walking in on anything.”

The group that went on to become The Miracles by five friends using the name The Five Chimes.  Three of the founding members, Smokey, Pete Moore and Ronnie White had been singing together since they were eleven years old.   Clarence Dawson and James Grice were also in the original membership, but when they chose marriage instead of performing, Sonny Rogers and his cousin, Bobby, replaced them. This prompted a name change to The Matadors. Meanwhile, Claudette had her own group, The Matadorettes: “I always had a group whenever my brother had one. He had (one) called The Orchids (so) I had one called the Orchidettes.”  In 1957 Sonny was drafted into the US Army, so she replaced him!  If she had chosen to stay with The Matadorettes, she believed they would have eventually gone their separate ways:  “We would have gone on with our individual careers of what we had aspirations for. I wanted to be a school teacher, so I believe that’s where I would have directed my attention and my education.”

It’s well documented how The Miracles met Berry Gordy during a visit to the office of Jackie Wilson’s manager.  However, what the Motown boss wrote in his autobiography To Be Loved made me smile, so I’ll share.  While Berry did believe in Smokey’s composing talent and singing, he wasn’t the first thing he fell for, as he told said Smokey. “It was Claudette in that army uniform.  She looked really good.  But once I got into your music, I forgot all about her – until three days later when I…asked her for a date.”  Berry was told in no uncertain terms by Claudette that she was Smokey’s girl.  “What a drag!” he concluded.

Like most of Motown’s acts during the sixties, The Miracles toured constantly, often performing in dire and dangerous conditions for meagre payment.  As the hits began, so their fees escalated – and their touring schedules!  One time, when Smokey was confined to bed with Asian flu, Claudette took over his lead, replacing him on stage. Audiences screamed “Sing it, Smokey, sing it!”.  Apparently, it took him a long while to come to terms with this. It was an easy mistake of course as they both had similar voices and, she said, “I didn’t wear long gowns.  I dressed like the guys with the exception of,  I had a skirt and they had pants.  We thought we were pretty cool, to tell you the truth.”  However, there was more to worry about than singing, as during this tour, Claudette was pregnant and was “in pretty bad shape”, although Smokey was unaware of her condition.  Tragically, she failed to carry the baby full term, and sadly it wouldn’t be the last time either.

As Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston flew out of the UK in December 1964, Claudette  and the guys arrived on their first visit.  Following record company formalities at EMI House, they rushed to the ATV studios in Wembley to record a Ready Steady Go! performance.  They broke off from the recording for a photo shoot in the studio  that would provided the cover image for their UK album ,“I Like It Like That” in March 1965.  The Miracles only ‘live’ performance was that on Monday, 7 December, at the Royal Albert Hall on a bill where Brenda Lee was the headliner. Also supporting her were British groups like The Yardbirds, Nashville Teens, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.  It was the only time Claudette appeared with the group over here.  The show was recorded by the BBC and broadcast on 9 December as a “Top Beat” concert.

Even though Claudette had stopped touring with The Miracles she continued to record with them.  However, she said it wasn’t her idea to ‘retire’: “I did not want to come off.  Mr. Gordy and Smokey made that decision for me.” She held fond memories of her time on the road, she said. “I missed the camaraderie, as well as the many fans we had and the relationships I had built over the years. After you’ve done it for about eight years, it becomes part of you…The guys took care of me like their little sister…They always treated me like a lady. They never disrespected me, and my experience in showbusiness was so different from so many young ladies that have been on the road.  They guys really looked out for me.”

Her new found freedom meant she could devote herself fully to her family, while supporting her husband in his career as he continued to front The Miracles until his eventual departure during 1972.  As you know, he planned to retire a couple of years earlier, but when “The Tears Of A Clown” was a worldwide hit he changed his mind!  I wonder why?

Returning to Claudette’s personal life with Smokey: with the heartbreak of miscarriages tearing them apart, they decided to adopt a son named Berry who was, Smokey wrote, born to a surrogate mother in 1968. A daughter, Tamla followed in 1971.  He also fathered a son, Trey with another woman while married to Claudette. This was in 1984 as he was set to celebrate his 25^th wedding anniversary, he said.  It was this that led to him leaving their family home, and later triggered their legal separation, leading to divorce during 1986.  Recalls Claudette, “He was the one who filed for it, but he too, did not have an easy time of it…..I was very hurt.  I had just a number of things you have to deal with …and yet he was continually telling me that he loved me.”   Smokey: “…Leaving Claudette and the kids covered me with confusion and pain.  It was a hurtful time, living alone in an apartment.” A devastated Claudette eventually licked her wounds, got stronger emotionally, which in time enabled her to remain loving friends with Smokey way into the future.

Moving on: during March 1983 Claudette joined Pete, Ronnie, Bobby and Smokey, to celebrate Motown’s 25^th anniversary celebrations. They hadn’t performed together for over a decade. In 1987, Smokey was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. This controversial decision discounted The Miracles.  After a twenty-six-year hiatus, The Miracles with Claudette were retroactively inducted alongside Smokey.  During March 2009, Claudette and the original members of The Miracles were honoured with their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, while in Detroit, Miracles Boulevard and Miracles Park, were named after them.  And further, scheduled this year was the biographical documentary The First Lady of Motown: The Claudette Robinson Story. I checked IMDb but came up empty handed as information there was very limited.   We await Claudette!

All that’s left now is for me to wish you the best of everything this holiday time with a new year we can all be proud of.  For those folks not able to spend the Festive time with their families or friends, and for those wonderful people who care for us and keep us safe, I send you love, respect and blessings.

Sharon Davis

(My thanks to: “Smokey: Inside My Life” by Smokey Robinson; “Women Of Motown: An Oral History” by Susan Whitall, and Paul Sexton at Udiscovermusic.com. No copyright infringement intended with visuals)