Born William Robinson Jr., on February 19, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan, United States, Smokey Robinson is perhaps best known from performing with his group The Miracles, a band featuring R&B style music. This band was founded by Robinson and has achieved 37 hit singles entering the Billboard Top 40, including famous hits such as Love Machine, Tracks of My Tears, and Tears of a Clown.
So just how rich is Smokey Robinson? Sources estimate that Smokey’s net worth is $100 million, mostly accumulated through singing and performing with The Miracles, but what is also worth knowing is that Smokey has written more than 4.000 songs.
Smokey Robinson Net Worth $100 Million
Smokey Robinson attended Northern High School, when he founded a band called The Five Chimes. Smokey really started his career in singing while performing with local groups. In the 1950s The Matadors, later known as The Miracles, was formed. From 1960 to 1970, Robinson was best known for such songs as Mickey`s Monkey, and Baby Baby Don`t Cry among others. Robinson met the famous producer Berry Gordy and this meeting was the perfect start to Smokey`s future career – the band started working with a production company named Motown Records, with Smokey and the Miracles popularising not only R&B music genre, but also soul music.The first great source of income for Smokey Robinson was from the hit named Shop Around, released in 1960. Following hits were such as You Really Got a Hold on Me, and I Second That Emotion, released in 1962 and 1967 respectively.
Since 1972 Smokey Robinson’s net worth has been increasing from his solo career. Smokey started focusing on romantic soul music, and it brought great revenues to the total amount of his net worth. A few solo albums were released: A Quiet Storm and Touch the Sky, released in 1974 and 1983 respectively. However, in the middle of the 1980s Smokey had a really difficult time and his net worth was not flourishing. Smokey was apparently addicted to cocaine, and spent some time in recovery. Actually, it was a religious faith that helped Smokey to recover faster. All his experiences while struggling with drugs are revealed in an autobiographical book called Smokey: Inside My Life.
A song named Just to See Her from his solo album named One Heartbeat rewarded Robinson with a Grammy Award gained in 1987, and for that Robinson was labelled as the best R&B vocal performer. Double Good Everything, released in 1991 and Intimate, released in 1999, are Smokey`s further solo recordings. After his recovery, Robinson decided to reveal all his feelings and spiritual beliefs in Food for the Spirit, a collection of music released in 2004.
Smokey Robinson’s net worth has increased not only from songwriting and singing, but from serving as a vice-president of the company called Motown records. He had a hand in producing such hits as My Girl, performed by The Temptations and My Guy performed by Mary Wells.
In his personal life, Smokey Robinson was not helped by an addiction to cocaine, from which he has been free, however, since the mid-80s. Smokey has been married twice, to Claudette Rogers (1959-86) with whom he has two children, and to Frances Glandney from 2004.
