Smokey Robinson is one of those perennials whose creativity and staying power contradicts the notion that pop music, and especially the pop music of the rock-and-roll era, is necessarily ephemeral….

Bob Dylan once called Mr. Robinson "America's greatest living poet," and the remark wasn't at all ludicrous. His work will surely endure….

If Mr. Robinson's songs have one overriding concern, it is quiet but intense pain—the heartache behind the smile, the tears of the clown.