Life & Work with Claudette Robinson of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Claudette Robinson.

Hi Claudette, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My life as an original member of the Miracles began in 1957 when we met Mr. Berry Gordy at an audition that was for many, many groups. The people that we auditioned for didn’ t like us because there was a girl in the group, (me). As a result, Mr. Gordy was watching and noticed that he loved the girl being in the group. And with that, he asked about the songs that we sang, which were five original songs, and he wanted to know, did we have more songs like that? Of course we did and the answer was yes from Mr. Robinson, (Smokey Robinson) saying that he had a hundred. Smokey knew who Mr. Gordy was, and Mr. Gordy was very kind and wanted to listen to our songs. So, after listening to them, he decided that he would like to work with us. The group’ s name at that time was called the Matadors. I sang in a girls’ group called the Matadorettes. When Mr. Gordy started working with us, he decided that we should have a record out, but we would need another name that would suit a group that had four guys and a girl. And with that, we put names into a hat, and I got to pull the name and the name that came out of the hat was The Miracles.

The first song that became an actual hit for Tamla/Motown Records was ‘Shop Around’. ‘Shop Around’ became a million-seller in 1960. I toured with the group who became The Miracles from 1957 to 1965. And after that, I came off the road reluctantly but continued recording on each and every one of The Miracles’ records until 1972, when Smokey Robinson decided that he was going to retire. In 1972, I, along with Smokey Robinson and all of the original members of The Miracles, performed the very last show. The guys, all of The Miracles, called me on stage so that I too could perform three or four songs with them during that final show.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There were many obstacles for The Miracles and there were many challenges during my career of traveling on the road with the band. The biggest challenge was just the tremendous amount of racism that existed. We were not allowed to stay in hotels. We had to find rooming houses or places that they suggested where we could stay. We tried many times to stay in hotels, but were turned down because of the fact that when they saw us, we were people of color and therefore, couldn’t stay. They often had a shotgun by the door, which said, ‘ This is telling you, ‘you must get out of here now.’ So you know, it could be frightening many times, trying to figure out where are we going to go? What are we going to do? Because sometimes when we were traveling, we had to get to that next date, like right away, and you didn’t have time to try to look around for somewhere else to stay. One of the worst racial incidents that happened on tour was when I was up front with Bobby Rogers who was driving, the other guys were sleeping, and as we went down this lonely, dark, dreary road, there was a guy hanging from a tree. This is something I have never forgotten and a tragedy you would not want to see, ever in your lifetime.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
There are many highlights from my professional career that I am proud of. One of the greatest times that I had was performing at Motown 25, where they had all these amazing Motown artists come back. It was really fun being united once again to perform with my group, The Miracles, along with Smokey Robinson for an overall phenomenal event. It was just so beautiful to see. A wonderful time.

Another great highlight was being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We had waited years for this to take place and were so honored that it finally happened. And being inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009 after such a long career with The Miracles was truly a tremendous highlight for me as well as the rest of the group. The Miracles were honored and received a star, and our only missing member was Ronnie White, who had passed away in 1995.

We’ve had an exhibit on The Miracles that lasted for a year at the museum, Grammy Museum which was longer than any of their other exhibits.

I was inspired by my family to write a book. They had been encouraging me to do this for many, many years because my first job that I thought that I wanted to be was to become a teacher, and so I thought I’ d like to do something to get to the audience of young people to get to know more about the music and The Miracles and Claudette. The name of the book is Claudette’ s Miraculous Motown Adventure. I really enjoyed the experience, number one, of becoming an author, but on top of that going around the country promoting the book and TV studios, all types of schools, many, many schools, and just having a great, great time meeting children because children are definitely my number one love.

Most recently I co-curated an exhibit from my personal archive collection along with my daughter Tamla Robinson and Kemuel Benyehudah which uses pictures, articles, and all types of archival material from my collection that has taken years of collecting. It is now, currently open at the Motown Museum, and the exhibit is called ‘Claudette Robinson – A Motown Her Story.’

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Some of the creative people that I have been inspired by have been Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight and Bruno Mars. Also, one of the fabulous women was, of course, Maya Angelou, who was very inspirational to many, many people and whose ideas I’ve taken into consideration for my own life. Also, Oprah Winfrey, who has a book club, was one of the inspirations for me writing a book.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.claudetterobinson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firstladyofmotown/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFirstLadyOfMotown
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@firstladyofmotown