Smokey Robinson - Christmas Everyday (2017)

Smokey Robinson, in collaboration with Amazon Originals, will release his first-ever solo holiday album, Christmas Everyday, available exclusively on Amazon Music November 10. Christmas Everyday is Motown master Smokey Robinson’s divine 10-song holiday gift to the world, co-produced with Adam Anders (“Glee”). The album consists of three pieces thoughtfully composed by Robinson, along with seven renditions of his personal favorite carols and hymns. Special guests include dynamic vocal sextet Take 6, New Orleans party-starter Trombone Shorty, acclaimed soul revivalists The Dap Kings, and harmonically astounding husband-and-wife team Us The Duo. “I was quite pleased when I was approached about doing a holiday album,” Robinson states. “I love the feeling of Christmas…what I call ‘The Christmas Aura,’ and these are some of my absolute favorite songs. Folks are going to be surprised by some of the arrangements. I’m very happy to share this music with everyone...excited, in fact!” Sessions and brainstorming for Christmas Everyday were done by Robinson and Anders in the latter’s home studio in Los Angeles. “We had a good working relationship and a great time,” Robinson enthuses. “We were both very open to each other’s creativity. I’d give him a song idea and the key I wanted to sing it in, he’d do a treatment and then we’d work side by side to buff it to perfection.” For this album, Robinson shares own take on classics like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” where St. Nick is in the midst of a second line parade or by bringing listeners down to Brazil with a Bossa Nova-inspired version of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” Christmas Everyday also finds Robinson embracing two R&B Christmas classics: “Please Come Home for Christmas” (first written and recorded in 1960 by singer/pianist Charles Brown - a favorite of his mother’s) and “This Christmas” (first composed and recorded in 1970 by singer/keyboardist/arranger Donny Hathaway – a personal acquaintance of Smokey’s). As the leader, lead singer and primary composer for Motown singing group The Miracles, Smokey Robinson recorded two long-cherished previous holiday albums: Christmas with The Miracles (Tamla/Motown -1963) and The Season of Miracles (Tamla/Motown – 1970), the latter highlighted by two songs specially composed by Stevie Wonder. However, Christmas Everyday is a more far-reaching and personal contemporary collection as Robinson’s first-ever solo holiday album. In addition to his updated re-recording of the 1963 title track “Christmas Everyday,” Robinson also composed the reverent spiritual message “The Night That Baby Was Born” and the romantic message song titled, “You’re My Present” – a reminder that possessing true love is far better than any material trinket and a message that Robinson has been conveying in song for nearly six decades. Former Motown Records Vice President William “Smokey” Robinson – inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honoree, National Medal of Arts recipient and a GRAMMY Living Legend - has composed over 4,000 songs: for himself (“Just To See Her,” “Cruising,” “Quiet Storm”), The Miracles (“Ooo Baby Baby,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “The Tears of a Clown”) and other Motown legends including The Temptations (“My Girl”), Marvin Gaye (“Ain’t That Peculiar”) and Mary Wells (“My Guy”). His songs have been covered by artists the world over from England’s The Beatles to California’s Kim Carnes. New Wave band ABC dedicated a song tribute to Robinson in the `80s entitled “When Smokey Sings.” And Bob Dylan has proclaimed him as the “greatest living poet.”