Time Flies When You're Having Fun [Digipak]

Performer: Smokey Robinson
Artist: Joss Stone; Carlos Santana; India.Arie
Engineer: Jeffrey Freeman; Anthony Bynum; Gary Gold
Producer: Brian French; Gary Gold; Smokey Robinson
Distributor: n/a

Notes: Personnel: Tariqh Akoni, David T. Walker, Dean DeLeo, Phil Upchurch, Ray Parker, Jr., David E. Williams (guitar); Gary Gold (piano, keyboards, drums, drum programming); David Garfield (piano, keyboards); Ricky Lawson (drums); Luis Conte (percussion); Serena Henry, Karrie Benoit-Morales, Darryl Phinessy, Dorian Holley, Damon Bourne (background vocals). Audio Mixers: Gary Gold; Smokey Robinson. The time that has flown is Smokey's 50 years in the business, but it could just as well refer to the number of years since Robinson has released a smooth soul album: almost 20 full years! Smokey, of course, has stayed active during the interim, both on-stage and on record, but TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN marks a return to the coolly simmering quiet storm that was his stock in trade during the '70s and '80s. Apart from production techniques, not much has changed in Smokey's music during the time off, either: this is still smooth, unhurried soul that vacillates between elegance and supper-club classiness. Of course, since these are two sides of the same coin, they fit together seamlessly, with the only question being whether the immaculately polished music veers toward the corny, but whenever it does, Smokey's impeccably tailored vocals steer it back to toward the sweetly romantic. After all these years, Smokey still makes it all seem easy--so easy that it's puzzling why he hasn't made a record like this in so long, because as this comforting, velvety album proves, nobody does it better than he.

Rolling Stone (p.84) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "He returns here with the smooth 'quiet storm' vibe he invented on his 1975 album of the same name..." Billboard - "[A] mellow vintage-soul disc that finds the Motown maestro in remarkably fine voice as he flexes his signature falsetto over supplies, unhurried live-band arrangements..."

Smokey Robinson is widely regarded as the original poet of R&B. No less an authority than Bob Dylan has publicly proclaimed him as a uniquely gifted lyricist. In Motown's mid-1960s prime, Smokey wrote hits for a number of the label's artists, and with the Miracles he pioneered a sophisticated brand of soul that made use of pop melodicism and his own sophisticated lyrical sensibilities. From the '70s onward, he made consistently substantive solo recordings, focusing on the soft, romantic style typified by his landmark 1975 album, A QUIET STORM.

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