MUSIC REVIEW : Smokey Can Still Pull Out All the Stops

You cut slack for music legends; you approach a concert by a 51-year-old superstar with a longer yardstick than the one used to measure the performance of a young brave who’s got something to prove. This is not so much a suspension of standards as it is an adjustment of tolerance for the shticky stuff in which revered entertainers indulge once their concerts become sloshy love fests.

Padded with that qualification, it was possible to leave Smokey Robinson’s concert at Humphrey’s on Wednesday night feeling fulfilled, even though at times during his 80-minute performance the Motown immortal had tested the limits of schmoozability. In the first of two sold-out shows, Robinson gave an audience of 1,200 much of what it wanted, and in one instance seemed to catch the assemblage by surprise. In the process, he demonstrated that both his half-century-old pipes and his enthusiasm for some golden, long-in-tooth material have withstood the years.

Fifteen minutes past the appointed hour of 7 p.m., musical director Sonny Burke conducted the stage band--Robinson’s eight- piece ensemble, plus a string section culled from local symphony players--in a lively “overture” of the hits Robinson has enjoyed both as leader of the Miracles and more recently as a solo act. Robinson finally strode onstage singing his 1967 hit, “More Love,” and the well-dressed, predominantly white crowd erupted in an ovation.

“More Love” established a pattern that would carry throughout the show. Drummer Tony Lewis gave it a slower, funkier reading than on the recording, and the tune was trimmed to about 60% of its original length. Presented with the challenge of squeezing the prolific Robinson’s catalogue into a single program, such foreshortening could be attributed to pragmatism rather than medley-itis.

Basking in adulation, Robinson wasted little time cementing the rapport. “This is your show,” he instructed the audience, “and we’re going to do whatever songs you want to hear.” Names of favorite songs were shouted out, and from the din Robinson plucked an oldie and set up the dramatic context: “The year--nineteen-sixty . . . never mind that! The place--Motown rehearsal studios. The man--(songwriter) Lamont Dozier. ‘Lamont, what’s that song you’re playin’? Hey, can we try that?’ ”

The pantomime evolved into the Miracles’ 1963 hit, “Mickey’s Monkey,” which was followed closely by 1970’s “Tears of a Clown.” Between songs, Robinson played the good-natured tease, messin’ with the audience and generally keeping things light and breezy. But the tone of the concert changed abruptly with the song, “Ooh Baby Baby.”

Finding a deeper shade of blue than was evident in the 1965 recording of the ballad, Robinson ditched the showman guise, shut his eyes as if to retreat to some private soul chamber and invested his reading with raw, almost palpable emotion that stripped decades from the venerable lament. It was the first of several genuine high points in the set, moments when Robinson seemed able to draw upon the very wellspring of feeling that had produced so many great hits over the years.

Another such moment came after a solid but abbreviated version of “My Girl” (a 1965 Temptations hit written by Robinson) and an unfortunate dredging up of “We’ve Saved the Best for Last”--Robinson’s recorded duet with the ludicrously overrated mush-jazz saxophonist, Kenny G.

“When I was a kid,” said Robinson by way of introducing one of the few songs he didn’t write, “I was always listening to my mom’s and my older sister’s 78s--to people like Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole. And I always wanted to know who wrote the songs these people sang. Now, every night we play a tribute to the people who wrote what we call the standards.”

On this occasion, the selection was a mite peculiar, but Robinson made it work. The tepid response to the introduction of “Speak Low”--an Ogden Nash-Kurt Weill tune from the 1943 musical, “One Touch of Venus”--indicated a lack of recognition of the relatively obscure ballad. But Robinson’s powerful interpretation evidenced his perhaps underappreciated vocal chops and elicited loud, sustained applause that was well-deserved.

After a quick, crowd-pleasing run-through of his hit, “One Heartbeat at a Time,” Robinson introduced guitarist and longtime collaborator Marvin Tarplin, whose playing was so integral to the Miracles’ sound during the ‘60s that he occasionally posed with them on album covers. Accompanied only by Tarplin playing finger-style on a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar (drummer Lewis supplied well-placed pings on the triangle), Robinson eased into a hushed version of the duo’s 1965 co-penning, “The Tracks of My Tears.”

As elsewhere throughout the concert, Robinson’s voice sounded a little chaffed in the mid-range, but he was able to “sing over” his hoarseness to nail notes in the upper register. His trademark falsetto, meanwhile, was gloriously intact, as witnessed by his pinpoint delicacy on “Tracks.” The other musicians joined Robinson and Tarplin after a couple of verses, and the crescendoing passion of Robinson’s acrobatic vocal led them to a dramatic finish that brought the audience to its feet.

After that, a sing-along rendition of Robinson’s 1987 hit, “Just to See Her” (he didn’t write it) and a teasing encore with a snippet of 1966’s “Going to a Go-Go” seemed anticlimactic.

If one were allowed to place an order for a Robinson concert, one would omit, or at least limit, the audience participation sing-alongs, the protracted kibitzing about song requests, the mock-striptease performed during the saxophone solo, and most of the other stage antics better left in a Vegas lounge. Not only is such “showmanship” too corny for one of Robinson’s hip pedigree, it also steals precious time from material that people pay to hear (“Cruisin’,” “Being with You”).

It’s a tribute to the man’s talent and charisma that he could so indulge and still leave one feeling oddly satisfied.