Smokey Robinson speaks highly of Stevie Wonder. As he said to VLAD TV, he always told other people that Wonder may be blind, but he was never handicapped. Wonder wasn’t born blind, but his mother gave birth to him six weeks early, and he had to be incubated. Too much oxygen in the incubator caused him to have retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), which caused his blindness. However, as reported by Smooth Radio, that didn’t stop him from pursuing his musical interests, and he learned how to play several instruments, such as the piano, harmonica, and drums, before the age of 10.
Wonder is also a songwriter, and together with producer Henry “Hank” Cosby, he wrote the track for the song “The Tears of a Clown,” but the former couldn’t pen the lyrics to go with it. He brought the recording at a Christmas party at Motown and played it for Robinson to get his help with the words. Robinson immediately thought of a circus when he heard the tune, and that’s how he came up with the words to go with it. “I was trying to think of something that would be significant, that would touch people’s hearts, but still be dealing with the circus,” he said, per Society of Rock. The subject of the song is a clown, who after making everyone in the crowd happy cries alone, as he is sad. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles recorded the song and included it in their 1967 album “Make It Happen.” The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
