From a Wall Street Journal story by Alan Paul headlined “Smokey Robinson Helped Create the Sound of Motown”:

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Motown Records helped to define a golden age of American music, as rhythm and blues and rock and roll became the world’s dominant pop genres. Smokey Robinson played a double role in creating the Detroit-based label’s remarkable stream of hits. In addition to writing and recording songs like “Tears of a Clown,” “Kathy’s Clown” and “I Second That Emotion” as the frontman of The Miracles, he was also a vice president at the label, working as a producer and talent scout and composing songs for others, like the indelible “My Girl,” performed by The Temptations.