Though he has been one of the anchormen of vocal soul music for over twenty years, William "Smokey" Robinson manages to sing with the warmth, sincerity, and emotional involvement of a very young man still anticipating life's greater and yet-untasted pleasures. There is no hint of flagging enthusiasm, no sign that he has lost any of his customary purity of sound or style. Many musical modes have come and gone in the two decades he has been before the public, but he continues to rely on the same effective cool-sweet approach, the essence of "laid back" long before that term came into popular over-use. (pp. 73-4)

"Warm Thoughts" contains eight selections that bear all the familiar characteristics of vintage Smokey even though they are brand new. This appealing blend of the old and the new is, in fact, probably the key to his remarkably evergreen popularity. There is...