ROBERT JOHN

b. Robert John Pedrick Jnr., 1946, Brooklyn, New York, USA. In 1958, when he was aged 12, Bobby Pedrick (as he was named on record then) charted with his debut “White Bucks And Saddle Shoes”. He recorded without success on Shell in 1960 and Duel in 1962 and fronted Bobby And The Consoles on Diamond a year later. As a soloist again, this high tenor recorded on MGM in 1965 and on their Verve subsidiary in 1966. After a name change to Robert John he hit the Hot 100 in 1968 on Columbia and 1970 on AM. His first big success was a falsetto revival of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (produced by a member of the Tokens whose original of the song also reached the charts), which made number 3 in the US charts in 1972 on Atlantic. Yet again he had a period of little activity until 1979 when he scored his biggest success with his own composition “Sad Eyes” on EMI. The record spent six months in the US chart reaching number 1 and was also his only UK Top 40 entry. After a couple of lower chart records, he moved to Motown and was last in the Top 100 with a revival of “Bread And Butter” in 1983, stretching his span of hits to 25 years.

Discography: Robert John (EMI 1979)****.