Robert John (born January 3, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter with a terrific falsetto voice perhaps best known for his 1979 hit single, "Sad Eyes", which reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Born Robert John pedrick Jr.in Brooklyn, New York City, United States and at a young age started vocalizing in street corner doo-wop groups. By the age of 10 he sang at the Carnegie Hall. He had his first charted hit in 1958 at the age of 12, while recording under the name of Bobby Pedrick with White Bucks and Saddle Shoes which was written by the Hall of Fame writer Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. They succeeded in getting Robert a place on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. It would be Roberts first of three American Bandstand appearances.
When his father died he quit school and went to work as production manager for trade magazines. By 1963 he was the lead singer on "My Jelly Bean," a regional New York hit by Bobby and the Consoles. He recorded for the Big Top and Verve labels, but national success eluded him. By 1965, he had changed his name and signed with MGM Records for two ill-fated singles.
In 1967 he began to write songs with a partner, Mike Gately, and they were signed to a publishing company owned by Stan Catron and Lou Stallman. A Columbia Records staff producer, Dave Robinson, liked their writing and John's voice on demos, and recorded "If You Don't Want My Love" (number 49 in June, 1968). An album followed, and the John-Gately team had their songs recorded by Lou Rawls, Bobby Vinton and Blood, Sweat and Tears.
John met producer George Tobin, who was a fan of "If You Don't Want My Love. He recorded ‘Raindrops, Love and Sunshine’ in 1970, featuring his powerful (nearly ear-shattering) falsetto. They collaborated on some singles for A&M that weren't hits and parted ways. In 1971 John recorded a cover of the Tokens' number one single "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," produced by original Token Hank Medress. John was not enthusiastic about recording the song, but he couldn't afford to be too picky. Released on Atlantic Records, the song spent three weeks at number three in March, 1972. "Even after 'Lion... the company didn't have enough faith to let me do an album. I decided that if that's what happens after a number one song, then I just wasn't going to sing anymore," John told Steve Pond in Rolling Stone.
In 1978, Tobin called John from California. "I had him come out and he lived in my house," Tobin recalls. "He was actually a labourer in New Jersey at the time, carrying bricks on a construction job. I was looking for material for him and I heard a song called 'My Angel Baby' (by Toby Beau) and said, 'That's the kind of song Robert should be doing.' So we used that as a frame of reference. Robert wrote 'Sad Eyes' and rewrote it for about three months. Every time he'd write it I'd go, 'Nah, change this and change that.' We recorded another song first and it was bought by Ariola. Then we got dropped.”
But as luck would have it ,the president of EMI heard one of the Ariola records on a juke box in Florida and contacted Tobin to see about Robert's availability resulting in the No. 1 single “Sad Eyes” in 1979 . In 1980, John remade the song "Hey There Lonely Girl," a number two hit for Eddie Holman. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 23 and peaked at number thirty-one. During that decade we find John recording for Arista Records with collaborator and guitarist Bobby Mancari and keyboardist Steve Butera. A newly recorded version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was released on his 1992 greatest hits album.
John, who had not performed often in concerts during the last few decades, received a chance to appear in his hometown of New York as part of a "70s Reunion Concert" produced by radio station WPLJ-FM on March 24, 1995. Among the acts who took the stage at the sold-out concert were Three Dog Night, Rupert Holmes, Looking Glass featuring Elliot Lurie, Andrew Gold, Alan O'Day, Ian Lloyd (lead singer of Stories), Sonny Geraci (lead singer of the Outsiders and Climax) and John.
Since then he has seemed to have stayed out of the public eye. It was in a recent article by DJ Big Joe Henry for Radio New Jersey 101.5 that it was reported that recently John has been suffering with undisclosed medical conditions that require special care.
Though the commercial returns on Robert John’s career as a singer could best be defined as sporadic at best, it’s worth pointing out that a relative few artists have the distinction of having scored U.S. Top 100 hits across four separate decades, and even fewer reach the summit of the charts along the way.