Bobby Goldsboro

The 1968 chart-topping single “Honey” remains the signature achievement of singer and songwriter Bobby Goldsboro, who was born on January 18, 1941, in Marianna, Florida. During his teenage years he moved to Dothan, Alabama, later enrolling at Auburn University before leaving after his sophomore year to focus entirely on a music career. In the early 1960s he served as guitarist in Roy Orbison’s backing band, then launched his solo career in early 1964, quickly achieving a Top Ten hit with his own composition “See the Funny Little Clown.”

His polished yet emotionally direct vocal approach produced a series of Top 40 singles throughout the mid-1960s, among them “Whenever He Holds You,” “Little Things,” “Voodoo Woman,” “It’s Too Late,” and “Blue Autumn.” Although Goldsboro wrote and recorded most of his own material, he also scored a modest hit with the Burt Bacharach/Hal David novelty “Me Japanese Boy I Love You.” The sentimental narrative of “Honey,” which recounts the untimely death of a young bride, held the number-one position for five weeks during the spring of 1968, reached number two in the United Kingdom shortly afterward, and nearly topped the British charts again upon re-entering in 1975.

Despite that success, Goldsboro managed only two further Top 40 entries in 1968—“Autumn of My Life” and “The Straight Life”—before disappearing from the charts for more than two years. He staged a surprise return in early 1971 when “Watching Scotty Grow” climbed close to the Top Ten, yet after the follow-up “Summer (The First Time)” his period of commercial prominence ended. From 1973 to 1975 he hosted the syndicated variety program The Bobby Goldsboro Show and subsequently established the Nashville publishing company House of Gold Music.

In the mid-1980s Goldsboro stepped away from live performance to create children’s entertainment, producing several audiobooks and television specials; the first of these, Easter Egg Mornin’, debuted on the Disney Channel in 1991. At the same time he composed the score for the CBS sitcom Evening Shade, and in 1995 he introduced the children’s series The Swamp Critters of Lost Lagoon.