Biography
Born on December 5, 1922, in Peking, China, Donald Irwin Robertson entered the world while his father, O.H. Robertson, served as head of the Department of Medicine at Peking Union Medical College, where the elder Robertson worked as a physician and medical scientist. His mother, Ruth, a gifted pianist as well as a poet and playwright, recognized his early interest in the keyboard and required formal lessons beginning at age four. By seven he was already crafting elementary melodies. After the family returned to the United States, school band requirements forced him to master brass instruments because no piano was available; he performed in the marching ensemble on trombone and tenor horn while continuing to play piano with Chicago-area dance orchestras. Uncertain whether to pursue medicine like his brothers or devote himself to music, he left the University of Chicago and secured a position arranging music at radio station WGN for the Brandt Sisters trio.
Following the war he traveled to Los Angeles as accompanist and arranger for another vocal group, the Dinning Sisters, and married one member, Lou Dinning. With his wife he produced numerous demonstration recordings for publishers and songwriters while also serving as a rehearsal pianist at Capitol Records. Songwriting success arrived through his partnership with Hal Blair around 1953, and the next year Eddy Arnold recorded his composition “I Really Don’t Want to Know.” That same year Hank Snow’s rendition of Robertson’s “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” became a major country-chart hit, and during this period his material was interpreted by a wide range of artists including Faron Young, the Chordettes, Les Paul & Mary Ford, and Elvis Presley, who included “I’m Counting on You” on his 1956 debut album. Presley subsequently invited Robertson to his home one evening; the encounter led to the songwriter providing piano and organ accompaniment for the soundtrack of It Happened at the World’s Fair.
Robertson maintained broad musical interests, absorbing the symphonic recordings in his father’s collection as well as the hymns he had performed in Chicago church choirs. He was also an accomplished whistler, though he once remarked, “I am not proficient at it like some of the whistlers around who can whistle classical scores and bird calls, etc. I just happened to hit on a little tune that caught on.” That tune, “The Happy Whistler,” reached the Top Ten of the singles chart under his own name in 1956. One of 1960’s major successes was his song “Please Help Me I’m Falling,” written with Hal Blair, which later became a country standard. Additional chart-toppers followed in the 1960s: Charley Pride took “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger” to number one on the country charts in 1967, while Lorne Greene’s recording of the cowboy song “Ringo” reached the summit of the pop charts in 1964.
In 1967 Robertson’s name was inscribed on the Walkway of Stars at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, and five years later he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association’s Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. For many years his voice could be heard as that of Gomer the bear, singing and playing piano in the opening number of the Disneyland-Disneyworld Country Bear Jamboree exhibition. During the closing decades of the twentieth century he performed and recorded with Waylon Jennings, Billy Swan (of “I Can Help” fame), Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, and in 2003 EMI released a CD collection of his compositions titled Songs for Elvis/And Then I Wrote Songs for Elvis.
Following the war he traveled to Los Angeles as accompanist and arranger for another vocal group, the Dinning Sisters, and married one member, Lou Dinning. With his wife he produced numerous demonstration recordings for publishers and songwriters while also serving as a rehearsal pianist at Capitol Records. Songwriting success arrived through his partnership with Hal Blair around 1953, and the next year Eddy Arnold recorded his composition “I Really Don’t Want to Know.” That same year Hank Snow’s rendition of Robertson’s “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” became a major country-chart hit, and during this period his material was interpreted by a wide range of artists including Faron Young, the Chordettes, Les Paul & Mary Ford, and Elvis Presley, who included “I’m Counting on You” on his 1956 debut album. Presley subsequently invited Robertson to his home one evening; the encounter led to the songwriter providing piano and organ accompaniment for the soundtrack of It Happened at the World’s Fair.
Robertson maintained broad musical interests, absorbing the symphonic recordings in his father’s collection as well as the hymns he had performed in Chicago church choirs. He was also an accomplished whistler, though he once remarked, “I am not proficient at it like some of the whistlers around who can whistle classical scores and bird calls, etc. I just happened to hit on a little tune that caught on.” That tune, “The Happy Whistler,” reached the Top Ten of the singles chart under his own name in 1956. One of 1960’s major successes was his song “Please Help Me I’m Falling,” written with Hal Blair, which later became a country standard. Additional chart-toppers followed in the 1960s: Charley Pride took “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger” to number one on the country charts in 1967, while Lorne Greene’s recording of the cowboy song “Ringo” reached the summit of the pop charts in 1964.
In 1967 Robertson’s name was inscribed on the Walkway of Stars at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, and five years later he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association’s Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. For many years his voice could be heard as that of Gomer the bear, singing and playing piano in the opening number of the Disneyland-Disneyworld Country Bear Jamboree exhibition. During the closing decades of the twentieth century he performed and recorded with Waylon Jennings, Billy Swan (of “I Can Help” fame), Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, and in 2003 EMI released a CD collection of his compositions titled Songs for Elvis/And Then I Wrote Songs for Elvis.
Albums
