Biography
Born in Detroit in 1940, Frankie Robinson reached the piano keys almost as soon as he could climb onto the bench. Stories claim he produced a recognizable version of “Tuxedo Junction” before turning three. Frankie Carle asserted that he found the youngster in 1945, after which the child prodigy played for President Harry S. Truman at the White House and joined Lionel Hampton’s orchestra for a number of numbers. In 1946 the boy appeared in Charles Martin’s MGM picture No Leave, No Love, cast as the “boy piano player” and performing the title song on screen alongside Van Johnson, Guy Lombardo, Keenan Wynn, and Patricia Kirkwood.
Now promoted as “Sugar Chile” Robinson, he began cutting sides for Capitol in Los Angeles in 1949. His debut date featured bassist Leonard Bibb and drummer Zutty Singleton; “Numbers Boogie” reached number four on Billboard’s R&B chart before year’s end, while “Caldonia” climbed to number fourteen. The youngster quickly became a nationwide attraction, filling theaters from coast to coast. Eight further Capitol titles were recorded with Jimmy Richardson and Red Saunders. Later the same year he traveled with Count Basie and took part in a fifteen-minute film that also included the bandleader’s sextet and Billie Holiday. In one contrived sequence Basie is seated at the piano when Robinson strides in wearing a cowboy hat and holsters, draws cap pistols, orders the Count aside, and demonstrates his ten-year-old prowess at the keyboard. Radio and television appearances followed, along with a London Palladium engagement and a European tour in 1951. The most assured and fully developed sides of his career were made in June 1952, when Robinson, now twelve, added organ and celeste to the arrangements.
His recording activity ceased abruptly after that date. No tape exists of the night in 1954 when he sat in with Gerry Mulligan’s quartet at Chicago’s Blue Note. The reasons for his withdrawal remain undocumented, though one account suggests he helped run Detroit’s Lando label during the 1960s. A later report placed Sugar Chile Robinson back in his hometown shortly after 2000, once again seated at the piano. In 2007 Revola Records assembled every surviving track on the compact disc Go Boy Go!
Now promoted as “Sugar Chile” Robinson, he began cutting sides for Capitol in Los Angeles in 1949. His debut date featured bassist Leonard Bibb and drummer Zutty Singleton; “Numbers Boogie” reached number four on Billboard’s R&B chart before year’s end, while “Caldonia” climbed to number fourteen. The youngster quickly became a nationwide attraction, filling theaters from coast to coast. Eight further Capitol titles were recorded with Jimmy Richardson and Red Saunders. Later the same year he traveled with Count Basie and took part in a fifteen-minute film that also included the bandleader’s sextet and Billie Holiday. In one contrived sequence Basie is seated at the piano when Robinson strides in wearing a cowboy hat and holsters, draws cap pistols, orders the Count aside, and demonstrates his ten-year-old prowess at the keyboard. Radio and television appearances followed, along with a London Palladium engagement and a European tour in 1951. The most assured and fully developed sides of his career were made in June 1952, when Robinson, now twelve, added organ and celeste to the arrangements.
His recording activity ceased abruptly after that date. No tape exists of the night in 1954 when he sat in with Gerry Mulligan’s quartet at Chicago’s Blue Note. The reasons for his withdrawal remain undocumented, though one account suggests he helped run Detroit’s Lando label during the 1960s. A later report placed Sugar Chile Robinson back in his hometown shortly after 2000, once again seated at the piano. In 2007 Revola Records assembled every surviving track on the compact disc Go Boy Go!