Robert John

Best-known as the voice behind the chart-topping 1979 ballad “Sad Eyes,” pop vocalist Robert John actually made his first appearance on the charts two decades earlier, performing doo wop in 1958—an interval that ranks among the longest on record between any performer’s debut and eventual number-one single. Born Robert John Pedrick Jr. in Brooklyn in 1946, he possessed a piercingly high tenor that first reached wax when he was only twelve, cutting sides for Big Top under the name Bobby Pedrick. His initial release, “White Bucks and Saddle Shoes,” entered the charts in 1958, followed early the next year by the similar-sounding “Pajama Party.” Throughout the 1960s he migrated among no fewer than seven different labels, issuing occasional singles that never recaptured his brief initial success. In 1963 he fronted the fleeting ensemble Bobby & the Consoles, and two years later he tried his hand at production, overseeing a little-known folk-pop outing by the Carousel; by 1968 he had adopted the professional name Robert John. Signing with Atlantic in 1971, he quickly scored a Top Ten hit with a freshly arranged version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” confirming that the soaring range of his youth remained intact. No comparable successes followed, however, and the label dropped him. He re-emerged in 1979 on EMI with the album Night Songs; late that year the polished pop ballad “Sad Eyes” climbed all the way to number one. Subsequent releases failed to duplicate that level of popularity, and John returned to his itinerant recording ways, notching one final chart entry in 1983 with a cover of “Bread and Butter” issued by Motown.