Dig That Beat! by Sheree Homer

Author:Sheree Homer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2015-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Robin Luke

In the summer of 1958, Robin Luke’s song “Susie Darlin’” peaked at number five on the Billboard charts. His popularity soared. Soon after, he appeared on American Bandstand and headlined tours with Fabian, Frankie Avalon, and Bobby Rydell. In August 1958, he was a featured guest on The Perry Como Show, where he sang “You Can’t Stop Me from Dreaming.” Luke had several more releases on Dot Records, but none of them were successful. On January 1, 2011, he retired after twenty-six years of chairing the marketing department at Missouri State University in Springfield. Today, he participates in oldies package shows. Luke commented, “I was never going to pursue [returning to music] while I was at the college with a full-time job.”4

Robert Luke, Jr. was born on March 20, 1942, in Los Angeles, California. Since birth, he was called Robin, a nickname which was given to him by his mother: “She was born in Belfast, Ireland. There are many men who are named Robin there. My dad’s nickname was Bob, so I became Robin.”5 Luke’s mother was musically inclined, with the ability to play both violin and clarinet. He recalled, “She had me listen to music and bought me little Golden books with records that she let me play on the record player.” Luke acknowledged, “My father worked for Douglas Aircraft as a service representative. We moved many, many times, and I was in many different schools before I ever entered high school. Between 1948 and 1953, I lived in College Park, Georgia because my dad went to work for the Atlanta airport. I listened to the radio, which played country and western. Before my folks would ever get into a house, they’d usually stay in a hotel for a period of weeks. We were fortunate to stay in the number one hotel, the Henry Grady Hotel, in Atlanta. They had a supper club in the hotel, and my parents and I ate there almost every night. They also had a stage where people would perform, [and one of the acts was Eddy Arnold and His Tennessee Plowboys]. I was about five years old, and my parents told me I was just totally in a trance, watching him play his guitar and sing songs like ‘Bouquet of Roses’ and ‘Molly Darling.’ The waiters allowed me to go backstage and watch from the side every night. [In two months, Luke saw Arnold fifty times.] My parents said that he would come over and talk and let me touch his guitar. He was kind.”

Luke immediately was attracted to music. Shortly after seeing Arnold in concert, Luke’s mother decided he should play a musical instrument. He remembered, “A piano was out of the question and a trumpet was a little loud in the hotels, so she decided upon a guitar. For Christmas, she had bought me a plastic Arthur Godfrey model ukulele, and within three months I had learned all the songs from the Little Golden Book plastic records. For some reason, I had also learned how to play proper chords without instruction.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.