Rockie Robbins is a talented singer who had a relatively short string of hits in the ’70s and early ’80s, but whose impact has remained long after he stopped actively recording.
Robbins made a bit of a splash in 1979 with his Johnny Pate-produced debut album on A&M Records. While the album had only a moderate sales, it set the stage for his follow up, You and Me, the title track of which hit the top 10 on the R&B charts and took the disc into the top 20. Robbins’ third album, I Believe in Love, teamed him with popular producer Skip Skarborough, but didn’t match the success of its predecessor, though the title track took him aback into the top 30.
Robbins switched from A&M Records to MCA in 1985 and quietly issued his second self-titled album, which landed him his final major US charter with “We Belong Together.” In 2010, after a long time out of print, You and I and I Believe in Love were both reissued by the European-based Vinyl-Masterpiece label.
While many thought Robbins’ recording career was over, he surprised fans in 2019 by issuing his first new album in a quarter century, with Good Life on the Expansion Records label. We were proud to feature the single “Let Me Be The One,” which showed Robbins to be in fine voice years after we had last heard him. And the remix of “Good Life/Let’s Groove” show all the way to #1 on the UK Soul Chart, providing a wonderful final note (so far) to Robbins’ recording career.
Chris Rizik
