AUSTIN ROBERTS

“Austin Roberts”

by Peter Marston

I was raised on AM Top 40 radio and I am very grateful for that. Hearing rock, pop, soul, folk, funk, country, and MOR all on the same station gave me a real appreciation for all types of music. Now, my kids use Bluetooth to stream music over my stereo (yes, integrated amplifiers now have USB and Bluetooth inputs), using apps like Pandora and Spotify not to broaden their musical horizons, but to narrow them—progressively refining their playlist algorithms—and now both of them really only listen to one or two kinds of music. This has resulted in a strange generational reversal in my house. When I was a kid, it was my dad yelling for me to turn that crap off. Now it’s my kids―who generally can’t tolerate anything outside of their musical comfort zones―telling me to turn that crap off. I am pretty sure that this is not what they mean by the sandwich generation.

Of course, one of the great joys of AM radio in those days was the one-hit wonder. I know that there are occasionally one-hit wonders in today’s pop radio formats, but it’s certainly not like it was in the late ’60s and especially the early to mid-’70s. At that time, there would often be five or six one-hit wonders on the charts in any given week. Each year, labels like Ronco and K-Tel would issue three or four albums compiling these one-hit singles, often with ten tracks a side—and that’s a lot of charting pop! One such album was Ronco Presents Sound Explosion (I can tell you, though, with ten tracks on a side, the sound was something short of explosive). I picked up that album at a garage sale some years later primarily because it included a song that I recalled warmly, “Something’s Wrong with Me” by Austin Roberts. Plus it only cost me a quarter.

Though I do have a number of one-hit wonder compilations (including Rhino’s excellent Have a Nice Decade box), I am by nature a curious soul and I often try to track down the album sources as well (how else did I end up with a copy of Alan O’Day’s Appetizers?). Sometimes the albums consist of the hit and nine to eleven tracks of unabashed garbage. Just as often, however, the albums hold other gems and this is definitely the case with Austin Roberts’ self-titled debut, released in 1972 on Chelsea Records.

Roberts had success as both a singer and songwriter before “Something’s Wrong with Me” hit the top 20. Most notably, he was the lead singer in the Buchanan Brothers whose 1969 single “Medicine Man” is a bubblegum classic and, later, in Arkade who hit in 1971 with the MOR mushfest “The Morning of Our Lives.” He wrote songs for The Statler Brothers, The Osmonds, Sonny and Cher, Bill Deal and the Rhondells, and The Partridge Family, among others. It may also be worth noting that he did release a handful of one-off singles on Phillips and ABC prior to entering the studio to record his debut LP, though none of them hit the charts.

The material on Austin Roberts is a mix of country, pop and soul—the type purveyed by artists such as Mac Davis, Joe South, BJ Thomas and Billy Joe Royal. The album is consistently strong, with several songs seeming like they, too, could have been one-hit wonders (though I know that, mathematically, that’s a contradiction in terms). The opening track is “Keep On Singing,” a story song about a father’s support for his son’s music career. It has an emotional pull similar to Clarence Carter’s “Patches” and features a terrific chorus. “Time” is a downtempo ballad with minor key verses alternating with a swelling, even soaring major key chorus, displaying Roberts’ considerable talents as a singer. “There’s a Shadow” follows a similar formula, with a vocal arrangement that strongly recalls The Partridge Family. “Take Away the Sunshine” is a reflective singer-songwriter ballad reminiscent of Albert Hammond—solid, but likely too self-pitying for some tastes. The aforementioned “Something’s Wrong with Me” is the highlight of the record, a gentle yearning ballad of unrequited love—you see, what’s wrong with our protagonist is that he is falling in love with the girl. A great chorus with a halting denouement, it was perfectly pitched to my 13-year-old demographic way back in 1972. “My Song” seeks to replicate this same romantic feel, but is too direct lyrically to be as effective—it is, in fact, a little trite. “I Can Feel It,” the closer, starts off sounding quite a bit like Bread, but when we get to chorus, Roberts again swings for the fences with a huge, dramatic chorus.

It’s worth noting that several songs on Austin Roberts were written by Bobby Hart and Danny Janssen, including “Something’s Wrong with Me.” Given Roberts’ relative success as a songwriter, that strikes me as a little curious, but whoever handled the A&R, they did a first-rate job.

Two singles were released from Austin Roberts: “Something’s Wrong with Me” b/w “My Song” and “Keep On Singing” b/w “Take Away the Sunshine.” The former was a substantial hit, reaching #12 on the Billboard charts, while the latter fared considerably worse, peaking at #50. In 1975, Roberts had another hit, “Rocky,” which got up to #9 (so I suppose technically he wasn’t a one-hit wonder). Roberts went on to further success as a songwriter, teaming up again with Bobby Hart to write “Over You” for the film Tender Mercies and winning a GRAMMY for writing “I.O.U.” for Lee Greenwood. However, he may have gotten his greatest exposure as the lead vocalist on “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?,” the theme song for the classic cartoon show.

Austin Roberts is unavailable on CD or in the legit digital domain. The original vinyl is pretty affordable, though, selling online for about $5-10 and I have run across several copies in the 99-cent bins in my local record stores. If you are a child of the ’70s and come across this one, you gotta pick it up!

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Pop Pioneer and “Lost Treasures” writer, Peter Marston is the leader of long-running power pop band, Shplang, whose most recent album, “My Big Three Wheeler” has been described as “the Beatles meet Zappa in pop-psych Sumo match.”  Peter has a new project in 2015 under the name MARSTON.   Marston have a track on the latest “Power Pop Planet – Volume 5” compilation just out now and available at:  www.PopGeekHeavenStore.com.

CHECK OUT SHPLANG out at this link:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shplang

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LINKS:

Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Roberts_(singer)

Discogs:  https://www.discogs.com/artist/308087-Austin-Roberts

Blog Post:  http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2011/10/super-70s-and-80s-scooby-doo-where-are_07.html

Blog Post:  http://themusicmuseinterview.blogspot.com/2015/06/austin-roberts-talented-survivor.html

VIDEO:

Somethings Wrong Me

Keep On Singing

Daydreamin’ (Scooby Doo Chase Song) (Austin Roberts)