B. A. Robertson

Brian Alexander Robertson (born 12 September 1956) is a Scottish musician, composer and songwriter. He had a string of hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s characterised by catchy pop tunes and jaunty humorous lyrics, including " Knocked It Off", "To Be or Not to Be" and "Bang Bang", a tongue-in-cheek commentary on famous historical and fictional couples. He wrote with Mike Rutherford of Genesis the Grammy-nominated and Ivor Novello Award-winning "The Living Years". It was a number one hit in the US, Canada, Australia and Ireland and reached number 2 in his native UK. He has also written music for films and been a television presenter.

Early life

Born in Glasgow, Robertson was educated at the former Allan Glen's School, Glasgow, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

Career

He released his debut album ''Wringing Applause'', recorded with Terry Manning, on the Ardent Records label (also home of Big Star) in 1973, but it was to be a further six years until he found success in the United Kingdom chart.

Robertson had hits between 1979 and 1981 in the UK Singles Chart, the first of which – "Bang Bang" – reached number 2 in August 1979. Follow-up singles "Knocked It Off", "Kool in the Kaftan" and "To Be or Not to Be" reached chart positions 8, 17 and 9 respectively. All the singles came from his third album ''Initial Success'', which reached number 32 in the UK Albums Chart. In 1981 he had his last top 40 hit under his own name (to date) performing a duet with Maggie Bell, of a cover version of " Hold Me" which reached number 11.

He co-wrote the hit songs " Carrie" and " Wired for Sound" for Cliff Richard and seven of the 12 songs on Richard's '' Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile'' (1979) album. Robertson wrote and sang the theme music to the television series '' Maggie'' and ''Multi-Coloured Swap Shop'' ("Hello, Hello"), and wrote and sang backing vocals for the ''Swap Shop'' spin-off group Brown Sauce's UK top 20 hit, "I Wanna Be a Winner". In 1982, Robertson composed "Down at the Superstore", the theme to the BBC1 children's television series ''Saturday Superstore''. It was released as a single by The Assistants, a supergroup featuring Robertson, Dave Edmunds, Cheryl Baker, Junior and Suzi Quatro.

Robertson was a guest presenter on ''Top of the Pops'' on 28 August 1980, alongside then-BBC Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. In October 1980, Robertson appeared as a guest on the BBC Television chat show '' Friday Night, Saturday Morning''. In the sixth and final series of the same show, Robertson appeared on one programme (January 1982) as the show's host. In February 1981 Robertson appeared playing live in concert on the BBC
...