Richard Joseph Robertson (July 3, 1900 – July 12, 1979) was an American popular

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

singer and

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

of the 1930s and 1940s. He sang for many bandleaders such as Leo Reisman and Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra, and was on the artist roster at Banner Records. Robertson was one of the most prolific New York based vocalists (along with

Irving Kaufman Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a United States federal judge, United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States Distri ...

, Chick Bullock, Scrappy Lambert, Elmer Feldkamp, Paul Small and Smith Ballew) on scores of records from late 1928 through the mid 1930s. A series of records issued on Melotone/Perfect/Banner/Oriole/Romeo, Crown, Bluebird from 1930-1934 were issued under his name or are listed in the 2010 edition of ''"American Dance Bands on Record and Film (1915-1942)"'' by Richard J. Johnson and Bernard H. Shirley as being under his nominal leadership. His last recording session as a singer was in 1949. He also used the pseudonym Bob Richardson for some recordings on Mayfair Records. As a songwriter his biggest hit was " We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)" in 1940.Warren W. Vaché The unsung songwriters: America's masters of melodies 2000 p403 "Anybody who bought popular records during the thirties and forties would be familiar with his voice. Besides performing as a vocalist, Robertson also doubled as a songwriter, collaborating on a number of very respectable entries in the popular field. His biggest hit was the wistful ballad We Three (My Echo, My Shadow, and Me), a 1940 " The Sinatra version of the song was re-released on '' The Song Is You (album)'' and again on '' Frank Sinatra & the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra''. Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol. 1

As songwriter

* " I'd Do It All Over Again", 1945, co-written with

Frank Weldon Frank Weldon (Lawrence, Massachusetts, -1970) was an American songwriter. He wrote, or co-wrote, many popular songs of the 1930s and 1940s.Don Tyler ''Hit songs, 1900-1955: American popular music of the pre-rock era'' 2007 "Frank Weldon - Frank We ...

and James Cavanaugh.

As singer

* " Singin' in the Bathtub", 1929 * "Lazy Day", 1932 * "Lovable", 1932 * "If I Ever Get a Job Again", 1933 ith Gene Kardos and His Orchestra* " All I Do Is Dream of You", 1934 * " She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor", 1940 - banned by the BBC * " Any Bonds Today?", 1940 * " Ferryboat Serenade", 1941 - Number 1 in Australia * " My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time", 1945

References

External links

Dick Robertson recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1941 Dick Robertson-Under The Mistletoe
Songwriters from New York (state) 1903 births 1979 deaths 20th-century American singers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male singers American male songwriters 20th-century American songwriters {{US-songwriter-stub