The rise for Robert John's first No. 1 song was a long one. First, it was 20 years between his first chart single and the one that got him to the top. And then when he got there, it took him a record-amount of time for being slow.
Robert John was born Robert John Pedrick Jr. in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1946, but at the age of 12 years old, he made his first musical impact with a song called "White Bucks And Saddle Shoes," written by the recognizable pair of Mort Shuman and Doc Pumus. In 1958, the song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked No. 79, billed as Bobby Pedrick Jr.
Unfortunately, nothing else came out of his young career and in 1965, 19-year-old Bobby Pedrick made a career decision -- he decided to go by his first and middle name from that point on.
Great idea, but no positive results. In 1968, "If You Don't Want My Love" missed hitting the Top 40, peaking at No. 49. Two years later, John hit No. 71 with "When The Party Is Over."
John was starting to wonder what he needed to do to have that breakthrough single he chased for over a decade. He had started with Diamond Records, then moved on to MGM Records, then to Columbia Records. From there, it was on to Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss and A&M Records, then to Atlantic Records.
It was there in late 1971, John recorded a song that was first a No. 1 hit for the Tokens in 1961 called "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The song found another favorable audience and in March 1972, not only did the song hit the Top 40, but would peak at No. 3. John was on the Top 40 for the first time and the 26-year-old was finally enjoying the success he long chased.
But just when he was ready to take his career to the next level, the follow-up, a remake of the 1950s classic "Hushabye," was an absolute flop, peaking at No. 99.
Atlantic let John go and the once-promising star wandered around in obscurity for the next few years, looking for a record label, while doing small clubs, waiting for another chance. Meanwhile, John took on a job as a laborer in New Jersey, carrying books on a construction job.
His chance came in late 1978 when EMI Records signed him to a deal. He went into the studio with producer George Tobin to record his self-titled debut on the record label. It was during that time that a song on the radio was playing constantly by a group called Toby Beau. It was a Top 15 hit called "My Angel Baby." Tobin reportedly loved the song and insisted that John pursue a song similar to the sound of that hit single.
John would take three months to write what would be the composition called "Sad Eyes," re-writing it constantly. As Tobin would say later in an interview, "Every time he'd go write it, I'd go, 'Nah, change this and this.'" Finally, when Tobin said, "Yeah, let's go with it," Tobin brought in a group of stars into the session.
There was the legendary Hal Blaine, who didn't have to do a whole lot of drumming, but is heard on the drums. There's keyboardist Stewart Levine, who was a well-known producer, producing the No. 1 hit "Grazing In The Grass" for Hugh Masakela in 1968 and the Academy Award-winning "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes in 1982 from the movie An Officer And A Gentleman.
The great Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love of the Crystals and later the Lethal Weapon movies and her annual Christmas visit to perform "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on The Late Show With David Letterman was placed on backing vocals along with Tobin himself and Edna Wright. And guitarist-vocalist Mike Piccirillo, Tobin's right-hand man in the studio who would help Tobin produce on big hits like Kim Carnes' "More Love" and Smokey Robinson's "Being With You," is also an engineer on this one.
This beautiful ballad made its Hot 100 debut on May 19, 1979, at No. 85. Thus began the slow rise toward the Top 40. On June 30, 1979, the song made its Top 40 debut at No. 38. And just as the hit made it there, the pedestrian crawl of climbing the chart began. "Sad Eyes" went from No. 38 to No. 36 to No. 34 to No. 32 until the week of July 28, 1979, when it leaped nine places to No. 23.
Finally, momentum! One week later, "Sad Eyes" leaped seven more places to No. 16. Three weeks later, "Sad Eyes" jumped two places from No. 12 to No. 10 in the song's 15th week on the Hot 100.
But "Sad Eyes" wasn't done climbing. August turned to September, and "Sad Eyes" continued to move. It moved up from No. 10 to No. 8 to No. 7 and No. 6. But for the week of September 22, 1979, it held at No. 6 for the second week. It looked as if the run of "Sad Eyes" had come to its teary-eyed ending right there just outside of the Top 5.
However, the music business can be a funny thing. And on the week of September 29, imagine the surprise of all chart watchers when "Sad Eyes" got an extra bit of zoom, leaping four places from No. 6 to No. 2.
One more notch to go. And on October 6, 1979, 14 weeks after it debuted in the Top 40, "Sad Eyes" knocked The Knack's "My Sharona" out of the top spot after it spent six weeks at No. 1. As a matter of fact and to put emphasis on how slow a climb "Sad Eyes" took, both Chic's "Good Times" and "My Sharona" debuted within the Top 40 after "Sad Eyes" had debuted there and went to No. 1 before "Sad Eyes" reached the top. Numerous songs passed "Sad Eyes" up the Top 40, but yet, they didn't get to the No. 1 spot.
John had his second breakthrough hit and his first No. 1 hit, 20 years and 11 months after making that debut when he was 12 years old. That length of time between his first chart single in late 1958 and "Sad Eyes" was the longest amount of time an artist waited to have a No. 1 hit and would last for less than five years before Tina Turner blasted through that with a 25-year wait from her first single with then-husband Ike until "What's Love Got To Do With It" in September 1984. And "Sad Eyes" tied Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In The City" as the slowest-running song to get to No. 1 at 21 weeks, a record both songs held until Vangelis' "Chariots Of Fire" theme took 22 weeks on the Hot 100 to get to the top on May 8, 1982.
It looked as if the comeback story would be nicer for John this time around. However, "Lonely Eyes," the follow-up single, barely missed hitting the Top 40, peaking at No. 41 in late 1979. But another remake, this time of Eddie Holman's big No. 2 hit from 1970, "Hey There Lonely Girl," would make the Top 40 in the fall of 1980, peaking at No. 31.
Two more singles, though, would miss the Top 40 and John's career as a productive singer on the charts was all but over. In 1992, he re-recorded his big Top 5 hit from 1972, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," for his greatest hits package. Not much is known of what Robert John is up to these days.
Still, "Sad Eyes" lives on as the song that made the man born Robert John Pedrick Jr. a star with a No. 1 hit. And that made the 20 years of waiting -- and the 21 weeks of climbing with that No. 1 song -- all worth it.
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