Vicki Sue Robinson
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Vicki Sue Robinson (May 31, 1954 - April 27, 2000) was a US singer, most closely associated with the disco era of late 1970s pop music.
Born in Harlem, New York to professional singers, Robinson was encouraged from childhood to pursue a career in showbusiness, and at the age of 16 joined the Broadway cast of the musical Hair. Her success led her to join the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Her debut album in 1977 titled "Never Gonna Let You Go", provided her with the biggest hit of her career, the disco single "Turn The Beat Around". This song reached the US Top 10, spent six months on the chart, and earned her a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Further singles failed to achieve this success, however she continued to work as a singer and established a career singing jingles for television advertising.
In 1981 her disco cover version of the Lulu hit, "To Sir With Love", reached the Top 5 in Australia, and in 1997 she achieved her only hit single in the United Kingdom with the track "House Of Joy".
Robinson gained some publicity from the success of Gloria Estefan's 1994 version of "Turn The Beat Around". A resurgence of interest in disco music in the late 1990s led Robinson, along with fellow veterans K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Thelma Houston, Gloria Gaynor and the Village People to embark on a well received world tour.
Upon returning to the US, Robinson began performing in an Off-Broadway musical titled "Behind The Beat" which was semi-autobiographical in nature, and featured her hit songs, along with her best known jingles. In April of 1999 she was forced to withdraw from the show due to ill health, and died from cancer in Wilton, Connecticut. Her record company, RCA Records released a "Greatest Hits" album a few months after her death.