Bobby Russell born 19 April 1940

Bobby Russell (April 19, 1940 – November 19, 1992) was an American singer and songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he had five singles on the Hot Country Songs charts, including the crossover pop hit "Saturday Morning Confusion". Russell was married to singer and actress Vicki Lawrence from 1972 to 1974.

Robert L. Russell was born in Nashville Tennessee. There's not much information regarding his early years but he was raised in the days when the Tennessee capital was taking steps towards becoming Music City. His roots and leanings were in country but he would wisely lend his composing talents which were very adaptable to the pop market in the 1960s. He first hit the nation’s Hot 100 with a rather obscure song by Jan and Dean, “Tennessee” but it would take four years for Russell to enter the Top 20 which he did with a song recorded by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, “Sure Gonna Miss Her”.

                                 

 Russell's best-known songs were lyric-heavy, with lines that seem artfully torn from conversation. Two of those songs ruled the radio in 1968, the year Bobby Goldsboro had a five-week pop #1 and three-week country #1 with "Honey." The hit song inspired numerous cover versions, as did another Russell-penned hit, "Little Green Apples."

"Little Green Apples", won the Song of the Year Grammy Award in 1968. It was originally recorded and released by Roger Miller, who had the first Top 40 hit with the song. It was also a hit for O.C. Smith and Patti Page in the US in 1968. The song was a particular favourite of Frank Sinatra. Russell also wrote the song "Honey", which was a hit for Bobby Goldsboro in 1968, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Russell wrote the ballad "Do You Know Who I Am", which was recorded by Elvis Presley during his 1969 Memphis sessions. Russell penned "The Joker Went Wild", a Billboard Top 40 hit for Brian Hyland in 1966. Russell also wrote "Anabell of Mobile" for Nancy Sinatra. The Russell composition "Camp Werthahekahwee", an ode to summer camps sung by a father to his son, appeared on a 1986 album by Ray Stevens. The name of the camp is pronounced "where the heck are we?"

Bobby with Vicki Lawrence

Russell had modest success as a solo recording artist, reaching the pop Top 40 with a whimsical look at domesticity called "1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero," and again with another glimpse of suburbia called "Saturday Morning Confusion," a top 25 country hit and No. 28 pop hit in the early fall of 1971.The song was a first-person account of a family man suffering from a hangover and trying to find peace and quiet to sleep it off, but constantly being henpecked by the kids, wife and neighbours. But his next indelible hit would come in 1972 when his actress wife, Vicki Lawrence, recorded "The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia," a pulsing tale of Southern injustice. Lawrence sang the demo of the song in hopes of placing it with another artist, but Cher and others turned it down. Lawrence went on to record a studio-polished version, and it became another cross-format hit. Also penned and sung by Russell was 1974's "Go Chase Your Rainbow", his highest-charting entry in Australia.

Other songs that Russell recorded were "Better Homes and Gardens", "1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero", "For a While We Helped Each Other Out", "Our Love Will Rise Again", "How You Gonna Stand It", and "Mid American Manufacturing Tycoon". He also wrote and recorded "Summer Sweet" for the Disney live-action Rascal in 1969 and wrote and sang the title song "As Far as I'm Concerned" over the opening credits of The Grasshopper. He continued writing songs throughout the '80.

Russell died in Nicholasville, Kentucky, of coronary artery disease on November 19, 1992. He was 52 years old. He was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Nashville Songwriters Foundation)