Peabo Bryson

Born Robert Bryson, Peabo Bryson's love of music mostly stemmed from his mother, who gave Bryson the best education in music she could when she would regularly take her family to concerts by some of the best R&B and soul singers of the age. Schooled by seeing the likes of Sam Cooke and Billie Holiday perform live, Bryson made his live debut at the tender age of 14, and by 16, he had left home to tour the chitlin' circuit as a backing singer for Moses Dillard and the Tex-Town Display. While he was singing with that band, they secured a recording session at Atlanta's Band Records and while the band themselves didn't impress the label's head, Eddie Biscoe, he was very taken with Bryson's voice. He signed Bryson to Bang as a writer, producer and arranger, while also encouraging Bryson to work on his own solo material. After working with the label for several years, Bryson made his debut in 1976 with his debut album “Peabo”.

The album didn't exactly set the charts alight but it did secure him a record deal with Capitol Records, and his next three albums, “Reaching For The Sky”, “Crosswinds” and “We're The Best Of Friends” did respectable business on the charts and were all certified Gold soon after release. As the 80's dawned, Bryson became best known for his duets, most notably with Roberta Flack, with whom he had his first top twenty hit on the Billboard charts in the form of 1983's “Tonight I Celebrate My Love”. A year later, he had his only solo top ten hit in the form of “If You're Ever In My Arms Again”. The 90's were even kinder to him due to The Walt Disney Company tapping him to record the lead singles to their animated films, leading to huge hits and even a Grammy award for “Beauty And The Beast”, which he sung with the iconic Celine Dion. Bryson tours to this very day, and continues to give ballad singer the world over a very good name. For that, he comes highly recommended.