Bob Grabeau was born Robert F. Grabot in Pittsburg, California

Pittsburg, California

Pittsburg is a city located in eastern Contra Costa County, California, the outer portion of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 63,264 at the 2010 census....

. He was a vocalist and Big Band recording artist. He also coached a number of actors in the art of professional singing, these include Kristy McNichol

Kristy McNichol

Christina Ann "Kristy" McNichol is an American actress.McNichol is best known for her roles as Leticia “Buddy” Lawrence on the television drama series Family and as Barbara Weston on the sitcom Empty Nest. She is also the sister of former child actor Jimmy McNichol...

, Scott Baio

Scott Baio

Scott Vincent James Baio is an American actor and television director, best known for his roles as Chachi Arcola on the sitcom Happy Days and its spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi, and as the title character on the sitcom Charles in Charge....

 and Phillip McKeon, during his career.

Biography

His career began at the age of 15 when he was given his own radio show in San Francisco. Jan Garber

Jan Garber

Jan Garber was an American jazz bandleader.-Biography:Garber was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had his own band by the time he was 21 . He became known as "The Idol of the Airwaves" in his heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, playing jazz in the vein of contemporaries such as Paul Whiteman and Guy...

 noticed his talents and offered Bob the position of chief vocalist, which led to a recording contract with the Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 label. Bob toured the country with the Garber orchestra and was in high demand for recording demonstration songs in Hollywood for Johnny Mercer

Johnny Mercer

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...

, Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

 and others. Bob did one such demo for the song "Nature Boy" from the 1948 motion picture The Boy with Green Hair

The Boy with Green Hair

The Boy with Green Hair is a 1948 American comedy-drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after he awakens one morning to find his hair mysteriously turned green...

Bob Grabeau's voice was in the same vein as the voice of Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

 such that when Cole eventually recorded the song many couldn't tell the two singers apart. Bob Grabeau collaborated with film composers Sammy Fain

Sammy Fain

Sammy Fain was an American composer of popular music.-Biography:Sammy Fain was born in New York City. In 1923, Fain appeared with Artie Dunn in a short film directed by Lee De Forest filmed in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. In 1925, Fain left the Fain-Dunn act to devote himself to...

, Alfred Newman

Alfred Newman

Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest...

, Jule Styne

Jule Styne

Jule Styne was a British-born American songwriter especially famous for a series of Broadway musicals, which included several very well known and frequently revived shows.-Early life:...

, Nelson Riddle

Nelson Riddle

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

 and Dimitri Tiomkin

Dimitri Tiomkin

Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...

 on various motion picture projects. On television he was featured on ABC's

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 Music Is My Beat and Strictly Informal.

Other TV work included songs for Beggarman Thief, Kill Me If You Can, and The Last Convertible. In 1995 he took part in a Glenn Miller 50th anniversary concert in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, with ex-members of Glenn Miller bands including the vocalist Beryl Davis. Around this time he was touring with an orchestra led by Bill Tole who led the orchestra at the concert. By 1997, the slowly advancing effects of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

led to the cancellation of Bob's major contribution to a proposed documentary on the Big Band resurgence, titled "The Street of Dreams".

Bob Grabeau died from complications due to Alzheimer's on June 8, 2008 at the Motion Picture Home in Los Angeles County, California.