Bobby Scott was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, and songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

.

Biography

He was born Robert William Scott in Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant, New York

Mount Pleasant is a town in Westchester County, New York, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 43,724.-Geography:...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and became a pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, vibraphonist

Vibraphone

The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

, and singer, and could also play the accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, and double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

. He studied under Edvard Moritz at the La Follette School of Music at the age of eight, and was working professionally at 11. In 1952 he began touring with Louis Prima

Louis Prima

Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...

, and also performed with Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

 and Tony Scott

Tony Scott

Anthony D. L. "Tony" Scott is an English film director. His films include Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable...

 in the 1950s. In 1956 he hit the U.S. Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 with the song "Chain Gang", peaking at #13. (This was not the same song as Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...

's "Chain Gang

Chain Gang (song)

"Chain Gang" is the name of a song written and recorded by Sam Cooke. When released as a single in 1960, the song performed very well, reaching #2 in the United States pop and R&B charts, and #9 in the United Kingdom....

".) It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc

Music recording sales certification

Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

.

As a bandleader, he did sessions for Verve

Verve Records

Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

, ABC-Paramount

ABC Records

ABC Records was an American record label, founded in New York City in 1955 as ABC-Paramount Records. It originated as the main popular music label operated the Am-Par Record Corporation, the music subsidiary of the American Broadcasting Company . ABC-Paramount Records' first president was Samuel H....

, Bethlehem

Bethlehem Records

Bethlehem Records was a record label based in New York and Hollywood founded by Gus Wildi in 1953. It was bought by King Records in the early 1960s....

, and Musicmasters. As a songwriter, he won a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "A Taste of Honey

A Taste of Honey (song)

"A Taste of Honey" is a pop standard written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow. It was originally an instrumental track written for the 1960 Broadway version of the 1958 British play A Taste of Honey . Both the original and a cover by Herb Alpert in 1965 earned the song Grammy Awards...

". In addition to "A Taste of Honey", Scott also co-wrote the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

"He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother" is a popular music ballad written by Bobby Scott and Bob Russell. Originally recorded by Kelly Gordon in 1969, the song became a worldwide hit for The Hollies later that year and again for Neil Diamond in 1970....

". In the 1960s he became a music teacher and studied again under Moritz, but occasionally recorded as well, including a 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...

 tribute album released in the 1980s. He also arranged for jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and easy listening

Easy listening

Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...

 musicians such as Les

Les Elgart

Les Elgart was an American swing jazz bandleader and trumpeter.Lester E. Elgart began playing trumpet as a teenager, and by age 20 had landed professional gigs. In the 1940s he played in bands led by Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak, and Harry James, and occasionally found himself in bands alongside...

 and Larry Elgart

Larry Elgart

Larry Elgart is an American jazz bandleader, who with his brother, Les, recorded the original rendition of "Bandstand Boogie", theme to the long-running teen dance show, American Bandstand.-Biography:...

.

Scott died of lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 in November 1990, at the age of 53.

Discography

• The Jazz Keyboard of Bobby Scott (1953)
• Great Scott (Bethlehem 1954)
• The Compositions of Bobby Scott, Volume 1 (Bethlehem 1954)
• The Compositions of Bobby Scott, Volume 2 (Bethlehem 1954)
• The Compositions of Bobby Scott (Bethlehem 1955)
• Scott Free (ABC-Paramount 1956)
• Bobby Scott and Two Horns (ABC-Paramount 1957)
• Bobby Scott Sings the Best of Lerner and Loewe (Verve 1958)
• Serenade - Bobby Scott, Pianist (Verve 1959)
• Bobby Scott Plays the Music of Leonard Bernstein (Verve 1959)
• Bobby Scott with Friends (1960)
• The Complete Musician (Atlantic 1960)
• A Taste Of Honey (Atlantic 1960)
• Larry Elgart and His Orchestra "The City" Music composed by Bobby Scott (MGM 1961)
• Joyful Noises (Mercury 1962)
• When The Feeling Hits You (Mercury 1963)
• 108 Pounds Of Heartache (Mercury 1963)
• I Had A Ball (Mercury 1964)
• Original Soundtrack Recording "The Pawnbroker" (1964)
• Original Soundtrack Recording "Slaves" (1969)
• Original Soundtrack Recording "Joe" (1970)
• Robert William Scott (Warner Bros. 1970)
• From Eden to Canaan (Columbia 1976)
• For Sentimental Reasons (Music Masters 1990)

• Featured artist - (piano) Original soundtrack recording In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• Featured artist - (piano) Original soundtrack recording The Color Purple
  The Color Purple (film)
  The Color Purple is a 1985 American period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Alice Walker. It was Spielberg's eighth film as a director , and was a change from the summer blockbusters for which he had become famous...
  
  (1985)