"Vicki Sue Robinson turned the way disco pop music was heard with her 1976 smash hit single ""Turn the Beat Around."" Robinson was born in Harlem and raised in Philadelphia. Growing up on folk country music thanks to her folk-singer mother, Robinson started singing on stage with her mother, performing at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1960. After her family moved back to New York when she was 10, Robinson started pursuing her father's passion (he was a Shakespearean actor) and landed a role in the original 1968 Broadway production of Hair when she was just 16 years old. Later, she continued to act, performing in Soon alongside Richard Gere and Long Time Coming, Long Time Gone, among others. While she always focused on music, her varied resume included odd jobs as a waitress, touring Japan with Itsuro Shimoda and working with Jesus Christ Superstar, which RSO Records' Robert Stigwood offered her.It wasn't under her album Never Gonna Let You Go with RCA, however, that Robinson saw musical work under her own name. Produced by Warren Schatz, the single ""Baby, Now that I've Found You"" was the first release of the album and became the first 12"" single ever released. With RCA, she released three more albums, including her self-titled album in 1976, Half and Half in 1978 and Movin' On in 1979. The disco singer saw mainstream success with her single ""Turn the Beat Around,"" which peaked at number 10 on Billboard's Pop chart in 1976 and gave Robinson a Grammy nomination.Remaining in the spotlight over the years, Robinson continued to perform on the stage, starring in her own off-Broadway play called Vicki Sue Robinson Behind The Beat in 1999. In 2000, Robinson lost her battle to cancer, dying at the age of 46."
