Don Robertson
Musician · 1922–2015 · Peking, China
Best known for
Songwriter
Don Robertson was a Peking-born, Chicago-raised Nashville songwriter and pianist whose “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” gave Hank Locklin a 1960 No. 1 country hit and whose slip-note piano style on the Locklin record was the model Floyd Cramer subsequently turned into the Nashville Sound. His catalog also includes “I Really Don’t Want to Know,” “Born to Be with You,” and “I Don’t Hurt Anymore.”
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- Born Donald Irwin Robertson on December 5, 1922, in Peking, China, where his physician father headed the Department of Medicine at Peking Union College and developed the first blood bank.
- Mother was a pianist and poet; she began giving him lessons at four, and he was composing his first songs at seven.
- Raised in Chicago after the family returned to the United States; was playing in local dance bands by fourteen.
- Co-wrote “I Really Don’t Want to Know” with Howard Barnes; Eddy Arnold’s 1954 recording reached No. 1 country, and Elvis Presley’s 1970 cover became a country and pop Top-25 hit.
- Co-wrote “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” with Hal Blair; Hank Locklin’s 1960 RCA recording spent fourteen weeks at No. 1 country.
- Pioneered the “slip-note” piano style on the Locklin record; Floyd Cramer adopted the technique on “Last Date” later in 1960, and it became one of the defining sounds of the Nashville Sound era.
- Scored a No. 6 pop hit as a recording artist with the instrumental “The Happy Whistler” in 1956.
- Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
- Lived in Lake Sherwood, California for the last fifty-five years of his life.
- Died March 16, 2015, at age 92.
