05/06/2013
GUYANESE at the top of US BILLBOARD chart for 15 (fifteen) weeks (y)
R.B. Greaves
Music Artist
Ronald Bertram Aloysius "R. B." Greaves III was born on November 28, 1943 on a U.S. Army Air Forces base at Georgetown, Guyana.
He was an American singer who had chart success in 1969 with the pop single "Take A Letter, Maria" . A number two hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, this single sold one million copies, and it earned gold record certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. Greaves also had a Top 40 pop hit one year later with "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me".
A nephew of Sam Cooke, he grew up on a Seminole Indian reservation in the United States, but he moved to England in 1963. Greaves had built a career both in the Caribbean and in the UK, where he performed under the name Sonny Childe with his group The TNTs. His debut recording "Take a Letter, Maria", released under the name R.B. Greaves, had been recorded by both Tom Jones and Stevie Wonder before the author recorded it himself at the insistence of the president of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegn, who produced it. The song is the story of a man who had learned of his wife's infidelity the night before, and then dictates a letter of separation to Maria, his secretary. This song has a distinct Latino flavor, complete with a mariachi-style horn section.
The record stayed in the Billboard chart for 15 weeks in the United States, selling a million copies. It received gold record certification from the R.I.A.A. on December 11, 1969. By 1970, sales of this song totalled 2.5 million.
