So mysterious yet so incredibly real

Artist: Robin Beck
Title: The First Time
Year: 1988
Chart peak: 1

Poor Robin Beck. Despite a thirty-year career that includes an international number one hit single, still nobody remembers her. Even I struggled a bit...

Robin was born in 1957, grew up in Brooklyn, Noo Yawk, and started singing with local bands in her teens. Her first big break was singing in a group called Deep South which toured all over the States. After a spell in a Broadway musical, "Got To Go Disco", in 1979 she released her debut LP "Sweet Talk", from which the title track was a hit in US clubs - though it did little in terms of actually shifting vinyl. Interestingly, backing singers on the album included then-unknowns Irene Cara (latterly famed for the movie themes, "Fame" and "Flashdance") and Luther Vandross.

Beck would spend the next decade singing back-up for artists such as Melissa Manchester, Alvin Stardust, David Bowie, Chaka Khan and Cher, plus film soundtracks and advertising jingles. And so it was that in 1989 she was invited to record an advert for Coca-Cola. "The First Time" was a rather generic AOR number (sorry, but there's not a lot else to say about it), but the power of advertising was amply demonstrated when the single climbed up the charts, all the way to number one.



I can't, offhand, recall any act which has built a chart career off the back of an advertising hit - so it wasn't too surprising when, despite contributions from the likes of Diane Warren and KISS' Paul Stanley, Beck's album "Trouble Or Nothin'" flopped, along with its second single "Save Up All Your Tears". Ironically, said song would go on to be a major hit for Cher, whose career-reviving 1989 LP "Heart of Stone" had featured Beck's backing vocals on several tracks.

Although you might not be aware of it (and I certainly wasn't), Robin Beck has maintained a solo recording career ever since. In 2007, she released her seventh album, "Livin' On A Dream", which according to her, "kicks butt". She's also kept up the back-up work, with latterday clients including Richard Marx, Tina Turner, her old chum Cher and the rock group House Of Lords, whose lead singer James Christian is Beck's husband.

And in 2006, The First Time was in the charts for a second time, sampled on a dance single by Swedish outfit Sunblock. Beck sang with them on TV appearances, and the track reached number nine in the charts.

Bonus fact: The only previous Coca-Cola ad tune to top the British chart was "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" by The New Seekers, back in 1971.

Further reading...
Official Robin Beck website