R.B. GREAVES
Ronald Bertram Aloysius Greaves was born on the U.S. Army Air Force Base in Georgetown, Guyana, on November 28, 1943. He was a nephew of soul-music pioneer Sam Cooke. Greaves was raised on a Seminole Indian reservation in California and moved to England in 1963. Calling himself Sonny Childe and working with a group called the TNTs, he made a name for himself both in the UK and the Caribbean.
By 1969, Greaves was on Atlantic Records, whose president, Ahmet Ertegun, produced his debut single, “Take a Letter Maria,” in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Released on Atco under the name of R.B. Greaves, it tells the story of a man who comes home from work at 10:00 one night, only to find his wife with another man. He walks out and, the next day, dictates a letter to his secretary, Maria, advising both his wife and his lawyer that he intends to file for divorce. The song became a smash, going to #10 on the Billboard magazine Soul Singles chart and doing even better with the pop audience, hitting #2. (The 5th Dimension’s “Wedding Bell Blues” kept it from being a #1 hit.) It sold 2.5 million copies and received a gold record from the Recording Industry Association of America. The song also hit #3 in Canada and #6 in Australia.
To Greaves' credit, he does not place 100% of the blame on his wife's shoulders. In fact, he even admits, “All work and no play has just cost me my wife.” On the other hand, the man doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet. At the end of the song, he asks Maria for a date!
The follow-up, “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me,” reached #50 R&B and #27 pop in the spring of 1970. (The same song became a 1983 smash for the British New Wave duo, Naked Eyes.) Greaves recorded covers of James Taylor’s “Fire & Rain” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” but neither achieved widespread commercial success.
By the early ‘70s, he was back in Southern California. Greaves left Atlantic, turned up on Sunflower Records and later the Bareback label, where he had his final chart entry in 1977.
R.B. Greaves, 68, died of prostate cancer in Granada Hills, California, on September 27, 2012. I found nothing on how he spent the final 35 years of his life.
Charted singles:
“Take a Letter Maria” (1969) R&B #10, Pop #2
“(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” (1970) R&B #50, Pop #27
“Fire & Rain” (1970) Pop #82
“Georgia Took Her Back” (1970) R&B #88
“Whiter Shade of Pale” (1970) Pop #82
“Margie, Who Watching the Baby” (1972) Pop #115
“Who’s Watching the Baby” (Margie) (1977) R&B #66
