No Rock And Roll Fun

SOULOBIT: The death has been announced of Rocky Roberts. the boxer-turned-soul-singer who took soul to Italy.

Born in Miami in 1941, he was a rubbish boxer who quit after getting his jaw smashed. Luckily, he had a singing voice to fall back on. He wasn't especially successful in the US, either, but he relocated to Italy where he had a major hit with probably the first ever soul song sung in Itallian, Stasera Mi Butto. It was in Italy that he would spend the rest of his life.

In more recent years, Roberts had been struggling to write something as memorable as Mi Butto, while touring a soul standards band around the country. He'd been fighting lung cancer for some time before his death on Friday.