Sugar Chile Robinson

Born in Detroit, MI, in 1940, little Frankie Robinson began toying with the piano as soon as he was big enough to sit on the bench and reach the keyboard. Legend has it he managed to play something resembling "Tuxedo Junction" on the ivories before he'd attained the age of three. Frankie Carle claimed to have discovered the kid in 1945, and a meteoric career was set in motion when the precocious child performed at the White House for President Harry S. Truman. He also sat in with Lionel Hampton's orchestra. In 1946, cast as the "boy piano player," Robinson sang and played "No ...