The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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SYLVIA
“PILLOW TALK”
(SYLVIA ROBINSON, Michael Burton)
Vibration 521
No. 3 June 9, 1973
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While Sylvia did share a huge hit as the feminine half of MICKEY & SYLVIA, her solo singles would be
issued for nearly a quarter of a century before Syl managed to crack the pop and R & B charts on her own.
Born Sylvia Vanderpool on March 29, 1935, in Washington, DC, she was discovered at a function at
Washington Irving High in 1950. Sylvia was but 14 when she recorded hot numbers like “Chocolate Candy
Blues” opposite the trumpet of Hot Lips Page. More bluesy sides appeared on Savoy, Jubilee, and Cat, as
by Little Sylvia. In 1954, she teamed up with McHouston “Mickey” Baker, her guitar teacher and New
York sessioneer supreme. With their sixth duet, “Love Is Strange,” the duo captured the imaginations of
rock’n’rollers worldwide. Follow ups inexplicably failed to generate a similar response, and in 1959,
Mickey & Sylvia split. While the two assayed a number of reunions and many recordings during the ’60s,
only “Baby You’re So Fine” (#52, 1961) b/w “Lovedrops” (#97), released on their Willow label, managed to
gain any chart action.
In 1964, Sylvia married Joe Robinson. The couple have established the All Platinum Studios and
numerous labels like Horoscope, Stang, Turbo, Vibration, and Sugar Hill. Over the years, Sylvia has
produced recordings for LINDA JONES, the Moments, SHIRLEY & CO., the SUGARHILL GANG, the
Whatnauts, and Lonnie Youngblood. Her hit compositions include “Love on a Two-Way Street,” “Sexy
Mama,” and “Shame, Shame, Shame,” a tune she wrote for her friend Shirley Goodman, half of the leg
endary Shirley & Lee and the lead vocalist for Shirley & Co.
After years of recordings under the names of Sylvia Vanderpool, Little Sylvia, and Sylvia Robbins (for Sue
and Jubilee in the early ’60s), Robinson finally cracked the charts on her own, as Sylvia, with the breathy
and self-penned “Pillow Talk.” “I thought it’d be right for AI Green,” Sylvia told Blues & Soul’s Tony
Cummings. “I cut the song and put my voice on it to show Willie Mitchell [Al Green’s producer] how it
might be good for Al. But they turned it down, so we decided to release my version.”
Other than a duet each with the Moments and Ralph Pagan–and the initial follow-up to “PillowTalk,”
“Didn’t I” (#70, 1973)–subsequent Sylvia sides have not found niches on the pop/rock airwaves. Nearly a
dozen of her singles, however, have placed on the R & B charts; “It’s Good to Be the Queen” (R&B: #53,
1982), an “answer” disk to Mel Brooks'”Good to Be the King.” In the mid ’80s her son Joey made the R &
B listings with several 45s as a member of the West Street Mob.
With the mammoth success of her Sugarhill label with its rap roster of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, and
the Furious Five–Sylvia Robinson continued in the biz into the late ’80s, when Sugarhill was absorbed by
the colossal MCA. As an artist, she has only recorded sporadically.