Bobby McFerrin

Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American improvisational vocal musician, singer, songwriter, and conductor. His vocal techniques include singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rapidly alternating with arpeggios and harmonies—as well as scat singing, polyphonic overtone singing, and improvisational vocal percussion. McFerrin performs and records regularly as an unaccompanied solo vocal artist and has frequently collaborated with other artists from both the jazz and classical scenes.

McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is the only a cappella track to ever reach No. 1 in the US, which it reached in 1988 and additionally won Song of the Year and Record of the Year honors at the 1989 Grammy Awards. He has also worked in collaboration with jazz fusion instrumentalists including pianists Chick Corea (of Return to Forever), Herbie Hancock (of The Headhunters), and Joe Zawinul (of Weather Report), drummer Tony Williams, bassist/vocalist Richard Bona and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Robert Keith McFerrin, Jr. was born in Manhattan, New York on March 11, 1950, the son of operatic baritone Robert McFerrin, who was the first African-American man to sing at America's flagship opera company – the Metropolitan Opera, and singer Sara Copper (1924–2019), who taught voice at Fullerton College in Southern California. He attended Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, Cerritos College, University of Illinois Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University) and California State University, Sacramento.

McFerrin's first recorded work, the self-titled album Bobby McFerrin, was not produced until 1982, when he was 31 years old. Before that, McFerrin had spent six years developing his musical style, the first two years of which he attempted not to listen to other singers at all, in order to avoid sounding like they sounded. McFerrin was influenced by Keith Jarrett, who had achieved great success with a series of solo improvised piano concerts, including The Köln Concert of 1975, and wanted to attempt something similar vocally.

In 1984, McFerrin performed at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles as a sixth member of Herbie Hancock's VSOP II, sharing horn trio parts with the Marsalis brothers.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.