Malcolm Roberts

Popular Sixties singer whose hits included 'Love Is All'

Malcolm James Roberts, singer: born Manchester 31 March 1945; married (one son); died Addlestone, Surrey 7 February 2003.

"Malcolm Roberts had one of the greatest, purest voices that has ever been heard in popular music," says the songwriter Barry Mason, who wrote Roberts's 1969 hit single "Love Is All". "Les Reed and I tailor-made 'Love Is All' for him. We put long, operatic notes in the hook and the verses were moody and full of emotion – bags of emotion – and he did a great, great job with it."

Malcolm Roberts was born in Blackley, Manchester in 1945. "It was a musical background," the blond singer told me in 2000,

My dad used to play the piano until he had drunk too much and fallen off the stool, and I would sing in the shops for broken biscuits and small change. I made more than my dad just by singing in the school dinner-hour, and he was making £16 a week.

It was evident that Roberts's voice warranted professional attention and he was accepted at the Manchester College of Music and Drama, where he studied opera and acting. He said,

I did like rock'n'roll, but I found myself leaning towards Wagner and Puccini. I never liked records with fade-out endings, I liked the singer to sell his voice and hit the big notes, if he could, but I've never thought that opera singers should make pop records.

Roberts built up his experience with bit parts in the soap opera Coronation Street and appearances in amateur productions for the North Manchester Operatic Society. He did club work, playing the trumpet and singing standards like "Summertime". He was taking part in a touring production of West Side Story when he was spotted by the songwriter Lionel Bart and joined the cast of Bart's 1964 musical Maggie May, sharing a London flat with the actor Timothy Dalton.

When the show ended, Roberts had a brief spell as a bouncer, but it ended in Charing Cross Hospital – "I was beaten up, but I got four guys first." Then he opened the Zebra Club in Soho, in the same building as Peter Cook's Establishment Club and the first band he booked was Episode Six, who became Deep Purple.

Shirley Bassey's manager heard Roberts singing and he was signed to RCA, making an album, Mr Roberts, which was produced by Norman Newell. A single, "Time Alone Will Tell", made the Top Fifty in 1967, and Roberts's a cappella version of "Maria" on Sunday Night at the London Palladium convinced the public that he could be a star.

Roberts often worked with Engelbert Humperdinck, but there was rivalry between the singers. Roberts recalled,

Engelbert invited me to play chess with him, but he didn't know I had been a schoolboy champion. He had two girls draped around his shoulders and he had effected this cool, transatlantic accent. He said, "We will play for £500." I gulped and said, "Okay". We started playing and I did a fork and nicked his queen. He said, "I've got to go now. I've got to change for the show" – and I never got my £500.

In 1968 Roberts heard Andy Williams singing the oldie "May I Have the Next Dream with You" and realised that it could be arranged for a hit single. Roberts's version was released on the Major Minor label and he sang it during a two-week engagement at La Reserve night club in Birmingham. Local record shops were bombarded with requests for copies, which made the label realise that they had a smash hit on their hands. The single made the Top Ten. Roberts said,

We should have had another hit but they made me do a country song, "Stand Beside Me". I should have insisted on "You're Breaking My Heart" which was a nice singalong thing.

In 1969 Roberts was invited to represent the UK in the International Song Festival in Rio De Janeiro with "Love Is All", which was written by Barry Mason and Les Reed. The 40,000-strong audience gave the song a tremendous reception but the Japanese judge, thinking he was saying it was first, awarded the song one point instead of the maximum 10, and it was beaten by Bill Medley's "Eva". Medley could not reprise his winning song because of jeering from the audience, until Roberts magnanimously draped a Union Jack over his shoulders. "Love Is All" topped the Brazilian charts for two months and was also a UK hit. However, Major Minor went into liquidation and "I never got a penny from Major Minor and I never got my gold discs either," Roberts said.

Involved in litigation because he resented being passed over to EMI with no say in the matter, he recorded infrequently in the 1970s. He topped the Argentinian charts with "She" in 1974 and moved to America. In the 1980s he returned to the UK for a tour of the musical Joan of Arc for Bill Kenwright. In 1985 he moved to South America but in 1991 he wrote and performed the song "One Love" which reached the final selection for the UK choice for the Eurovision Song Contest. Since then, he had helped to manage a few bands and done some production for Gabrielle, R Kelly and Take That.

In recent years, Roberts had been keen to raise his profile in the UK. Two CDs have been issued of vintage material, The Essential Malcolm Roberts (2000) and Live at the Talk of the Town (2002), and he was planning a new album, Love on a Canvas, about his time at art college.

Spencer Leigh