Robert Owens (born August 17, 1961) is an American songwriter, record producer, DJ and singer, best known for his work with the

Chicago house Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the first ever house music productions, which were by Chicago-based artists in the 1980s. History and origins Disco ...

group

Fingers Inc. Fingers Inc. was an American music group from Chicago, Illinois. It consisted of producer Larry Heard and vocalists Robert Owens and Ron Wilson. AllMusic called it the "top early Chicago house group". History Fingers Inc. was formed in Chicago, I ...

in the mid-1980s. As a solo artist, he has placed several songs on the

Hot Dance Music/Club Play Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as th ...

chart, two of which hit number-one: "I'll Be Your Friend" (1992), and "Mine to Give" (2000, a collaboration with

Photek Rupert Parkes (born 6 September 1971), known as Photek, is a Los Angeles-based British electronic music DJ/record producer, and TV and film score composer. Photek was born and raised in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. Photek has contributed music ...

Biography

Though

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

has typically been a producer's medium (and the few vocalists who succeed are usually women), Robert Owens became one of the people associated with the late-1980s golden era of

. Born in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, United States, Robert Owens grew up singing in church, but years later, he was working as a DJ in 1985, when he met Chicago producer Larry Heard. The pair formed Fingers Inc., along with Ron Wilson, and they released a few singles ("You're Mine"/"It's Over") plus the 1988 album, ''Another Side''. The group disbanded quickly, as Heard's burgeoning solo-production career (as Mr. Fingers) took priority. Owens had already released recordings on his own - "Bring Down the Walls" and "I'm Strong" made for Alleviated (with production from Heard), and he signed a solo contract with

4th & B'way Records 4th & B'way Records (pronounced and spelled out completely as Fourth and Broadway Records in the UK) is a US-based subsidiary of Island Records that specialised in street-oriented music such as hip hop. Established in 1984, it was the flagshi ...

. His 1990 album ''Rhythms in Me'' lost visibility soon after within the quickly disintegrating

scene. (One of his best-known features of the late 1980s, "Tears", appeared with the names of

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and producer

Satoshi Tomiie is a Japanese DJ, record producer and musician. Biography A lifelong student of jazz and classical piano, Satoshi had an influential impact from his very first record. His debut single ‘Tears’, which he co-produced in 1989 with Chicago's � ...

.) By 1996, he had returned to dance music with "Ordinary People": a two-part EP recording for Musical Directions. He joined up with Tomiie (again) and Cevin Fisher in 1999, to make a track from Tomiie's ''Full Lick'' LP. One year later, in 2000, Owens appeared on the

hit "Mine to Give". In 2003, he joined with

drum and bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...

act

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to provide the vocals for their album ''Billion Dollar Gravy''. He collaborated with

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on their album ''

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'', on the track "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" in 2006. He collaborated with Rob Pearson on single "Escape from the Madness" which was released on Plastic City in 2007. In 2011, he collaborated with the

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on their single "Beautiful", which was released on the

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label. Later on in the same year he collaborated with Dutch drum and bass producer Icicle, and featured on the tracks "Step Forward" and "Redemption", which appeared on Icicle's debut album ''Under the Ice'' released in April 2011 on Shogun Audio. In 2012, he featured on Mosca's song "Accidentally" from the ''Eva Mendes EP'' and on Orgue Electronique's album ''Strange Paradise'' with the song "Our House". In 2013, he released the single "Trusting Me" taken from the vocal collaboration album ''Features'' by

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. The video of the single was premiered by MTV Iggy in the US.

Discography

Albums

*''Rhythms in Me'', 4th & B'way/Island/PolyGram Records, 1990 *''Love Will Find its Way: The Best of Robert Owens'', Unisex Records, 2002 *''Night-Time Stories'', Compost Records, 2008 *''Art'', Compost Records, 2010

Singles

* "Tears" * "Tell Me" * "Far Away" * "I'll Be Your Friend" * "Ordinary People" * "Love Will Find Its Way" * "I'm Strong" * "Picking Up The Pieces" * "A Thing Called Love" * "In Love Forever" * "Can You Feel It" * "Never No More Lonely" * "After The Rain" * "Bring Down The Walls" * "Mine To Give" * "Mine To Give" (David Morales Happy Mix) * "I Think To Myself" (w/ Luke Corradine / Roebeck) * "Last Night a DJ Blew My Mind" (w/ Fab Four) * "If" * "A Greater Love" (w/ DJ Spen) * "Love Someone" (w/ Atjazz) * "I Go Back" (w/ Harry Ramero) * "Escape from the Madness" (w/ Rob Pearson) * "Fly Free" (w/ Ralf Gum) * "Candlelight" (w/ Mercury) * "Love is a Drug" (w/ Audiofly)

Compilation albums featuring Owens

* ''The Original Chicago House Classics: Full Length 12-Inch Mixes from the Godfathers of House'', Demon Music Group Ltd., 2002 * ''The Kings of House: Compiled & Mixed by Masters At Work'', Rapster/BBE Records, 2005 * ''Renaissance: The Masters Series, Part 9'',

Renaissance Recordings Renaissance Recordings is a British record label, founded by the club Renaissance in 1994. It went into administration in September 2010 and the back catalogue was sold to Phoenix Music International Ltd. After a year of inactivity, in July 20 ...

, 2007

References

External links

* Robert Owens artist page, Discogs, 2008, Web page
Robert Owens artist page on Discogs

Robert Owens RBMA video lecture session

Larry Heard RBMA video lecture session

Robert Owens artist page on Discogs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Robert 1961 births Living people House musicians Island Records artists RCA Records artists American house musicians American male singers American soul singers American dance musicians Musicians from Ohio