Robin Ward (singer)
| Robin Ward | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Jacqueline McDonnell |
| Also known as | Jackie Ward |
| Born | 1941 (age 76–77) Hawaii, USA |
| Genres | Pop, TV theme songs, Movie songs, Advertising |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Instruments | Voice |
| Years active | 1954–1979 |
| Labels | Dot Records |
| Associated acts | Partridge Family, Ray Conniff Singers, Ron Hicklin Singers |
Jackie Ward (born Jacqueline McDonnell, 1941), better known as Robin Ward, is an American singer, regarded as a "one-hit wonder" of 1963 million-selling song "Wonderful Summer". However, using her real name she was highly accomplished and successful singing in groups. Ward's voice is heard in U.S. television series, motion pictures, advertisements, and pop records. She is one of the real singers of the hits attributed to The Partridge Family.
Ward was born Jacqueline McDonnell in 1941 to a military family in Hawaii (her father served in the US Navy) and raised in Nebraska. Her first public singing performances were with her two sisters in a Nebraska church when she was eight years old. After the trio won a national talent search run by Horace Heidt, they moved to Los Angeles to seek work in the music industry.
At the age of 13, Ward was hired by Los Angeles television station KTLA to sing on a Your Hit Parade-like program, Bandstand Revue; Ward performed popular hits for four years. Then she started a career of singing on demo and released recordings. One 1962 session was singing the "la la la" parts in Pat Boone's "Speedy Gonzales", which became a million-selling single. (Elton John said the "hook" in his best-selling single "Crocodile Rock" was inspired by Ward's "Speedy Gonzales" vocal.)
In 1963, songwriter-producer Perry Botkin Jr. hired Jackie Ward to make a demo recording of "Wonderful Summer", a song he wrote with co-writer and co-producer Gil Garfield. The purpose of a demo is to persuade "name" singers to record a song by demonstrating how it might be done. After recording Ward's vocal at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, Botkin thought it might sound better if her voice was higher-pitched, so he sped up the recording by wrapping splicing tape around the capstan of the machine. Botkin realized the finished recording, with bird and surf sound effects added, was good enough to release as a pop music single. But because the sped-up singing sounded younger than 21-year-old Jackie Ward, she suggested using her daughter's first name Robin on the record label. That fall, "Wonderful Summer" was released by Dot Records as a 45rpm single. Sales exceeded one million copies in the United States, propelling the record to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart of December 14–21, 1963.
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