Musician Charlie Roberts passes away
Although he was known to sports fans as head physiotherapist for Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz football team, Dr Charlie Roberts was a talented musician who played on hit songs by Inner Circle and Junior Tucker.
He was also a member of Casual T, a group comprising fellow doctors Audley Betton, Lennie Miller, and Richard Kirkwood.
Roberts died in Kingston on March 12, one month after suffering a heart attack.
Born in Antigua, Roberts came to Jamaica in 1970 to study medicine at The University of the West Indies (The UWI).
A proficient keyboardist, he participated in musical activities on campus.
While a student at The UWI, Roberts met members of Inner Circle, which was founded in 1968 by brothers Roger and Ian Lewis.
He sang lead and played keyboards on the band’s cover of The Stylistics’ You Make Me Feel Brand New as well as a number of their songs from the early 1970s.
“I have known this unbelievably great, compassionate, good human being for over 50 years. I will forever miss him. So unassuming, so humble… a God-gifted musician. My deepest, most sincere condolence to his family,” said Roger Lewis.
Tommy Cowan, former manager of Inner Circle, also paid tribute to Roberts.
“At this moment in time it’s not easy for me to put words together to describe the feeling for the loss of Charlie, someone that I have been associated with in a very special way from his early years at UWI. I would go get him from the dorm at night and get him back before daylight to go play music with the Inner Circle band with whom he was also a vocalist,” Cowan recalled.
“Charlie — or Doctor Rabbits as the children called him… he was our family doctor for at least 50 years — was an amazing humanitarian up to his last day being conscious. He was there for us 24 hours per day, and his wife Denise, the same… love-driven. We pray that God’s peace covers the family and ourselves.”
Roberts played on Tucker’s 1983 album Jr Tucker, which was produced by Ray Parker Jr for Geffen Records. That set contains the original version of Mr Telephone Man, later made famous by rhythm and blues group New Edition.
As a member of Casual T, Roberts scored a big hit in 1979 with Let’s Hold On, a rhythm and blues song co-produced by Ibo Cooper of Third World.
He is the third member of the quartet to die, following Betton and Kirkwood, who both passed away in 2022.
