Bobby Day was an American singer and songwriter of the early rock-and-roll era who gave the world one chirping, irrepressibly cheerful classic. "Rockin' Robin", released in 1958, is a bright, whistling slice of doo-wop-flavoured rock and roll, and it became a major hit, later introduced to a whole new generation through a popular cover by a young Michael Jackson.
Day was a talented writer who penned other songs of the era, but as a performer nothing he recorded approached the enduring reach of "Rockin' Robin".
On streaming, "Rockin' Robin" sits near 152 million plays, while his next most-streamed track trails at around nine million. That sends the ratio above 17, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Bobby Day is a certified one-hit wonder. His is a classic story of the early rock-and-roll years: a singer who landed one perfectly sunny, whistle-along hit that became a permanent part of the songbook, covered and re-covered for decades, while the rest of his own catalogue slipped quietly into the background far behind it. Thanks in no small part to that famous Michael Jackson version, the song has stayed familiar to listeners who have never heard Bobby Day's name, and on streams his original still stands far ahead of everything else he made.