Howard A. Roberts

Howard A. Roberts (1925-2011) was a musician who composed, conducted, and performed other music chores primarily on Broadway and recordings. A tenor session singer as well, he supplied vocals for one of the Muppet back-up singers on the Sesame Street song "Disco D."
Roberts was initially a trumpeter and played with the bands of Lionel Hampton and Cab Calloway. Shifting to singing on stage, he 
played Robbins in the 1952 international tour of Porgy and Bess and then in the 1953 Broadway revival (with John McCurry). While he had ensemble or supporting roles in the musical Shinbone Alley and a Central Park staging of Carmen Jones, he shifted increasingly behind the scenes, becoming musical director for The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. He conducted several Harry Belafonte albums and singles and sang chorus on "Island in the Sun," backed Nina Simone on 1971's Here Comes the Sun, and produced record singles by Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, Aretha Franklin, and Barbra Streisand.
Roberts established the vocal group the Howard Roberts Chorale in the 1960s, backing up Little Richard and releasing albums of spirituals. Returning to Broadway in 1968, he handled choral supervision and arrangements for The Great White Hope (with James Earl Jones) followed by adapting, directing, and arranging music for the musical Trumpets of the Lord (book by Vinnette Carroll). He served as some combination of musical director, conductor, or vocal/choral director on the 1970s shows Raisin, Guys and Dolls, and the A Christmas Carol modernization Comin' Up Town (with Gregory Hines). For TV, he was musical director on The Leslie Uggams Show and scored the 1966 NET Playhouse installmnent "Ten Blocks from Camino Real", the 1975 film Shango, and the 1978 TV movie Cindy (with Alaina Reed and Nell Carter).
==External links==
*Variety obituary. March 14, 2011.
*Internet Broadway Database
*Discogs.com listing
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Category:Muppet Voice Actors