Robert Owens (musician)

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Robert Owens (born 1961) is an R&B/Urban and House music vocalist best known for his work with the Chicago house group Fingers, Inc. in the mid-1980s. As a solo artist he has placed several songs on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, two of which hit #1: "I'll Be Your Friend" (1992), and "Mine To Give," a collaboration with Photek.

Though electronica has always been a producer's medium (and the few vocalists keeping their head above water are usually woman), Robert Owens became one of the figures most associated with the late-'80s golden era of Chicago house. Born in Ohio in 1961, he grew up singing in the church, but was working as a DJ when he met pioneering Chicago producer Larry Heard in 1985. The pair formed Fingers Inc. with Ron Wilson, and released a few excellent singles ("You're Mine," "It's Over") and the 1988 full-length Another Side.The group dissolved soon after, though, as Heard's burgeoning solo-production career (as Mr. Fingers) took over.

Owens had already released tracks on his own - "Bring Down the Walls" and "I'm Strong" for Alleviated, with production from Heard - and he signed a solo contract with 4th & Broadway. His 1990 LP "Rhythms in Me" was a solid effort, though it soon disappeared within the quickly disintegrating Chicago house scene. (One of his best-known features of the late '80s, the epic house moment "Tears," appeared under the names of Frankie Knuckles and producer Satoshi Tomiie.)

Owens had basically retired from music by the early '90s, preferring instead to run his own Christian bookstore. By 1996, he'd returned to dance music with Ordinary People, a two-part EP for Musical Directions. He teamed up with Tomiie and Cevin Fisher for a track from Tomiie's Full Lick LP in 1999, and one year later Owens appeared on the Photek smash "Mine to Give."

He collaborated with Coldcut on their CD Sound Mirrors on the Track "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" that will be released as a single shortly.

In October 2004, I'll Be Your Friend appeared in popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, playing on House Music radio station SF-UR.