The serious musical composer might be embarrassed to take credit for some of the songs Bob Roberts wrote, while at the same time happy to deposit the royalty checks. Scribbling solo or in a variety of songwriting duos, trios, and sometimes even quartets or "committee" songwriting, Roberts often was involved with more than one song on the soundtrack to any given Elvis Presley movie. The embarrassment potential looms larger, as the music in these films was hardly Presley's finest hour; had his career been judged on the basis of tunes such as "Cotton Candy Land," the Memphis fellow would have been known as the King of Shlock rather than the King of Rock. Then again, "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" is a bona fide classic, a show-stopping vocal feature that has been recorded by dozens of great singers, from Rosemary Clooney to Ella Fitzgerald, as well as top vocal groups such as the Platters. Yet perhaps it is the co-writer on the latter song, romantic singer Eddie Fisher, who deserves the credit because neither on his own nor in his other partnerships, including one with witty songwriter Ruth Batchelor, did Roberts ever come up with anything as memorable or moving. Roberts began writing songs with Fisher when both were involved with the large band of Louis Prima and this is where the professional career of Roberts began leaving behind substantial traces. In the mid-'50s, Roberts was the hotshot guitar soloist for the Prima band known as Louis Prima & the Witnesses, a strange hybrid that wasn't really Latin, wasn't really jazz, and was even a tiny bit rock & roll. Roberts was an early exponent of the type of guitar playing that was inspirational to early rockers such as Chuck Berry: sophisticated jazz chords, but with a driving beat. Roberts and Fisher also served as creative musical mascots for Prima, climaxing with the composition of "Zooma Zooma," which became a signature number as in primo Prima. By the early '60s, Roberts had left Prima 's outfit and was now dashing in and out of various songwriting combinations, moving through Hollywood circles that were coming up with material for both Presley and Disney films. While they might have invented "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and were one of Walt Disney 's favorite songwriting teams, the Sherman Brothers needed the expertise of Prima in order to write a feature for sweet Annette Funicello, aged somewhere between mouse ears and bikini. The resulting song was the single "Tall Paul," not that anyone remembers it. A similar fate can be said to have met much of the material recorded by Presley that Roberts had a hand in: "Where Do You Come From?," "Because of Love," "Thanks to the Rolling Sea," and "Echoes of Love," none of which kept jukebox servicemen too busy. "The King of the Whole Wide World," on the other hand, was the soundtrack to Presley's ego and definitely deserved to be a song in one of his films. The Roberts touch will sometimes show up if a listener is taking a stroll through the minor moments of rock's innocent days. "Baggy Pants" were worn by the duo of Jan & Dean, terrifying poor Doris Day so much she had to "Runaway, Skidaddle, Skidoo." At any rate, it was all too suburban for the country scene; the only time Roberts came near a country cover was when Burl Ives did some sessions in Nashville, which hardly counts. The arrival of the psychedelic era, with pop hits such as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," seems to have left Roberts without much to say. But he didn't stop playing, and in the late '70s he was part of a superb session organized by drummer Barrett Deems for Delmark entitled "Deemus." Songs written with Fisher -- another is "Tunnel of Love" -- have been covered most frequently, yet the most contemporary recordings of Roberts' material are ironically the same hack ditties snatched from various Elvis Presley films. Arizona alternative rock band the Meat Puppets have at least one Roberts number in their repertoire, "Cotton Candy Land," delivered tongue in cheek. ~ Eugene Chadbourne