William Robyn

William Robyn (November 28, 1894 – April 12, 1996) was the stage name of William Robinow, a Russian-born American tenor who toured the vaudeville circuit and made hundreds of recordings under dozens of names.

Early life Robyn was born William Rubin in the rural village of Pasiene, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire (today in eastern Latvia) in late 1894 to Israel (Srul) and Gitel Rubin. He was a gifted singer and frequently sang at religious services. After his bar mitzvah he was sent to work in Ludza. He emigrated to the United States in 1913 to escape conscription into the Russian Army, traveling through Poland to Hamburg, Germany where he boarded a steamer to New York City. After that, he did not record for a few years, and toured for most of 1917 and 1918. It was in 1919 he began recording many more discs as a solo act; at this time many were Russian-language folk songs and Yiddish theatre songs by contemporary composers like Joseph Rumshinsky. He also recorded for other labels; at Emerson he released discs under the names William Robinson and Edward Hamilton. He recorded a few Russian records for Columbia under the name William Scarpioff. This group performed for President Coolidge at the White House in 1925.

Robyn left Victor in 1923 after they refused to pay him more money and largely consigned him to their foreign-language series. He began working for Henry Waterson and his Cameo label, recording many songs by Irving Berlin such as "All Alone," "Always" and "Blue Skies." When Cameo went bankrupt in 1927 Robyn continued to work for Pathé Records under names such as John Spear, Wyllie Robyn, Jack Ender, or Wee Willie Robyn because of his short stature. Over the course of his career, Robyn's recordings appeared on more than 50 labels under more than 50 different names. In the 1930s he shifted to radio and stage work, performing musicals in Latvian, Russian, Yiddish and English.

Cantor work and later life Robyn decided to leave show business entirely and dedicate himself to becoming a cantor first working at the Nathan Straus Jewish Center in the Bronx in 1939. He served on the executive council of the Cantors Assembly under the name William Robyn-Rubin. He later moved to Temple B'nai Sholom on Long Island and in 1946, to the Temple Israel Center in White Plains, where he remained for almost 20 years, retiring in 1965. In the late 1940s Robyn became a founding member of the Cantors Association of America. He continued to make recordings, some under the name Cantor William Rubin. He retired from Temple Israel in 1965. He met Milford Fargo who was a professor of music at the Eastman School. Fargo arranged a short tour of Canada for Robyn in the fall of 1984. Fargo gave a talk about Robyn's life at the 1985 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Conference in San Francisco. Two of Robyn's recordings are available in the National Jukebox at The Library of Congress.