Relentlessly repetitive commercials are one of the most irritating aspects of television. Especially egregious are personal injury attorneys, supplemental Medicare plans, auto insurance and Car Shield, just to name a few.
Automobile ads are also annoying, but there’s one presently in heavy rotation with a jingle so fetching I’ve been inspired to research it. Of course, I’m talking about “Go, Boy, Go,” the song which hypes the GMC Acadia crossover sport utility vehicle.
‘Go, Boy, Go!’
Turns out that the tune was recorded in 1952 by 13-year-old piano prodigy Frankie “Sugar Chile” Robinson, based in Detroit. The recording features Sugar Chile’s uninhibited keyboard histrionics and his exhilarating high-pitched vocal repeating the tune’s title.
Big bandleader Frankie Carle—also a pianist—claimed to have discovered the kid in 1945, and a meteoric career was set in motion as Robinson performed at the White House for President Harry Truman.
Although neither of his parents was a musician, Frankie began playing piano by ear at the age of two. A year later, he won a talent show at the Paradise Theatre in Detroit. By age six, he was playing guest shots with Lionel Hampton’s band and the Frankie Carle Orchestra. The year World War II came to a close, Frankie played a memorable duet on “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” with eccentric pianist Harry th
