Soul Strutter: Robert 'Squirrel' Lester (The Chi-Lites)

Today would have been Robert "Squirrel" Lester's 80th birthday. He was a founding member of The Chi-Lites when they were formed out of two existing Chicago groups The Chantours (of which he was a member) and The Desideros in 1960.

Clockwise from 12 o'clock:

Robert Lester, Marshall Thompson, Eugene Record, Creadel Jones

Lester was born in McComb, MS, in 1942 and died from cancer in 2010 aged 67. He was a member of the group to end, despite the late 70s group split, he rejoined when they reformed in the 80s and he became the lead singer after Eugene Record's departure. Other members included Eugene Record, Clarence Johnson (mentioned only yesterday on The Lovelites profile), Burt Bowen and Eddie Reed. Bowen was replaced by Sollie McElroy from The Flamingos who in turn was replaced by Marshall Thompson of The Desideros. After Eddie Reed's death in 1960 he was replaced by Creadel 'Red' Jones from The Desideros. They changed their name to The Hi-Lites in 1964, after the departure of Johnson (leaving a quartet of Eugene Record, Robert Lester, Marshall Thompson and Creadel Jones), releasing two singles under the name before changing it again later that year (as another group had the same name) renaming themselves to Marshall Thompson & The Chi-Lites and then simply The Chi-Lites.

Clockwise from 12 o'clock:

Eugene Record, Marshall Thompson, Robert Lester, Creadel Jones

Up until 1971 they had some minor hits, the highest "Give More Power To The People" reaching #26 on Hot 100. That changed when "Have You Seen Her" topped the R&B chart and reached #3 on Hot 100 followed by "Oh Girl" which topped both charts. However, they never again broke into the Hot 100 top 30 despite having another ten R&B Top 20 hits.

Thompson is the sole survivor of the original line-up and continues the Chi-Lite's legacy. The group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Jun 2020 to add to their Vocal Hall of Fame (2005) and R&B Music Hall of Fame (2013) honours.

Rather than regurgitate many of the songs most will already be well aware of, I've decided to showcase half a dozen of their earlier, pre Brunswick, perhaps lesser known material. None of which seem to be available on Spotify so have reverted to good old faithful YouTube.

The Hi-Lites [1964] - I'm So Jealous [Daran #222]