Steve Forbert

Steve Forbert (born December 15, 1954, Meridian, Mississippi) is an American pop music singer. He is best known for his song "Romeo's Tune", which reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1980.
Even though it states that "Romeo's Tune" is "dedicated to the memory of Florence Ballard" on the sleeve of the album Jackrabbit Slim (1979), the song is not really about the Supremes singer who died in 1976. The song was actually written about a girl from his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, but was dedicated to Ballard because, as Forbert explains, "That seemed like such bad news to me and such sad news. She wasn't really taken care of by the music business, which is not a new story."
Critics hailed him at the time as "The new Bob Dylan" because of a similar vocal timbre and thoughtful songwriting. The front cover of his second album, Jackrabbit Slim, encourages such comparisons with its simplicity: a black and white photo of Forbert playing a well-worn Martin acoustic guitar with a capo on it, his shirt tinted green. The record was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee and produced by John Simon, who had worked with The Band. Forbert has a cameo appearance in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video, playing her boyfriend.
He had a disagreement with his record company (Nemperor) in 1984 and did not record for a number of years afterwards. The record company apparently did not want to release a 1984 recording that he had made, and it was shelved.