dopting his professional name from the Spanish word for wolf, Roland Kent Lavoie wanted people to love his music, and they proved that they did with the success of his song "I'd Love You To Want Me."

Debuting in the Billboard Top 40 on October 14, 1972, "I'd Love You To Want Me" was Tallahassee, Fla. native Lobo's second Top 5 hit and the first single from his second LP, Of A Simple Man, which first charted on the same day. Of A Simple Man, which also featured "Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend," a No. 8 hit for Lobo in 1973, rose to No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart, remaining on the chart for 31 weeks. In 1993, Atlantic Records released an 18-track Lobo compilation, The Best of Lobo, featuring 7 of his 8 Top 40 Seventies hits.

After cutting his professional teeth in a Florida group called The Legends, which spun off artists like Jim Stafford and Gram Parsons, Lobo embarked on a solo career in 1971. His first hit, "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo," climbed all the way to #5 and also inadvertently earned the singer a new recording name. In the liner notes to his anthology, The Best of Lobo, Lobo explained, "[Producer Phil Gernhard] was afraid that 'Me And You And A Dog Named Boo' was so gimmicky that I would be labeled a novelty act, a one-shot Joe.... So we decided I should hide [behind an alias]. Lobo was cute. It meant wolf, like lone wolf, which was something I could identify with, but unless you understood Spanish, it had no substance at all."

Lobo's second hit, "She Didn't Do Magic," didn't create much chart magic either, missing the Billboard Top 40 at #46. Lobo needed a turnaround, and he found it with the song "I'd Love You To Want Me." Lobo reflected on the song's creation and how he almost gave it away. He stated, "I had been listening to Nilsson's 'Without You' and Mac Davis' 'Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me'. Not thinking, we first pitched it to the Hollies as a follow-up to their 'Long Cool Woman.' It would have been major for them, but they objected to the 'blood goes to my feet' line. They didn't like the phrase and wanted half the writing credit to change it. My ego said shove it. And as it turned out, that song revived my career. If the Hollies had taken it, things could have gone radically different for me."

"I'd Love You To Want Me" got off to a good start, debuting at #83. In its ninth week, the song spent the first of two weeks at #2. The song also topped the Adult Contemporary charts. While Lobo was unquestionably successful on the charts, he also seemed to realize his limitations. He commented, "I'd like to say the records sold because they were great, and I was a great singer, but in all honesty, I was merely a good pop writer, only acceptable as a singer.... As far as I can figure, it had something to do with believability and simplicity. I mean, here was this guy singing what other people were thinking. It was simply stuff: no hidden meanings, no fancy workups, no musical advancements."

Lobo continued to chart pop hits throughout the 1970s. In the 1990s, he turned his attention to country music, racking up five chart singles, including his highest-charting hit, the #40 "I Don't Want To Want You." The song was a mirror image of his biggest pop hit, "I'd Love You To Want Me."

- Christopher G. Feldman, The Billboard Book of No. 2 Singles, Billboard, 2000.

 

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