When I saw Marshall Crenshaw in concert a few weeks ago, he mentioned onstage that Robert was in bad health. So sorry to see the news confirmed.

https://variety.com/2022/music/news/robert-gordon-dead-rockabilly-singer-1235407247/
Oct 18, 2022 9:47am PT
Robert Gordon, Rockabilly-Revivalist Singer, Dies at 75
By A.D. Amorosi

Robert Gordon, one of rockabilly’s earliest revivalists and a familiar presence on the 1970s New York City punk rock scene, died Tuesday at the age of 75, his record label confirms to Variety. No cause of death was cited, although his family recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to assist with his battle with acute myeloid leukemia.

“Cleopatra Records would like to offer our deepest condolences to his family and friends. We liked working with Robert and will miss his powerful baritone vocal as well as his focused dedication to his music,” wrote label VP Matt Green.

Gordon’s final album, “Hellafied,” which again teams him with British guitarist Chris Spedding, is being released by the label on Nov. 25.

With his swept-up D.A. haircut and predilection for 1950s clothing, it would have been easy in the 1970s to consider Gordon a “Happy Days”-style throwback. But with a deeply resonant and romantic voice, curatorial precision and excellent taste in guitarist collaborators such as Spedding, Link Wray and Danny Gatton, Gordon was unique among neo-rockabilly revivalists. His work pre-dated that of Brian Setzer’s Stray Cats, who took the sound he embraced to the top of the charts in the early 1980s.

With firebrand Gatton and for RCA, Gordon shifted some of his emphasis away from rockabilly and toward pop, R&B and country for 1981’s “Are You Gonna Be the One” and its MTV-favored hit single “Someday, Someway,” penned by power-pop hero, Marshall Crenshaw.

After parting ways with RCA, Gordon continued to record accomplished rockabilly and blues-based albums for labels such as Viceroy (1994’s “All for The Love of Rock ‘N’ Roll”), Jungle (2004’s “Satisfied Mind”), Rykodisc (2007’s Elvis Presley tribute “It’s Now or Never” with Spedding), Lanark (2014’s “I’m Coming Home”) and Cleopatra for his most recent studio recording, 2020’s aptly-titled “Rockabilly for Life.”

More to come…

Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2022 Variety Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC.

The late Gordon at least once also did comedy: he was a guest star in an extended series of sketches on the SCTV gang's 90-minute iteration on NBC for a couple of years in the early '80s, under the title "SCTV Network 90", presumably available on YouTube.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=789957428940054
Marshall Crenshaw
Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 4:47 PM

The Great Robert Gordon passed away today. He called me from the hospital about 5 weeks ago to say goodbye; it was extremely difficult for him to speak but we had a great conversation. He was a dear person in my life.
Back in 1980, right after I left "Beatlemania", as I've recounted many times over the years, I used to take the train from Pelham into Manhattan with a sack of cassette tapes and walk around dropping them off here and there- with receptionists at music publishing companies, record companies, with would-be record producers, actual record producers, etc. etc. I got callbacks on these things immediately, but the first crucial one came from Robert Gordon. The memory of his voice on my answering machine is still clear as a bell in my mind, as if it just happened; getting that call was a big BEFORE and AFTER moment in my life. A couple weeks after that, I was in the Record Plant in NY with Robert, producer Richard Gotterher, Danny Gatton, Chris Spedding, Gary Tallent, Anton Fig, Thom Panunzio, the whole gang of record makers- another BEFORE and AFTER moment in my life courtesy of RG.
The very first time I was ever on a stage in NYC was on a show that Robert did at the Felt Forum, a multi-artist charity show headlined by Charlie Daniels, and emceed by, of all people, Tony Randall. Robert's backing band that day was Anton again, Tony Garnier, Danny Gatton, Danny's friend Evan Johns, and Me. When Tony introduced Robert and brought us on he introduced him as "Dr. Gordon's Son, Robert Gordon!"- somehow Tony Randall and Robert's Dad knew one another; I've still never gotten the backstory on that. Robert was kind of an enigma to me in those days, not easy to get to know, but over the years that changed, and during our very last conversation I feel like we really paid respects to one another; we talked about the very last show that we were on together, just last December at the Bearsville Theater. The production on the whole thing was pretty slack- nobody really got a decent chance to rehearse, the soundcheck was a joke- it was all very slipshod, and Robert was raising a lot of hell backstage before the show. He could sing and speak VERY LOUDLY when he wanted to, not unlike the VAVOOM character in Felix the Cat cartoons. Everybody except me was frightened by him that night. When he came out for his set he did his first song and had no monitor, so he stopped the show, refused to continue until somebody fixed the problem. I'm pretty sure that the audience dug it- I know at least one audience member who loved it, thought that it was bad-ass (my sister-in-law Camille). During that last call the topic came up; Robert was contrite about it then but I told him that that was bullshit, that he was completely justified in going off, that the show's lack of organization was an insult. I hope that I set his mind at ease about it.
At this point in time I have to say that I loved the guy, and that he was a vivid, memorable character. And musically, I was a fan of his records before I ever met him.
RIP Robert Gordon.