Artist: Bobby McFerrin

Robert Keith McFerrin Jr.  is an American world,  reggae and jazz singer and  songwriter. He is known for his vocal techniques, such as singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rapidly alternating with arpeggios and harmonies—as well as scat singing, polyphonic  overtone singing, and improvisational vocal percussion.

He is widely known for performing and recording regularly as an unaccompanied solo vocal artist. He has frequently collaborated with other artists from both the jazz and classical scenes. 

McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was a No. 1 U.S. pop hit in 1988 and won Song of the Year  and Record of the Year honors at the 1989 Grammy Awards. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration with renowned jazz fusion instrumentalists, including the pianists Chick Corea  (of Return to Forever),  Herbie Hancock (of The Headhunters), and Joe Zawinul (of Weather Report), the drummer Tony Williams, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. 

McFerrin was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1950. He attended Cerritos College,University of Illinois Springfield and California State University, Sacramento.

McFerrin's first recorded work, the self-titled album  Bobby McFerrin, was not produced until 1982, when McFerrin was already 31 years old. Before that, he had spent six years developing his musical style, the first two years of which he attempted not to listen to other singers at all, in order to avoid sounding like they sounded. He was influenced by Keith Jarrett, who had achieved great success with a series of solo improvised piano concerts including The Köln Concert of 1975, and wanted to attempt something similar vocally. 

In 1989, he composed and performed the music for the Pixar short film Knick Knack. Also in 1989, he formed a ten-person "Voicestra" which he featured on both his 1990 album Medicine Music and in the score to the 1989 Oscar-winning documentary  Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. 

In addition to his vocal performing career, in 1994, McFerrin was appointed as creative chair of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular tours as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the San Francisco Symphony (on his 40th birthday), the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the  Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic  and many others.

In McFerrin's concert appearances, he combines serious conducting of classical pieces with his own unique vocal improvisations, often with participation from the audience and the orchestra. For example, the concerts often end with McFerrin conducting the orchestra in an a cappella rendition of the "William Tell Overture,"In which the orchestra members sing their musical parts in McFerrin's vocal style instead of playing their parts on their instruments.