He played on records for many artists, including Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Connie Smith, Patti Page, Loretta Lynn, The Everly Brothers, Kenny Rogers, George Jones, Charlie Rich, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, J.J. Cale, John Hartford, John Stewart, Mark Knopfler, Alan Jackson, Merle Haggard, Roger Miller, Gary Stewart, David Allan Coe, Moe Bandy, George Hamilton IV, Sturgill Simpson, Conway Twitty, Ween, and Al Hirt.
[3] He learned to play piano at age seven, while attending the Tennessee School for the Blind in Nashville.
[5] His 1959 single "Save It", recorded under the name Mel Robbins, was covered by The Cramps on their 1983 album Off the Bone.
Robbins joined producers Alan Autry and Randall Franks on In the Heat of the Night's 1991 Christmas Time's A Comin' CD, appearing on several cuts and receiving feature credit on David Hart's recording of "Let it Snow".
[6] In Robert Altman's classic, Nashville, a hippie piano player nicknamed "Frog" is fired by Henry Gibson's character (an egotistical country singer), who yells at the studio engineer: "When I ask for Pig, I want Pig!"