Ronald Bertram Aloysius Greaves III (28 November 1943 – 27 September 2012)[2] was an American singer who had chart success in 1969 with the pop single "Take a Letter Maria".
[citation needed] The song is the story of a man who learns of his wife's infidelity and dictates a letter of separation to Maria, his secretary, who the last verse suggests may become his new love.
[citation needed] The record stayed in the Billboard chart for 15 weeks in the United States, selling a million copies.
[4] In the early 1970s, Greaves spent a lot of time in Southern California, and was often accompanied at live shows and on recordings by his longtime friends Phillip John Diaz, a guitarist, and Michael "Papabax" Baxter, a songwriter and keyboardist.
Greaves recorded a series of cover versions as follow-ups, including Burt Bacharach's and Hal David's "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" and Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale".