Robert Douglas Pruter (born July 1, 1944) is an American writer, mainly on soul and rhythm and blues music, and on sports.
He started writing separately-published articles on soul music in 1976, in outlets including the Chicago Sun-Times and Record Exchanger.
[1] He has written liner notes on many soul and R&B musicians, including Jackie Wilson, Gene Chandler, Curtis Mayfield, and Dinah Washington, as well as biographies and overview chapters in reference works including The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated History of Popular Music, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Encyclopædia Britannica (2000 edition), and American National Biography.
[2] Professionally, he left Standard Educational Corp. in 1996, and worked for Planning/Communications and Charles D. Spencer & Associates before becoming reference librarian at Lewis University, Romeoville, Illinois, from 2001 - 2016.
His published books include:[1] Pruter is the son of Bishop Karl Pruter and the brother-in-law of folk singer Steve Goodman and writer Daniel Abraham.