Don
Charles (10 December 1933 – 4 December 2005) was a popular English ballad
singer, and record producer, and later in his life, a writer of a self-help
book. He is best known for his recordings of "Walk With Me My Angel"
and "Bring Your Love to Me". He also produced several of The
Tornados' tracks including "Space Walk" and "Goodbye Joe".
The latter title referred his original mentor and producer, Joe Meek. Meek
regarded Charles highly. "You are my only legit artist", Meek once
informed Charles. "All the others are yugga-dugs". Standing at 6 feet
4 inches (1.93 m), and weighing around seventeen stone (108 kilograms, 238
pounds), Charles stood out in more ways than one from his fellow performers.
He
was born Walter Stanley Scuffham in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire,
England. His father died when the youngster was aged four, and using his
childhood nickname of Don he later adopted his stepfather's surname, becoming
for a while Don Bennett.
He
spent ten years in the Royal Navy, leaving at 25 years old with ambitions to
become a professional singer. By 1960, after settling in London, he was signed
to Parlophone by George Martin who produced his debut single, "Paintbox
Lover". His stay with the label was short-lived, and he was signed by Joe
Meek to Decca in 1961. He was renamed Don Charles to avoid potential confusion
with Tony Bennett, and released his biggest seller "Walk With Me My
Angel" in January 1962. Written by Geoff Goddard, and produced by Meek,
the single just made the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart.
Not
that he knew it at the time, but lack of further chart activity, would leave
Charles with the one-hit wonder tag. He appeared on several teen based
television programmes, and released a cover version of Ben E. King's hit
"The Hermit of Misty Mountain" in 1962, and the country music
influenced novelty "It's My Way of Loving You" the same year.
Ill
fortune followed when the BBC refused to play his 1963 follow-up "Angel of
Love". This was because of the 'death song' styled lyric, "Everyone
has an angel of love/Way up in the heavens above". This, combined with the
all-pervading appearance of The Beatles, dealt a hammer blow to his career. The
hastily released "Heart's Ice Cold" failed to find any buyers, and
when Meek fell out with Decca, he took Charles with him to HMV.
Charles
released seven singles for HMV between 1963 and 1966, which included
"Tower Tall", "Big Talk from a Little Man" (written by Alan
Klein) and "Dream on Little Dreamer", but commercial success
continued to elude him. In 1965, Charles produced The Tornados' numbers,
"Space Walk" and "Goodbye Joe". In an unusual move Charles
returned to Parlophone in 1967, and released the Northern soul favourite,
"Bring Your Love to Me", and several other unsuccessful singles.
He
then retired from the music industry, except for a brief return using a
derivation of his birth name as Sgt. Will Scuffham, releasing in 1970 on MCA UK
"And They All Came Marching Home" and "Lili Marleen". He
had been encouraged to release a pseudo-military pop song after his friend Rolf
Harris had a success with "Two Little Boys". At that time he also
jointly bought a nightclub in Malta with Rolf Harris. When that venture fell
flat, Charles became a used car salesman and, in 1989, he penned a successful
book based upon his experiences, entitled How to Buy a Used Car (And Save
Money).
Charles
was a keen and gifted amateur photographer and undertook a large number of portraits
of local people, both famous and not so well known in the Primrose Hill area,
where he lived in the 1960s and 1970s.
Four
times married with five daughters, Charles died in December 2005, in
Herstmonceux, East Sussex, less than a week away from his 72nd birthday. (Info edited from Wikipedia)
3 comments:
Can't find a full album of Don's but will keep looking!
https://kickass.so/joe-meek-t7399989.html
Hi Bob, Inside this torrent you'll find all the five singles Don made for Decca . More of him I can't find in the net .It is a very nice torrent, included all the singles A's and B's by the Honeycombs, Regards Robert
Thanks for the link and effort Robert. Unfortunately I cannot access torrents, but am on the way to compiling a few of Don's records, so watch this space.
Best wishes, Bob
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