Charlie Thomas, Smoke-Toned Tenor of The Drifters, Dead at 85
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The post Charlie Thomas, Smoke-Toned Tenor of The Drifters, Dead at 85 appeared first on Consequence.
Charlie Thomas, whose soaring, smoky tenor lifted The Drifters for more than six decades, died January 31st of liver cancer at the age of 85, the New York Times reports.
“He was aging, but he was active almost every weekend,” Peter Lemongello Jr., longtime friend and a former lead singer of the Crests, said to the Times. “Unfortunately, he went from being active to being at home and he started going downhill.”
Born April 7, 1937, in Lynchburg, Virginia, Thomas began his career with the R&B group The Crowns and became a Drifter by chance. Before a 1958 show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where The Crowns were set to open for the more established Drifters, the latter’s lead singer got drunk and cursed out both the show’s promoter and the Apollo’s owner. This led manager George Treadwell to fire the whole group. Treadwell owned the rights to The Drifters name, and on the spur of the moment, he hired several members of The Crowns, including Thomas and Ben Nelson (later named Ben E. King) to take their place.
“As a kid, I used to play hooky to see the Drifters at the Apollo,” Thomas recalled. “It felt good!”
Thomas was initially pegged as one of the lead singers of the group, but during a recording session when he tried to record King’s song, “There Goes My Baby,” he froze, and King took his place. The song became the No. 2 song in the US in 1959, and helped lay the groundwork for King’s later solo career.
The Drifters would go on to have one No. 1 song, “Save the Last Dance for Me,” as well as a slew of other hits, including “Under the Boardwalk,” “This Magic Moment,” “Up on the Roof,” “Saturday Night at the Movies,” and “On Broadway.” And Thomas eventually found his way to lead vocals on a couple of tracks, most notably “Sweets for My Sweets” and “When My Little Girl Is Smiling.”
The Drifters broke up in the later 1960s, splintering into groups such as the Original Drifters, The Drifters (managed by Treadwell’s widow, Faye), and later, Charlie Thomas’ Drifters, which soldiered on until the 2020 pandemic. All told, over 60 musicians have performed under The Drifters banner, but few so steadfastly as Thomas.
In 1988, Thomas and several other members of the Drifters lineup were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Charlie Thomas, Smoke-Toned Tenor of The Drifters, Dead at 85
Wren Graves
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