Brad Newman

Brad Newman (born Charles Melvyn Thomas in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, 6 December 1938, died in Spain on 18 January 1999) was an English singer-songwriter and pianist who, in 1962, reached number 47 in the UK Singles Chart with the song "Somebody to Love".

Charles Thomas's musical career started with a vocal duo called The Kingpins whom he joined as a pianist following six years at the Leeds College of Music. After a while he began to sing with them as well. In 1955 The Kingpins topped the bill at the Newcastle Palace, and went on to make successful appearances at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow. Then he was called up and he served two years in the RAF. Afterwards he returned to join the group on the TV show Six Five Special. More success followed after they became the resident group on the BBC pop show Drumbreat, which also starred Adam Faith, the John Barry Seven, Vince Eager and Billy Fury. After another seasonal theatre show at Weymouth, Dorset with Morecambe and Wise and a tour with Cliff Richard, the trio broke up after which Thomas decided to go solo.

Before he launched his own solo career, under the pseudonym Brad Newman, he went to the Isle of Wight in 1961 to play piano in the residents' bar at the Sandringham Hotel, Sandown. During this period he and Tommie Connor wrote a song called "Somebody to Love". When Newman performed it the audience received it enthusiastically and one of them, a songwriter himself, advised him to go to London and contact the publisher Dick James. James was impressed with the half-dozen songs that Newman sang and took him to see Fontana's A & R Manager Jack Baverstock to demonstrate the numbers. James was only trying to sell the songs but Jack Baverstock liked Newman's singing voice and decided that he would make the discs too. The result was Newmans's first disc for Fontana Records, "Somebody to Love", coupled with "This Time It's Love", both his own compositions. "Somebody to Love" reached number 47 in the UK pop charts in February 1962. On the back of this small hit record Newman appeared on top rated TV shows including Discs A Gogo for TWW (Television Wales and the West), Thank Your Lucky Stars (TV series) for ABC TV (Associated British Corporation), a BBC Light Programme series of shows called Teenagers Turn and a radio series called Here we go with the NDO (BBC Northern Dance Orchestra). He also joined the Adam Faith Show tour for a series of one-nighters.

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