Doo-wop icon Charlie Thomas, who was a member of The Drifters for 60 years, died on January 31 after a courageous battle with liver cancer. He was 85 years old.
Thomas’ friend, singer Peter Lemongello Jr., confirmed the Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer’s passing in a statement.
“He was aging, but he was active almost every weekend,” Mr. Lemongello, the former frontman for the Crests, told the New York Times “Unfortunately, he went from being active to being at home and he started going downhill.”
Born on April 7, 1937, in Lynchburg, Va, Thomas joined the Drifters by chance in 1958 while performing with the R&B band The Five Crowns at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. The aspiring musician had reportedly caught the eye of George Treadwell, the manager of the original Drifters, who were also playing that night. As chance would have it, one of the Drifters had reportedly become inebriated and started cursing out the theater owner, prompting Treadwell to fire the group’s entire lineup.
He then replaced them with members of the Crowns, including Thomas and Ben Nelson (who would later be known as Ben E. King), and renamed them the Drifters.
This proved a dream come true for Thomas, who said he “used to play hooky to see the Drifters at the Apollo.”
The star would go on to perform with the iconic group for six decades, helping them churn out some of their most iconic hits, including “There Goes My Baby,” “Under The Boardwalk,” “Up on the Roof,” and many more. Their hit song “Save The Last Dance For Me” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, marking their only song to top the charts.
Known for his distinctive tenor voice, Thomas also provided lead vocals for “Sweets for My Sweet,” which peaked at No. 16 on the Hot 100 in 1961. He also sang lead on “When My Little Girl Is Smiling,” which reached the number 28 spot the following year.
“Harmony, Harmony, Harmony — no band, no nothing,” the crooner once declared in the doo-wop documentary “Streetlight Harmonies.”
His career took a major turn after the Drifters broke up in the late 60s. Shortly thereafter, Bill Pinkney, who was in the original mid-1950s band canned by Treadwell, created a new group called the Original Drifters.
Thomas joined them briefly before splintering them off and forming Charlie Thomas’ Drifters, which he toured with until the concert circuit was shuttered in 2020 over pandemic concerns.
Thomas was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1988 alongside Drifter contemporaries Ben E. King and Rudy Lewis. Also inducted that year were members of the original 1953-58 lineup: Mr. Pinkney, Clyde McPhatter, Gerhart Thomas and Johnny Moore.
The tenor is survived by his wife, Rita Thomas; his daughters, Crystal Thomas Wilson and Victoria Green; and his sons, Charlie “Happy” Thomas Jr., Michael Sidbury and Brian Godfrey.
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