David "Fathead" Newman

David "Fathead" Newman
David "Fathead" Newman appearing Live at the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver
Background information
Birth name	David Newman, Jr.
Born	(1933-02-24)February 24, 1933 Corsicana, Texas
Died	January 20, 2009(2009-01-20) (aged 75) Kingston, New York
Genres	Jazz Hard bop Mainstream jazz Jazz blues
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Saxophone, flute
Associated acts	Ray Charles, Herbie Mann, Stanley Turrentine
Website	www.davidfatheadnewman.com

David "Fathead" Newman (February 24, 1933 – January 20, 2009) was an American jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophonist who made numerous recordings as a session musician and leader, but is best known for his work as a sideman on seminal 1950s and early 1960s recordings by singer-pianist Ray Charles.

The All Music Guide to Jazz wrote that "there have not been many saxophonists and flutists more naturally soulful than David "Fathead" Newman," and that "one of jazz's and popular music's great pleasures is to hear, during a vocalist's break, the gorgeous, huge Newman tones filling the space . . . ." Newman is sometimes cited as a leading exponent of the so-called "Texas Tenor" saxophone style, which refers to the many big-toned, bluesy jazz tenor players from that state.

Newman was born in Corsicana, Texas, on February 24, 1933, but grew up in Dallas, where he studied first the piano and then the saxophone. According to one account, he got his nickname "Fathead" in school when "an outraged music instructor used it as an epithet after catching Mr. Newman playing a Sousa march from memory rather than from reading the sheet music, which rested upside down on the stand."

Inspired by the jump blues bandleader Louis Jordan, Newman took up the alto saxophone in the seventh grade, and was mentored by former Count Basie saxophonist Buster Smith. He went off to Jarvis Christian College on a music and theology scholarship but quit school after three years and began playing professionally, mostly jazz and blues, with a number of musicians, including Smith, pianist Lloyd Glenn, and guitarist bandleaders Lowell Fulson and T-Bone Walker.

Newman met and befriended Ray Charles in early 1951 when Charles was playing piano and singing with the Lowell Fulson band. Newman joined Charles’ band in 1954 as a baritone saxophone player, but later switched to tenor and became Charles’ principal saxophone soloist after tenor saxophonist Don Wilkerson left the band.

Many of Charles’ seminal recordings during the 1950s and early 1960s feature a saxophone solo by Newman. These include hits such as "Lonely Avenue," "Swanee River Rock," "Ain’t That Love," "The Right Time" (with Newman on alto sax), and "Unchain My Heart". Although his solos were short in duration, they became, as the New York Times later noted, "crucial to the Ray Charles sound." Atlantic Records’ producer Jerry Wexler, who signed Charles to the label, called Newman Charles’ "alter ego on tenor." Charles said that Newman "could make his sax sing the song like no one else." As Newman himself put it, "I became famous for playing 8-bar and 12-bar solos!"