Tommy Sands (entertainer)
| Tommy Sands | |
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Tommy Sands in 1957
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Thomas Adrian Sands |
| Born |
August 27, 1937 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | Country, Countrypolitan, Rockabilly, pop music |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, Actor |
| Instruments | Vocals, Guitar |
| Years active | 1949-present |
| Labels | RCA, Capitol, Buena Vista, Vista, ABC, Liberty, Imperial, Superscope |
Thomas Adrian "Tommy" Sands (born August 27, 1937) is an American pop music singer and actor. Working in show business as early as 1949, Sands became an overnight sensation and instant teen idol when he appeared on Kraft Television Theater in January 1957 as "The Singin' Idol". The song from the show, "Teen Age Crush", reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Cashbox.
Sands was born into a musical family in Chicago, Illinois; his father was a pianist and his mother a big-band singer. He moved with the family to Shreveport, Louisiana. He began playing the guitar at eight and within a year had a job performing twice weekly on a local radio station. At the beginning of his teen years, he moved to Houston, Texas, where he attended Lamar High School and joined a band with "Jimmie Lee Durden and the Junior Cowboys", consisting of Sands, Durden, and Billy Reno. They performed on the radio, at county fairs, and did personal appearances. He was only 15 when Colonel Tom Parker heard about him and signed him to RCA Records.
Sands's initial recordings achieved little in the way of sales but in early 1957 he was given the opportunity to star in an episode of Kraft Television Theatre. He played the part of a singer who was very similar to Elvis Presley, with guitar, pompadour hair, and excitable teenage fans. On the show, his song presentation of a Joe Allison composition called "Teen-Age Crush" went over big with the young audience and, released as a single by Capitol Records, it went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 record chart and #1 on the Cashbox chart. It became a gold record. His track, "The Old Oaken Bucket", peaked at #25 on the UK Singles Chart in 1960.
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