Russ Hamilton (born Ronald Hulme, 19 January 1932 – 11 October 2008) was an English singer and songwriter. Hamilton made the Top 10 in the United Kingdom with "We Will Make Love", but in the United States, it was the B-side, "Rainbow", which made the Top 10.

Biography

Early Life

Russ Hamilton was born as Ronald Hulme in Everton, Liverpool, Lancashire in 1932. Prior to his fame, he worked as a cost clerk.

Career

he was one of the first singer-songwriters of pop music to have come out of the city, and he was the first Liverpool artist to hit the United States music scene with his song " Rainbow", several years before the Beatles. In 1957,

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

success in the U.S. was very unusual for a British performer, and Hamilton commuted from one side of the Atlantic to the other to meet the demands for live performances. A former Redcoat, Hamilton's first hit in the United Kingdom was "We Will Make Love", which he recorded in 1957 for Oriole Records. However, in the U.S., it was the

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

, "Rainbow", that became the hit; according to Hamilton himself, it was mistakenly thought to be the A-side of the single. This produced the possibly unique event of a single reaching the

Top 10 A top ten list is a list of the ten highest-ranking items of a given category. Top Ten or Top 10 may also refer to: Media *Top 10, a common record chart for the ten most popular songs of the week in the musical chart of a country *''America's Top ...

in the UK, while its flipside achieved the same result across the Atlantic. "We Will Make Love" peaked at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, and "Rainbow" reached No. 4 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'''s

Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...

. The

record A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

sold over one million copies, and reached gold disc status. We Will Make Love was written about a girl from

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...

named Patricia Hitchin, who Hamilton had fallen in love with. Hamilton followed this success later that same year with another self-penned item, "Wedding Ring", which reached the Top 20 in the UK. In 1960, he was invited to

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

, Tennessee and signed up with

MGM Records MGM Records was a record label founded by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack recordings (later LP albums) of their musical films. It transitioned into a pop music label that continued into the ...

. In Nashville, he recorded "

Gonna Find Me a Bluebird "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" is a song written and performed by Marvin Rainwater. It reached number three on the U.S. country chart and number 18 on the U.S. pop chart in 1957. The song was featured on his 1957 album, ''Songs by Marvin Rainwater' ...

" with the Jordanaires and Chet Atkins. His success with record releases did not improve, and by the early 1960s he had dropped away from the foreground of the pop music scene. He has written many songs which were popular, especially in Asia. "Little One", a song he wrote for his niece in Canada, was his personal favourite. Other songs such as "I Still Belong to You", "I Had a Dream" and "Reprieve of Tom Dooley" were quite popular. He performed the song "I Had A Dream" on the film spin-off of the TV show '' Six-Five Special''. However, this hit has subsequently received little airplay.

Death

Hamilton died on 11 October 2008, at the age of 76, at his home in Buckley, North Wales.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Extended Play's

References

External links

Biography at 45-rpm.org.ukRuss Hamilton Biography, photos, news and hear his musicVideo Newsreel of Russ Hamilton in 1957Russ Hamilton at Discogs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Russ 1932 births 2008 deaths English male singer-songwriters English singer-songwriters Musicians from Liverpool Butlins Redcoats Oriole Records (UK) artists 20th-century English singers 20th-century British male singers 20th-century English male writers