Tommy Sands

Genres:	Drama • Holiday & Seasonal • Kids & Family • Musicals & The Arts • Pop / Rock • War • World Music
Descriptive "tags":	rock and roll • 60s • pop • rockabilly • celtic • western swing • irish • oldies
Decades Active:	1950s • 1960s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s

Biography

27 August 1937, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Tommy Sands’ father was a pianist, and his mother was Grace Lou Dixon, a singer with the Art Keassel Band. He sang in a local folk music television series, Lady Of The Mountain, when he was only five years old, and made his first recording, ‘Love Pains’, on Freedom in 1949, when aged only 12. In 1952, with help from his new manager, Colonel Tom Parker, he joined RCA Records as a country artist. In the early and mid-50s Sands played many country shows including some with Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. His big break came when he secured the role of a rock ‘n’ roll star in NBC’s The Singing Idol, a part that was originally offered to Elvis Presley. The show was a smash hit, and its main song, ‘Teen-Age Crush’, attracted over half a million advance orders and shot to number 2 in the US charts. The television show was snapped up by Hollywood and was adapted to become...

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