Russ Hamilton

Russ Hamilton, (born Ronald Hulme on 19 January 1932, in Liverpool) is an English singer. Born in Everton, Liverpool, 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 success in the U.S. was a very unusual feat for an English performer and so it made Hamilton a very hot property for a while. As a result, Hamilton had to commute from one side of the Atlantic to the other to meet the many demands for live performances. His 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 flip side "Rainbow" that became the hit because, according to Hamilton himself, it was due to the U.S. mistaking "Rainbow" to be the A-side of the single. This led to the possibly unique situation of a single reaching the top 10 in the U.K. while its flip side achieved the same result across the Atlantic - "Rainbow" reached #4 on Billboard's Hot 100. In 1957, chart success in the U.S. was a very unusual feat for an English performer and so it made Hamilton a very hot property for a while. As a result, Hamilton had to commute from one side of the Atlantic to the other to meet the many demands for live performances. Hamilton followed his first great success with another self penned item, "Wedding Ring" which just managed to reach the top 20. In 1960, he was invited to Nashville, Tennessee and signed up with MGM Records. In Nashville, USA, he recorded "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" 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 extremely popular, especially in Asia. "Little One" a song he wrote for his niece in Canada was his personal favorite. Other songs such as "I Still Belong to You", "I Had a Dream", "My Mother’s Eyes" and "Reprieve of Tom Dooley" were quite popular. He performed the song "I Had A Dream" on the popular movie Six-Five Special. However, his hits faded rapidly and received little airplay in recent years. Russ Hamilton passed away on the 11th October, 2008 at home in Buckley, North Wales surrounded by his family.