Charlie Thomas (born 7 April 1937 in Lynchburg, Virginia) is an American rhythm and blues singer best known for his work with The Drifters. April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Allied Arts Building in downtown Lynchburg, completed in 1931. ... Rhythm and blues (or R&B) was coined as a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz and blues. ... The Drifters were a long-lived American doo wop/R&B band, originally formed by Clyde McPhatter (of Billy Ward & the Dominoes) in 1953. ...

Thomas was performing with The Five Crowns at the Apollo Theater in 1958 when George Treadwell fired his group, called The Drifters. Treadwell recruited the Crowns to become the new Drifters. Apollo Theater marquee, c. ...

The new Drifters' first release was the 1959 hit "There Goes My Baby".

Charlie Thomas was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, showing Lake Erie in the foreground The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum and institution in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, dedicated, as the name suggests, to recording the history of some of the best-known and most influential... The Rhythm and Blues Foundation is an independent American nonprofit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of rhythm and blues music. ...

External links

• Charlie Thomas' Drifters official site