Return To 50’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 50s
RUSS HAMILTON
“RAINBOW”
(Russ Hamilton)
Kapp 184
No. 4 September 16, 1957
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Years before the Beatles got together, Ronnie Hulme sailed out of Liverpool and into the ears and hearts
of teenage America. It was only a brief cross-cultural fling, but Ronnie’s “Rainbow” sold so darn well in
the U.S. that he garnered a gold record (signifying sales of over I million copies), becoming only the sixth
British bloke to do so.
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Russ Hamilton, as he was known in the United States, was born in 1934 in Liverpool. After some education,
he worked for seven years in the costing office of a metal box manufacturing company. For adventure,
Russ joined the Royal Air Force; during this stint he acquired some decorations for activities in the Korean
War. On his return, it was back to the metal box manufacturing company.
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“I’d met a girl in Blackpool when I was in the Royal Air Force. I got infatuated,” Hamilton told Now Dig
This, “and then we parted company. I went home that night and I’d just bought a guitar. I got out my tape
recorder and I started singing. ‘When the moon takes the place of the sun in the sky….’ and the same night
I wrote ‘Rainbow.’ I took the tune to FRANKIE VAUGHN at the North Pier in Blackpool, but he didn’t want
to know about it. He missed out.”
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For continued adventure, Russ started singing and strumming guitar at parties and clubs. In 1955, he
secured the first of a succession of jobs as a “red coat” (sort of a singing waiter) at a summer camp, Butlins
Holiday Camps in Blackpool. A scout from Britain’s Oriole Records heard Russ sing while he was serving
and cleaning at the Ocean Hotel in Brighton. “I was suffering with a cold when we made the single and I
hated it,” Hamilton said. “I wanted to do it again, but the people at Oriole [the British label] said it was all
right.”
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The name Ronnie Hulme didn’t sound right to the powers at the record company. “The producer was
walking down Hamilton Square in London and he thought it looked like a neat and clean place. I added
Russ just off the top of my head, as it sounded American.”
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Listeners were touched by Ronnie/Russ sweetly and cheerfully singing of his wish to buy his little bird a
rainbow, and, if he could scrape up enough, buy the moon itself. In England, “Rainbow” was not a hit.
Teens weren’t buying this ode–they wanted something with meat on it. Someone flipped the record over
and found “We Will Make Love.” To the surprise of many observers, the selection actually made it past
the BBC censors, proof that Russ truly did sound like a lad who never had a lustful thought in his head.
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All of his follow-up efforts, including “Tip Toe Thru’ the Tulips”–later a consciousness-shakin’ disk for
TINY TIM–were given a pass by listeners in both the U.S. and Russ’ homeland. By the time Hamilton got a
good thrust on a tune, as in the thumping rockaballad “My Unbeatable Heart,” his media moment had
passed.