Don Charles was a popular English ballad singer, and record producer, and later in his life, a writer of a self-help book.
16 Facts About Don Charles
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Don Charles is best known for his recordings of "Walk With Me My Angel" and "Bring Your Love to Me".
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Don Charles produced several of The Tornados' tracks including "Space Walk" and "Goodbye Joe".
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Don Charles was born Walter Stanley Scuffham in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, England.
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Don Charles's father died when the youngster was aged four, and using his childhood nickname of Don he later adopted his stepfather's surname, becoming for a while Don Bennett.
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Don Charles spent ten years in the Royal Navy, leaving at 25 years old with ambitions to become a professional singer.
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Don Charles's stay with the label was short-lived, and he was signed by Joe Meek to Decca in 1961.
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Don Charles was renamed Don Charles to avoid potential confusion with Tony Bennett, and released his biggest seller "Walk With Me My Angel" in January 1962.
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Don Charles appeared on several teen based television programmes, and released a cover version of Ben E King's B-side "The Hermit of Misty Mountain" in 1962, and the country music influenced novelty "It's My Way of Loving You" the same year.
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In 1965, Don Charles produced The Tornados' numbers, "Space Walk" and "Goodbye Joe".
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Don Charles then retired from the music industry, except for a brief return using a derivation of his birth name as Sgt.
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Don Charles had been encouraged to release a pseudo-military pop song after his friend Rolf Harris had a success with "Two Little Boys".
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When that venture fell flat, Don Charles became a used car salesman and, in 1989, he penned a successful book based upon his experiences, entitled How to Buy a Used Car.
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Don Charles was a keen and gifted amateur photographer and undertook a large number of portraits of local people, both famous and not so well known in the Primrose Hill area, where he lived in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Four times married with five daughters, Don Charles died in December 2005, in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, less than a week away from his 72nd birthday.
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Don Charles is not to be confused with another Don Charles, a Scandinavian-based record producer behind the musical recording project the Singing Dogs.