Redcoats Who Made The Big Time

Singer-songwriter and former Redcoat Russ Hamilton, was born Ronald Hume, in Everton, Liverpool, in January 1932. Russ was the first Liverpool artist to make it big in the USA. The Beatles didn't invade America until 1964. His first number one hit, over there, was 'Rainbow', and this meant that Russ was constantly commuting across the Atlantic to meet demands for live American performances.

Russ' first hit in the UK was 'We Will Make Love', the number rapidly hit Number One, for which Russ received a coveted golden disc. The record found its way to the states but, somewhat surprisingly, DJ's and radio stations over there preferred the flip side 'Rainbow', it flew to the top of the American charts earning for Russ a second gold disc and, for the first time in history an artist received two gold discs for one record! A feat that has never been equalled and Russ still remains the only performer ever to achieve this remarkable accomplishment.

This out-standing achievement was made in 1957 and in the same year Russ wrote and released a number of other successful hits both here and in America. In 1960 'Wedding Ring' reached the Top Twenty and Russ was invited to Nashville, Tennessee, to make a recording with Elvis Presley's famous backing group 'The Jordonaires' it became a reasonably successful hit called "Gonna find me a Bluebird". Around this period Russ recorded quite a number of fairly successful songs including 'I belong to You', and shortly after 'I had a Dream', 'My Mothers Eye's' and 'The Reprieve of Tom Dooley'. Thousand's of copies of "We Will Make Love" were sold as souvenirs on all the Butlin camps, which considerably helped Russ with this enormous success. There is a chapter devoted to this in my Butlin book "Gumshield to Greasepaint".

Russ started his Butlin career as a popular children's entertainer at Clacton in 1957. He spent his first winter as a Redcoat at the Metropole, Blackpool, from where he started recording his songs. Russ loved people, either entertaining them on the stage or mixing and mingling in the ballroom and dining room, his love of people was the secret of his success as a Redcoat. Sadly for Russ a different type of singer was coming and he was coming fast. Late in 1957 the great Elvis Presley enjoyed his first UK chart-topper "All Shook Up", his popularity was growing daily and for Russ the writing was on the wall.

His numbers started to fall behind in the UK and USA, but, strangely, he retained a strong popularity in Canada, Asia and Eastern countries. Although Russ Hamilton had been very big for a brief spell his hits faded rapidly and received very little air play in recent years.

Russ, in an effort to retrace his steps, returned to Butlins and had a number of happy years. He became entertainment manager of Butlins Metropole, Blackpool, in 1966/7/8. Russ then joined me as one of my team of entertainers at the Butlin Ocean hotel, Brighton. We had a tremendous winter together and I loved going for strolls with Russ and listening to his wonderful, and interesting stories. Especially the one about 'Topping The Bill' with Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte on "The Golden Show" on Broadway.

Redcoats Who Made The Big Time Back

Russ Hamilton