Donald Ross Cherry (January 11, 1924 – April 4, 2018)
was an American
traditional pop
Traditional pop (also known as vocal pop or pre-rock and roll pop) is Western culture, Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known ...
and
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...
singer and golfer. In music, he is best known for his 1955 hit "
Band of Gold".
Biography
Cherry was born in
Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls metropolitan area, Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Archer County, Tex ...
. He started in his early 20s as a big band singer in the orchestras of
Jan Garber
Jan Garber (born Jacob Charles Garber, November 5, 1894 – October 5, 1977) was an American violinist and jazz bandleader.
Biography
Garber was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had his own band by the time he was 21. He became known as "The ...
and
Victor Young
Albert Victor Young (August 8, 1899– November 10, 1956)"Victor Young, Composer, Dies of Heart Attack", ''Oakland Tribune'', November 12, 1956. was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. Young was posthumously awarded the ...
. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
[ In 1951, he recorded his first solo hits, " Thinking of You" and "Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle". In 1955, came his biggest hit, "Band of Gold", which reached No. 4 on the '']Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'' chart
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...
. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
.Ray Conniff
Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 – October 12, 2002) was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.
Biography
Conniff was born November 6, 1916, in Attleboro, Massachusetts, United S ...
. He was also the voice of the Mr. Clean commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1962, he also recorded the original version of "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
"Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" is a song written by John D. Loudermilk. It was first released in 1962 by Don Cherry (singer/golfer), Don Cherry, as a country song and again as a doo-wop in 1967 by the group The Casinos on its album of the same nam ...
", which became a hit much later for The Casinos
The Casinos was a nine-member doo-wop group from Cincinnati, Ohio, led by Gene Hughes and which included Bob Armstrong, Ray White, Mickey Denton, and Pete Bolton. Ken Brady performed with the group, taking over for Hughes from 1962 to 1965 as ...
and others.
Throughout his singing career, Cherry was also a top-ranked amateur golfer, and was in contention to win the 1960 U.S. Open before eventually finishing tied for ninth along with Ben Hogan
William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997) was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He is notable for his profound influence on golf swing theory, hi ...
, four strokes behind winner Arnold Palmer
Arnold Daniel Palmer (September 10, 1929 – September 25, 2016) was an American professional golfer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport's history. Since embarking on a professional career in ...
. Cherry played on three Walker Cup
The Walker Cup is a golf trophy contested in odd-numbered years by leading male amateur golfers in two teams: United States, and Great Britain and Ireland featuring players from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The official name is the Walker Cup ...
teams (1953
Events
January
* January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
* January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo.
* January 14
** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...
, 1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...
, and 1961
Events January
* January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union.
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...
), in the Americas Cup twice (1954 and 1960) and in nine Masters Tournament
The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply the Masters, or as the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four men's major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week in April, the Masters is the ...
s, making the cut seven times with a best finish of T-25 in 1959. He captured the Canadian Amateur Championship
The Canadian Amateur Championship, begun in 1895, is the men's amateur golf championship of Canada. It is staged annually by Golf Canada. It was played at match play until 1968, went to stroke play beginning in 1969, and reverted to match play i ...
in 1953 and the prestigious Sunnehanna Amateur title in 1954. In 1962, Cherry decided to turn professional and "Pro" became his nickname among fellow entertainers. His volcanic temper on the golf course (which, according to Cherry, "...made Tommy Bolt
Thomas Henry Bolt (March 31, 1916 – August 30, 2008) was an American professional golfer. He did not join the PGA Tour until he was in his thirties, but he went on to win 15 PGA Tour titles, including the 1958 U.S. Open. He played in the Ryder ...
look like a choir boy!") was in startling contrast to his velvety-smooth singing voice and pleasant stage persona.
Cherry published his biography, ''Cherry's Jubilee'', with co-writer Neil Daniels. He was a good friend of Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and activist. He was one of the main figures of the outlaw country subgenre that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restr ...
, and had collaborated on three albums with him, '' Augusta'' (1995), ''The Eyes of Texas'' (2002), and ''It's Magic'' (2007).
Cherry was married four times, once to 1956 Miss America
Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 18 and 28. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is judged on competition segments with scoring percentages: ''Priva ...
Sharon Ritchie, before wedding Francine Bond Smith, in 1993. They lived in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
. His son, Stephen, was a casualty of the 9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
when American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic Airline, passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked airliner was deliberately crashed into ...
crashed into the North Tower. Stephen left behind four sons.
He was also married to Miss Nevada, Joy Garner and singer, Dean Martin was the best man at their wedding. Miss Garner was also a Copa showgirl at the Sands Hotel.
Cherry died at a hospice on April 4, 2018, at the age of 94. He is survived by his wife, Francine.
Singles
* A"Band of Gold" also peaked at No. 6 in UK Singles Chart.
* B"Married" also peaked at No. 30 in Adult Contemporary singles.
* C"Take a Message to Mary" also peaked at No. 71 in Billboard country chart
References
Sources
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cherry, Don
1924 births
2018 deaths
American male singers
Traditional pop music singers
Singers from Texas
American male golfers
Golfers from Texas
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
People from Wichita Falls, Texas
Decca Records artists
20th-century American sportsmen