Neil Reid (born 1959) is a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

former child

singing Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

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, winner of ITV's '' Opportunity Knocks,'' and the youngest person to reach number one on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

Career

Known also as "Wee Neil Reid", he was eight when he was discovered singing at a pensioners' party in 1968. Reid won ''Opportunity Knocks'' on 13 December 1971 singing his version of " Mother of Mine", which, when released commercially by

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...

shortly afterwards, went to number two on the UK Singles Chart following a performance on ''

Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British record chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its histo ...

.'' The "Mother of Mine" record sold over 250,000 copies in the

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, and over 2.5 million globally. It also sold around 400,000 copies in

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alone. Reid's self-titled album went to number one in 1972, making Reid the youngest person to reach number one on the

, at the age of 12 years 9 months. This remains one of the very few Number 1 selling albums that has never had an official CD release and as such is unavailable in this format. Reid's follow-up single three months later "That's What I Want To Be" peaked at number 45, and Reid quickly faded from national prominence to performing on the

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circuit. Two years after winning ''Opportunity Knocks,'' Reid's

voice broke A voice change or voice mutation, sometimes referred to as a voice break or voice crack, commonly refers to the deepening of the voice of men as they reach puberty. Before puberty both sexes have roughly similar vocal pitches, but during pubert ...

and as a result he gave up professional singing. He did a final round of concerts in 1974 in

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, where he toured with the Irish pop group

The Bachelors The Bachelors were a popular music group from Dublin, Ireland, but based primarily in the United Kingdom. They had several international hits during the 1960s, including eight top-ten singles in the UK between 1963 and 1966. The Bachelors spli ...

. Reid's 1974 single (his last recording), "Hazel Eyes", was released in South Africa to coincide with the tour. After leaving show business, Reid became an

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and a

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. In 2008 he was interviewed by

Amanda Holden Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is an English media personality, actress and singer. Since 2007, she has been a judge on the television talent competition show '' Britain's Got Talent'' on ITV. She also co-hosts the national ''H ...

about his child stardom for

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 ...

's ''When Britain First Had Talent'' in January 2008. In 2024 he took part in the BBC documentary ''Lena Zavaroni: The Forgotten Child Star''.https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2024/41/lena-zavaroni

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

* 1959 births Living people Singers from Glasgow Scottish child singers 20th-century Scottish male singers {{scotland-musician-stub