Fans of pop music from the early 1960s are mourning the passing of British vocalist Craig Douglas.
The singer, best known for his 1959 No. 1 single “Only Sixteen,” was 85 years old.
‘The Singing Milkman’
As The Guardian noted, he was born Terry Perkins in the Isle of Wight.
After winning a school talent contest, he was spotted by a talent agent and provided with singing lessons. Radio appearances followed, and he was signed to a contract with Decca as a teenager and renamed Craig Douglas.
Capitalizing on his one-time job delivering milk, the label dubbed him “the Singing Milkman.”
He recorded two singles for Decca, but both flopped.
‘Only Sixteen’
Douglas was subsequently signed to the small Top Rank label.
During that pre-Beatles era, most British pop consisted of U.K. artists recording American hits. That was the case with Douglas’ first single, a 1959 cover of the Fleetwoods’ “Come Softly to Me.”
That single also flopped, but his subsequent cover of Dion and the Belmonts’ “Teenager in Love” was a modest hit, landing him in the top 20.
When Top Rank was sold to EMI, Douglas was part of the deal. His 1959 recording of Sam Cooke’s “Only 16” — which had been a modest hit for Cooke — exploded for Douglas.
The “Singing Milkman” hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts, and remained there for four consecutive weeks.
The Movies Beckoned
While “Only Sixteen” was his only No. 1, he cracked the top 10 with subsequent singles “Pretty Blue Eyes” and “The Heart of the Teenage Girl” (both released in 1960), along with 1961’s “A Hundred Pounds of Clay” and “Time.” He returned to the top 10 in 1962 with “When My Little Girl is Smiling.”
Douglas’ chart success brought him to the big screen. In 1962, he was featured in two movies, British crime thriller “The Painted Smile,” and in a starring role alongside singer Helen Shapiro in teen-oriented musical “It’s Trad, Dad!”
In October 1962, Douglas covered Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me,” which peaked at No. 15. That same month marked the arrival of The Beatles‘ first hit, “Love Me Do,” which spelled the end for that era of British pop — and, sadly, his career as a pop star.
Douglas continued to work in the realm of showbiz in the ensuing decades, performing in pantomimes and appearing on British TV variety shows. He kept performing even when osteoporosis required him to use a wheelchair in 2009, and released an album, “The Craig Douglas Project,” in 2013.
The Origin of His Nickname
At age 83, Douglas was interviewed by Beat Magazine, and shared the origin of his once-famous nickname.
“When I was 16, I got very bored during the summer holidays, and when the milkman came around, I asked him if I could have a ride in his van. He said sure, and so I used to go out with him delivering milk from his farm near Newport on the Isle of Wight, and it went on from there,” Douglas recalled.
Discovering his mother had entered him in a singing competition, he decided to give it a shot. That performance was seen by talent agent Bunny Lewis, who changed his life by whisking him off to London and launching his music career.
“When I was on, Bunny’s wife said to him, ‘Do you know I think we’ve got another Perry Como here?’ He said, ‘I think you’re right,’ and so after a brief chat, we had this telephone call and invited me up to London to have singing, elocution and acting lessons,” shared Douglas. “After I’d moved up there I didn’t return to the Isle of Wight until 67 years later.”
