Adam Faith - Biography
By Eric Brightwell
As a 1950s & ‘60s teen idol with 23 Top 40 UK hits, Adam Faith was one of England’s first and most significant pop stars. Known for his hiccupping delivery and affected pronunciation and benefitting from John Barry’s plucky, pizzicato production; Adam Faith quickly went from being an unknown, moonlighting skiffle musician in a coffee bar to one of the country’s most famous performers. After a fairly long, successful run, he bowed out and embarked on several different ventures with varying degrees of success.
Adam Faith was born on the 23rd of June 1940 in East Acton, London with the decidedly un-rock ‘n’ roll name of Terence Nelhams-Wright. From the get go he was referred to by the more wieldy Terry Nelhams and in fact only found out his full name when he applied for a passport. Though his posh-sounding name may’ve suggested a background of privilege, Terry Nelhams was actually a product of a crowded council home in which he lived with, in addition to his parents, four siblings. At twelve, whilst attending John Perryn secondary modern school, Terry worked his first paying job as a newsy, chiefly so that he could buy himself clothing and other gear.
After Nelhams saw 1955’s Rebel without a Cause, he was smitten with James Dean’s rebellious character and promptly quit school in the hope of pursuing a career in music and film. Thanks to his mother, who was a cleaner at Rank Screen Services, Nelhams got a job there as a gofer. He next worked as a film cutter for TeleVision Advertising Ltd., on Wardour Street in Soho. At the time, Soho was the center of England’s skiffle scene and, inspired by his musical hero Lonnie Donegan, Nelhams formed The Worried Men in 1956 with several of his co-workers. The venue for English skiffle was Soho’s coffee bars and The Worried Men played The Cat’s Whiskers, Orlando’s, The Skiffle Cellar and the most famous of all, the 2i’s, where they providentially gained residency. The 2i’s, also being the country’s preeminent venue for the country’s embryonic rock ‘n’ roll scene, soon attracted the producers of the country’s first rock ‘n’ roll TV show, the BBC’s Six-Five Special. When the show broadcast The Worried Men performing there, the show’s producer, Jack Good, arranged for Nelhams to sign a contract with HMV as a solo performer, rechristened Adam Faith.
In January of 1958, Adam Faith released his first single, a rockabilly cover of Cindy Walker’s "Heartsick Feeling" backed with Aaron Schroeder & Kay Twomey’s "Brother Heartache and Sister Tears." It failed to chart. Undaunted, Good paired Faith with another act, The John Barry Seven, to perform on his TV show. Four performances later, however, the show ceased production after Good resigned due the BBC’s interference in the form of the inclusion of educational, sports and information elements to what Good wanted to simply feature music performances. Good next reappeared on ITV with another rock show, Oh Boy! Meanwhile, Faith’s next single, a cover of “High School Confidential,” again failed commercially and Faith returned to production work at a Herefordshire-based company, Danziger, where he did sound effects work for TV series The Adventures of William Tell and The Invisible Man.
In 1959, following the success of Good’s latest venture, the BBC created Drumbeat, which, in an about face, tossed the educational content and just focused on music. In March, Barry invited Faith to appear with his band on the show. The producer, Stewart Morris, initially booked Faith and Barry for three shows, an invitation which was subsequently extended to the program’s entire 22 week run. With the cessation of his HMV contract, Faith recorded “I Vibrate” on a six-track EP released in conjunction with the TV show on Fontana. Barry's manager, Eve Taylor, got Faith a contract with Top Rank, but his only record there, "Ah, Poor Little Baby" / "Runk Bunk," produced by Tony Hatch, again failed to chart. However, given his considerable TV exposure, its failure may’ve had to do more with a lack of publicity caused by a national printing strike than public indifference.
Faith achieved his dream of becoming an actor when he acted as the rebellious, James Dean-like “Dave” in Beat Girl. The film was one of several rock ‘n’ roll & coffee bar exploitation films (e.g. The Tommy Steele Story, Serious Charge, The Golden Disc, Expresso Bongo, She Knows Y’Know and others). In the film, Faith snarled through a few songs and Barry wrote the score, his first.
Faith signed a contract at Parlophone and the course he would follow was carefully planned. Most of his songs would be written by Faith’s friend, Johhny Worth (real name Yani Panakos Paraskeva Skoradalides). Still being under contract at Oriole Records, Worth adopted the pseudonym Les Vandyke. John Barry and John Burgess’s would proved production and arrangements in the style of American arranger, Don Costa. For his part, Adam Faith’s vocal signature would be a Buddy Holly-influenced hiccupping delivery sung with an exaggerated, affected pronunciation, most obviously prounouncing the word “baby” as “bye-beh” (suggested by his coach, Roy Young). The meticulously manufactured new sound was a resounding success. His new persona was debuted with "What Do You Want?" It was fawned over in the press and eaten up by the public. When it reached number one, it was the first time for Parlophone.
“Poor Me” and “Someone Else’s Baby” followed in 1960, a week after the release of the Beat Girl soundtrack. “Made You,” taken from the film, was a comparatively rocking number at odds with Faith’s new direction and was banned from the radio for its “lewd and salacious lyric.” Nonetheless, released as a double A-Side with the disposable "When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” it still made the Top 10. After a twelve week appearance at the Blackpool Hippodrome with the John Barry Seven and an appearance on the Royal Variety Show, Faith released “How About That” and “With Open Arms” before putting recording on hold for seven months in order to return to acting, this time in the Peter Sellers vehicle, Never Let Go. Beat Girl was finally released in theaters that October.
Faith’s debut full-length, Adam (1960-Parlophone) was released to in November. Unlike the preceding singles, which weren’t included, the songs within were mostly covers. The then-mawkish British music press lavished every aspect of the record with praise and it reached six on the charts. Its success allowed the twenty-year-old Faith to buy a house in Hampton Court where he relocated his family and self. His next single, an almost excruciatingly cutesy cover of Archie Alexander’s “Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop)” was released in time for Christmas and was, not surprisingly, an enormous hit, proving that the nation would buy anything Faith released. That same December, Faith became the first pop star to be the subject of an interview in UK TV history, on the program Face to Face, where he scandalized audiences by revealing to host John Freedman that he had enjoyed a bit of premarital sex. It hardly seemed to tarnish him. Shortly after Faith began work on another film, What a Whopper, and was linked romantically to his co-star, Juliet Mills.
That spring Faith released Johnny Worth’s “Who Am I/This is It” and Lionel Bart’s “Easy Going Me.” By then, even the usually uncritical music press began to note the increasingly tired predictability in Faith’s releases. His camp responded in July with “Don’t You Know It,” a song devoid of Barry and Burgess’s characteristic strings, instead dominated by Ted Taylor’s clavioline, giving it a Del Shannon feel. When he embarked on a tour that month, it was The Red Price Combo who backed him instead of the John Barry Seven. In September, Faith went in another direction, cabaret, performing at Ilford’s The Room at the Top. In January 1962, he was featured in another televised interview on the BBC Meeting Point . Discussing his love for Dvořák, Sibelius and Catcher in the Rye, according to music journalist Nik Cohn, he therein gave birth to the concept of pop singer as intellectual. Two months later he retired to a rest home in Surrey and began work on his next film, another coffee bar exploitation film, Mix Me a Person. That fall, Barry and Faith announced that they’d amicably come to the mutual decision to part ways. John Barry went on to become a major film scorer, noted especially for his instantly recognizable scores for the James Bond series.
Johnny Keating entered as Barry’s replacement. The first fruit of this new partnership was the hully-gully “Don’t That Beat All.” It was followed in September by Faith’s own TV series, Adam Faith Sings Songs Old And New. On it, Faith introduced a new backing band, The Roulettes. Following Ray Charles’s lead, From Adam with Love (1962-Parlophone) found Faith attempting country music. Adam Faith’s Latest Hits EP (1963-Parlophone) featured Faith and Worth’s last collaboration and, not long after, Worth moved to Australia where he was responsible for several hits there. In Worth’s place, Eve Taylor chose Chris Andrews, who’d played in Hamburg and on Oh Boy! with his band, Chris Ravel and the Ravens. It was hoped that, though from Dagenham, Andrews could give Faith and The Roulettes a merseybeat sound to keep him relevant following the arrival of The Beatles. The Roulettes underwent several changes as well. The talented Russ Ballard took over guitar from Henry Stracey and after the original bassist, John Rogers, died in a car wreck he was replaced by Jon “Mod” Rogan. The first new Andrews composition for Faith, “The First Time,” was released in September and was Faith’s biggest hit in over a year. Despite The Roulettes being a crack backing band, December’s For You (Parlophone-1963) was mainly a collection of orchestrated covers. The Roulettes, likely miffed, signed a separate deal and embarked on a remarkable if under-recognized parallel career.
The all Andrews-penned album, On the Move (1964-Parlophone), was released in May. Though “I Love Being in Love with You” spent six weeks on the charts, it was considered a disappointment. It’s B-Side, however, the enjoyable, beat number, “It’s Alright,” reached number 31 in the US after it was featured on Shindig!, an American show created by Good in the vein of his British hits. “It’s Alright” was Faith’s only success across the Atlantic. On tour that year, Faith caught a performance by Sandie Shaw and afterward suggested Chris Andrews begin writing her material as well. Her musical director, Ken Woodman, took over the same position with Faith. That December, Faith embarked on a tour of South Africa, on the condition that the audiences would be mixed. He undertook the tour accompanied by bodyguards after receiving death threats for his remarks about apartheid. When two colored girls were removed from the audience at one performance, Faith cancelled the remainder of the tour. Local promoter Ronnie Quibel got a court order to place Faith under house arrest until £20,000 was paid to cover the promoter’s losses. When he returned to the UK, he was hailed for his stance but EMI took the £20,000 sum out of his royalties.
Faith Alive (1965-Parlophone), recorded on April 25 at EMI’s Studio No. 1 in front of a live audience, is one of the few live albums of the beat era and shows how comparatively unrestrained Faith and The Roulettes were in performance compared to on record. In October, with Faith moving further in the direction of safe ballads, The Roulettes announced their decision to go it alone. After failing to find commercial success on their own, they ultimately broke up in 1967 and Ballard and Henrit joined Unit 4 + 2 and later, Argent. Faith’s next single, “Cheryl’s Goin’ Home” limped into #46 in 1966. After Chris Andrews, in addition to scoring hits with Sandie Shaw, even had several solo hits, he too parted ways with Faith after the 1967 release of “What More Can Anyone Do.”
Faith soldiered on, releasing a Bee Gees cover, “Cowman Milk Your Cow,” John D. Loudermilk's “To Hell with Love” and Tony Romeo's “Close the Door” to diminishing interest. In August, Faith married an ex-professional dancer name Jackie Irving whom he’d stolen away his old rival Cliff Richard. In August they were married at Caxton Hall, Westminster. After another lackluster single in 1968, “You Make My Life Worthwhile,” Faith wisely saw the writing on the wall and noted "the worst thing in the world is to be an ex-pop singer doing the clubs.” Bowing out fairly gracefully, he announced his attention to focus once again on his acting career.
At first, he acted in a touring production of Billy Liar but, in the 1970s, he returned to films with roles in That'll Be the Day and Stardust. He also returned to music, albeit behind the scenes, producing Leo Sayer, Roger Daltrey and Lonnie Donnegan. Then, in 1973 he was involved in a serious car accident that led to him returning to recording for one album. I Survive (1974-Warner Bros.) was a strong collection of lush, orchestral pop of high quality that featured contributions from Paul McCartney, Richie Blackmore, Russ Ballard and Ron Henrit. Aftwerward, he returned to the stage.
In 1986, Faith underwent heart surgery and subsequently experienced recurring health problems and exhibit signs of a midlife crisis. The same year, in another career move, Adam Faith became a financial investments advisor and was hired as a financial journalist by the Daily Mail and its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday. In an even more bizarre turn, the previous year he began what was ultimately a very public two-year affair with famous tennis star, Chris Evert, who was also married at the time.
Faith recorded one more album, mostly of covers, Midnight Postcards (1993-Polygram), the year after he returned to acting. In 1995, his wife was again humiliated by another public affair, this time with then 24-year-old actress Louise Lombard. As a result, Faith and Irving separated. One month later, Irving had a heart attack and Faith attempted reconciliation. After that failed, he consoled himself by vacationing at a luxury resort in Hua Hin, Thailand with Henrietta Frazer who was, at 26-years-old, by strange coincidence the exact same age as the 56-year-old Faith’s daughter with Irving, Katya.
In 1999, Faith invested millions of pounds in The Money Channel. After it folded in 2001, reportedly in debt £32 million, Faith declared bankruptcy and shortly after reunited with Jackie. Two years later, fter a performance in Love and Marriage at Stoke-on-Trent, Adam Faith fell ill and died at North Staffordshire Hospital of a heart attack early on the 8th of March, 2003 at 62. Although many of the British rockers of the pre-Beatles era are written off as toothless Elvis clones, Adam Faith was nothing of the sort. Though rarely if ever named as an influence, Adam Faith was a shrewd, charismatic star whose well-written originals contain much to enjoy.
