finetune artist: Wayne Newton

b. 3 April 1942, Roanoke, Virginia, USA. Newton began his singing career as a child and later became the most popular and highest-paid star on the Las Vegas nightclub circuit. Inspired by a visit to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Newton's first professional singing engagement came at the age of six, when he was paid $5 for a performance. His family relocated to Phoenix, Arizona a few years later, where he learnt to play several instruments, including guitar and piano. He and his brother, Jerry, became a duo and by his early teens Wayne had landed his own television programme on station KOOL in Phoenix. At the age of 16, when the brothers were offered a five-year booking in Las Vegas, the family moved there. The Newton Brothers recorded one single for Capitol Records in 1959, "The Real Thing'/'I Spy", before recording several singles for the small George Records. In 1962 they were heard by television star Jackie Gleason, who booked them on his programme in September. Wayne was clearly emerging as the star of the act, and brother Jerry dropped out in 1963. By this time he had signed a music publishing contract with Bobby Darin's TM Music and returned to Capitol Records; Darin also oversaw the production of most of Newton's early Capitol recordings. Singing in a Las Vegas-lounge-lizard style, with minor traces of "safe" rock, Newton's first single to chart was "Heart (I Hear You Beating)", in 1963. "Danke Schoen", co-written by Bert Kaempfert, followed and became a Newton trademark which he performed throughout his entire career. Newton's first album, sharing the single's title, was released in the autumn of 1963 and reached number 55.

Listen to Wayne Newton at Finetune.

Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast
Danke Schoen
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Jingle Bell Rock
L-O-V-E (Digitally Remastered 99)