Today the Outsider Odyssey gives you a peculiar bird indeed. A tiny man with barely any talent for singing and writing music, recording himself for decades (often backed up by very competent jazz/swing musicians) and giving away the records for free in hope of becoming a star.
The man's name? Gordon fucking Thomas.
He was born in Bermuda in 1916, but moved to New York city at a young age. In his late 20s he played in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, but as legend tells only because all good musician were off overseas fighting in World War II. When they came back, he was out of the band.
After a break he started record himself in the 60s with the help of his friend saxophonist George Kelly who got some musicians together for a session. During this time Thomas was working as a nightwatchman for a developer and used to sleep in the apartments that were being renovated. Therefor he had no rent to pay and no other expenses either for that matter, so whatever money he made would go into cutting another record. He also worked as a bartender, a janitor, and countless other low wage jobs to scrape together money for more studio sessions.
The records never sold well, because he never tried very hard to sell them. Instead he would give them away to anyone who'd take them. “I gave away thousands. I would hand them out as Christmas presents — any holiday, really. Sometimes I would just stand on the street and give them away”, he said in a recent interview with New York Entertainment.
If there's one thing we've learned during this journey into the world of outsider music, it's that people will take notice if you just keep at it long enough. Over time Thomas' naive, almost childlike, recordings gained more and more fans, and in 2000 Irwin Chusid mentioned him in his acclaimed book Songs In The Key of Z: The Curious Universe Of Outsider Music (essential reading, by the way).
In 2003 he performed his first ever gig, and ss if that wasn't enough he even had a film made about him - the 2005 documentary Everything's Coming My Way: The Life And Music Of Gordon Thomas by Stacey DeWolfe and Malcolm Fraser.
Gordon Thomas now lives in a retirement home in the Bronx, but is still recording and last year, at the impressive age of 92, he released his latest album, Everything's Coming My Way. Something tells me it won't be his last.
(mp3) Gordon Thomas - Brown baby
(mp3) Gordon Thomas - Full moon (recommended)
(mp3) Gordon Thomas - Oprah
Excerpt from Everything's Coming My Way: The Life And Music Of Gordon Thomas:
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