Thurston Harris

Thurston Harris (b. Indianapolis, July 11, 1931 – d. Ponoma, California, April 14, 1990) – Singer and guitarist. Harris’s professional career took off when he became the lead singer of an L.A. band called Lamplighters (later the Tenderfoots and then the Sharps), which recorded twelve singles in the early to mid 1950s. Next, he returned to his hometown of Indianapolis to focus on a solo career and struck gold when he released Robert Byrd’s “Little Bitty Pretty One,” which he took to #5 on Billboard 100 in 1957. While Harris’s big hit received additional exposure through film and television, he followed it up with “Do What You Did,” which hit the top 20 on the R & B charts in 1958. Although he continued to record, he never had another commercial success and died of a heart attack in 1990.