Adam Faith
b. Terence Nelhams, 23 June 1940, Acton, London, England. During the British ‘coffee bar’ pop music phenomenon of the late '50s two artists reigned supreme; Cliff Richard and Adam Faith. While the former has shown astonishing staying power the young Faith had a remarkable run of hit records during the comparatively short time before he retired from singing. In seven years he made the UK chart 24 times, opening his career with two chart toppers. Both, What Do You Want and Poor Me lasted only two minutes; both featured the infectious pizzicato strings of John Barry's orchestra, both were written by Les Vandyke (alias Johnny Worth) and both featured the hiccuping delivery with the word, ‘baby’ pronounced ‘bybeee’. This became Adam's early ‘gimmick’. Faith's continued success rivalled that of Cliff's, when in a short period of time he appeared in three films BEAT GIRL, NEVER LET GO and WHAT A WHOPPER, and made a surprisingly confident appearance, being interviewed by John Freeman in a serious BBC television programme, FACE TO FACE. Adults were shocked to find that during this conversation, this lucid teenager admitted to pre-marital sex and owned up to listening to Sibelius. The following year, still enjoying chart hits, he appeared in the film MIX ME A PERSON. His career continued until the dawn of the Beatles, then Faith was assigned the Roulettes (featuring a young Russ Ballard). Songwriter Chris Andrews proceeded to feed Adam with a brief second wave of infectious beat-group hits most notably The First Time. In the mid-60s he gave up singing and went into repertory theatre and in 1971 became an acting star in the UK television series BUDGIE. Additionally Faith has produced records for Roger Daltrey and Lonnie Donegan and managed Leo Sayer. His two supporting actor roles in STARDUST and MCVICAR bought him critical success in addition to appearing in YESTERDAY'S HERO. For a number of years he has been a wealthy financial consultant, although in the '90s he returned to the stage with BUDGIEAND ALFIE,and to television, as lead actor in LOVE HURTS. Faith still works on the perimeter of the musical world, and released an album in 1993. While he will readily admit that his vocal range was limited, his contribution to popular music was significant insofar that he was the first British teenager to confront a hostile world of respectable parents and adults and demonstrate that pop singers were not all mindless layabouts and boneheads. 
Further reading: POOR ME, Adam Faith.