Donald Peers

Donald Rhys Hubert Peers (* July 10, 1908 in Ammanford, Wales; † August 9, 1973 in Brighton, England) was an especially popular in the 1950s in the UK Welsh singer.

Peers grew up in the village of Betws on in Wales and began his career in the 1930s as a crooner of various dance bands. After the war, he celebrated as a singer in his own radio show " Cavalier of Song" at the BBC for 42 years with his breakthrough. His greatest success at the time - and his lifelong theme song - was "In a Shady Nook by a Brabbling Brook ". In a time when there were no official charts, he spent five years as one of the most popular singers in the country. Then peers went to Australia, where he spent two years; when he returned, the British had almost forgotten him.

Peers but began again from the bottom and made the comeback; again at the BBC, but this time on television, he presented his show " Donald Peers Presents ... ", for the first time his countryman Tom Jones performed in public in 1962. In the late 1960s he made it up again in the top 10 on the British charts, with the single " Please Do not Go " (No. 3, 1969), an adaptation of the Barcarolle from Jacques Offenbach's " Tales of Hoffmann". In 1972, he followed a minor hit, "Give Me One More Chance " (No. 36).

At a concert in Sydney, Australia, peers rushed to the stage in a hole - so hard that he broke his spine. Contrary to the first doctor's diagnosis that he would never walk again, but he managed to overcome the paralysis, and later joined again on.

Donald Peers died in 1973 aged 65 in a Brighton nursing home with pneumonia.