Trumpeter who contributed to Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames and later became a member of Aswad
The trumpeter Eddie “Tan Tan” Thornton, who has died aged 94, made the melodies and cadences of his native Jamaica a subtle undercurrent of London’s swinging 60s music scene. As a member of Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames, Thornton contributed to the brass section’s bright and forceful fanfares that helped Getaway top the British charts in June 1967, a year after his furious trumpet was part of the driving counter-melody on the Beatles’ Got to Get You into My Life.
Widely admired for his musical adaptability and for his dependable and easygoing personality, Thornton collaborated with some of the era’s greatest talents, including the Animals, Sandie Shaw and Jimi Hendrix (who lodged with him in London for a time). He played on the Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow and on the Small Faces’ eponymous second album, whose bittersweet closing number, Eddie’s Dreaming, was inspired by Thornton’s longing for Jamaica. He subsequently became an important part of the British reggae scene, notably in the horn section that helped Aswad to achieve greater fame.
One of five children born to William Thornton, a butcher, and his wife, Maude, Eddie was raised in a devout Catholic household in Spanish Town, one of Jamaica’s largest cities. After his father’s early death, Eddie was admitted to the Alpha boys’ school, a Catholic charitable institution run by the Sisters of Mercy in downtown Kingston, where many of Jamaica’s greatest musicians learned their craft. He joined the school band on tuba, switching to trumpet a few weeks later.
