Thurston Theodore Harris was born in July of 1931, in Indianapolis, Indiana. However, it was in Los Angeles that he was to achieve success as a recording artist, most notably with “Little Bitty Pretty One”, in 1957.
“Little Bitty Pretty One” sold more than a million copies and reached No.6 on Billboard’s pop chart. It had been written by Bobby Day, who was, himself, to take “Rockin’ Robin” to No.2 in the following year. Thurston achieved lesser success with his self-penned “Do What You Did”, in 1958, which reached No.14 on the rhythm and blues chart.
Frankie Lymon, Clyde McPhatter, The Jackson 5 and Huey Lewis and The News are among those artists who have recorded “Little Bitty Pretty One”. Thurston Harris drove public buses, in Los Angeles, for twenty years from 1965 and died, an alcoholic, in April of 1990, at the age of fifty-eight.