While some rock stars spend years paying their dues before they manage to land a #1 hit, others find staggering success at a shockingly young age. Jimmy McCulloch, the Scottish guitar player best known for his roles in Thunderclap Newman and Wings, was firmly in the latter category: In fact, he was just 16 years old when Thunderclap Newman shot to the top of the charts with “Something in the Air.”
Pete Townshend of the Who was the mastermind behind Thunderclap Newman, named after the band’s piano player, Andy “Thunderclap” Newman. Townshend put the group together as a way to showcase the songs of drummer/singer Speedy Keen, who had written “Armenia City in the Sky” for The Who Sell Out album, per American Songwriter. In addition to Newman, Keen and McCulloch, a prodigy who started playing guitar at the age of 11, Thunderclap Newman also featured Townshend playing bass under the pseudonym Bijou Drains.
Keen wrote “Something in the Air,” originally titled “Revolution” but renamed to avoid any confusion with the Beatles’ song of the same name. Interestingly enough, the song ended up replacing another song by the Beatles, “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” on the U.K. charts, where it went to #1 in June of 1969. “Something in the Air” spent three weeks in the top spot, blocking Elvis Presley‘s “In the Ghetto” from reaching the summit (it stalled at #2).
Despite their impressive debut, Thunderclap Newman unfortunately didn’t go on to have any more hits, as they broke up after their first album. And though McCulloch had a successful stint as a member of Wings with Paul McCartney, his career was cut short when he died at the age of 26 in 1979.
In a 2024 interview with Variety, Townshend reflected on the tragedy of McCulloch’s death and why he felt partially responsible.
“I think if I hadn’t come into Jimmy McCulloch’s life, he might still be alive today,” Townshend said. “I think the fact that he went on to work with Paul McCartney and Wings was the death of him.”
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“He wasn’t fit for stardom,” Townshend continued. “When I met first met Jimmy he was 14, maybe even younger, and he was in a band with his older brother, Jack, who was his protector. And because he was so young, we didn’t notice that he potentially was an alcoholic. At that particular time — despite the fact that Paul and Linda [McCartney] tried very, very hard to help him — there was no machinery to help him. Speedy, the same story.”
“None of these three people were ever meant to be stars, and there they were, with a #1 record on ‘Top of the Pops,’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’ was #4,” Townshend added, laughing. “I remember when I finished the mix — which I did in a proper studio — the engineer banged on the desk and ‘That’s a #1 record!’ I think everybody just knew it.”
Though it was their only hit, the legacy of “Something in the Air” lives on. It’s been featured in multiple films and TV shows; most recently, This Is a Gardening Show, the new Netflix documentary series hosted by Zach Galifianakis.
Related: 1967 Rock Hit With Iconic Organ Riff Was Written and Sung by an 18-Year-Old