Tommy Morgan | |
Birth Name: | Thomas Morgan Edwards |
Birth Date: | 4 December 1932 |
Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Genre: | Pop music |
Occupation: | Musician |
Instrument: | Harmonica |
Years Active: | 1950s–2013 |
Associated Acts: | The Wrecking Crew |
Thomas Morgan Edwards (December 4, 1932 – June 23, 2022)[1] was an American harmonicist and session musician, who had been active since the 1950s.[2] He was considered one of the most heard harmonica players in the world, playing in over 500 feature films.[3]
Morgan's extraordinarily prolific career spanned seven decades, and included playing on (and occasionally composing) themes and incidental music for dozens of major Hollywood films, and hundreds of episodes of American television series, including main themes for The Rockford Files and Sanford and Son.[4] Although frequently uncredited in his earlier career (as was typical for session musicians of that era), Morgan also has a huge list of credits in popular music—among the most notable in that field are his prominent contributions to the seminal mid-1960s recordings by The Beach Boys, including the Pet Sounds album, their number one single "Good Vibrations" and the recordings made for their uncompleted Smile project.
He retired after a stroke in late 2013 and died at the age of 89 on June 23, 2022.[5]
In 2001, Morgan received a Special Lifetime Achievement Award from The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica.[6]