Their single, "Something in the Air", a 1969 UK number one hit,[1] remains in demand for television commercials, film soundtracks and compilations.
[1] The band augmented its personnel during its tours: in 1969 with James "Jim" Pitman-Avery (bass guitar) and Jack McCulloch (drums).
In 2010, at the instigation of music business manager Ian Grant, Newman formed a new line-up with Mark Brzezicki, Nick Johnson, Josh Townshend and Tony Stubbings, who released an album titled Beyond Hollywood and remained active until 2012.
Townshend produced the single, played its bass guitar under the pseudonym Bijou Drains, and hired GPO engineer and Dixieland jazz pianist "Thunderclap" Newman (born Andrew Laurence Newman, 21 November 1942, Hounslow, Middlesex, died 29 March 2016) and the fifteen-year-old Glaswegian guitarist Jimmy McCulloch.
"Something in the Air", which Keen wrote, was number one on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks,[3] replacing the Beatles' "Ballad of John and Yoko" and holding off Elvis Presley.
"Something in the Air" appeared on the soundtracks of the films The Magic Christian (1969) and The Strawberry Statement (1970), the latter having helped the single reach number 25 in the United States.
[citation needed] Thunderclap Newman had not planned to undertake live performances, but the band relented when, to their collective surprise, "Something in the Air" became a chart success.
The trio, augmented by Jim Pitman-Avery (bass guitar) and McCulloch's elder brother Jack (drums), undertook a 26-date tour of England and Scotland, in support of Deep Purple, from July 1969 to August 1969.
In early 1971, the founding trio reformed with the Australian musicians Roger Felice (drums) and Ronnie Peel (bass guitar).
On 6 March 1971, New Musical Express (NME) reported the band's personnel change: Thunderclap Newman has finally settled down into a five-piece group, with two new members being brought in—although on certain dates, the outfit may be augmented by a brass section.
[citation needed] McCulloch had stints with a dozen or more bands, including John Mayall, Stone the Crows, and Paul McCartney's Wings[1] but, on 25 September 1979, at the age of 26, he died in his home from a cardiac arrest.
Keen suffered from arthritis for several years, and was recording his third solo album, when he unexpectedly died of heart failure on 12 March 2002, at the age of 56.
[citation needed] One of the aims of the band was to perform Hollywood Dream for the first time ever in its entirety, alongside material written by Keen and McCulloch after Thunderclap Newman had gone their separate ways.
Soon thereafter, the band released a CD entitled Beyond Hollywood, a live album with three studio re-rerecordings of Thunderclap Newman songs.