Clint Holmes

Singer Clint Holmes charted just once, yet his 1973 single “Playground in My Mind” remained one of the more distinctive one-hit wonders of its era. Born in Bournemouth, Dorset, England, on May 9, 1946, to an opera-singing mother and a jazz-musician father, he spent his formative years in Farnham, New York. From childhood onward he performed both vocally and theatrically; by high school he was fronting rock groups, and he later pursued formal music studies at college. During his Army service he sang with a military choir; after being stationed in Washington, D.C., he stayed on following discharge and built a local audience through club appearances. A booking in the Bahamas caught the attention of Johnny Mathis’s producer, who offered Holmes the chance to record several tracks, among them “Playground in My Mind.” Cut in May 1972 and issued the following month, the single initially failed to register.

That November, however, a Wichita, Kansas, station began airing it during the holidays, citing its light, melodic quality as seasonally appropriate. Listener reaction proved overwhelming, prompting other outlets to add the record. Before year’s end, Epic Records—the label that had first released the single—summoned Holmes back to the studio to complete an album intended to ride the song’s rising momentum. By June 1973 “Playground in My Mind” had reached number two, trailing only Paul McCartney’s “My Love,” and surpassed the one-million mark in sales. Branded thereafter as a novelty performer, Holmes found no comparable success with later releases. He kept singing and performing live while expanding into other media, serving as Joan Rivers’s sidekick on her short-lived program The Late Show. A more sustained role came with a two-year stint on Entertainment Tonight, where he worked as a music and events correspondent. By the close of the 1990s he had returned to club work, appearing regularly in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.