The biography has confused 2 people with the name Don Cherry. One is the jazz trumpeter (who played other small ethnic instruments), who played with Ornette Coleman and composed some of the Holy Mountain soundtrack. There is another Don Cherry, a Caucasian singer born much earlier, who had a hit with Band of Gold in 1955 (not to be confused with the Freda Payne song of the same name), was a singer, was in the big band hall of fame, and collaborated with Willie Nelson. It would be nice if someone could delete those entries; see Wikipedia (for instance) for a disambiguation of these names.
Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1995.
Had his first hit single in 1955, "Band of Gold", which reached #5 on the Billioard chart and sold more than a million copies. It was featured on an episode of AMC's Mad Men (2007).
Collaborated with his close friend Willie Nelson for two CD releases.