The World of DECCA Post 3 Balladeers and Crooners

Foreword of Part 3

So, my friends, you will immediately notice the inclusion of LP cover images following my gripe, in the foregoing parts, about failing to obtain permission to use them for my original plan of publishing a book. You see, there I was working through this part of my story and I became most frustrated by describing these lovely visual things without being able to show you them. So, what I did was, contact DECCA letting them know of my intention to include them here, expecting the busy folk at DECCA to fail to acknowledge my message, in time honoured fashion. So far, that is the case.

Part 2 has now received similar attention.

So, let’s crash on with the first Artist instalment during which, we’ll have a look at the

Balladeers and Crooners of the fine collection of records that is THE WORLD OF series.

ARTISTS

The Beatles, Rolling Stones, ABBA … None of these appear on WORLD OF Decca LPs. But if it’s stars such as Ronald Wycherley, Thomas William Hicks and Terry Parsons you’re after, your search is over. More on these later, but first …

BALLADEERS AND CROONERS

TOM JONES AND ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK

Whilst most of the male singers in the WORLD OF series could be said to sing ballads or croon, Tom Jones defies easy categorisation as he has had a go at just about all

styles over his long career. However, the track listing of THE WORLD OF TOM JONES (SPA 454) comes from his earlier period and is largely balladic with a bit of pop thrown in so qualifies here. Following Tom in the series list is THE WORLD OF ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK (SPA 455) and he and Jones shared the same manager in the sixties. Gordon Mills happened to be in South Wales one time and witnessed a performance by Tommy Scott and the Senators (variously known as The Senators with Twisting Tommy Scott or The Fabulous Senators featuring Tommy Scott, the Twisting Vocalist) and singing with

them was a Tom Woodward. Mills was impressed with the singer’s style and it was not long before he had taken Woodward/Scott under his managerial wing.

Tom is a regular stalwart of television cropping up here and there for pretty much all of his career in showbiz but the young Jones first appeared on the small screen on Donald Peers Presents and was soon to be seen on Billy Cotton’s Band Show. Both Donald and Billy are represented in The WORLD OF record series. The pinnacle of Jones’ life on TV, however, was, arguably perhaps, his appearance in The Simpsons, a popular cartoon family whose life was lived out in half hour episodes and which was punctuated with occasional visits from showbiz celebrities. In his show, Tom Jones crooned his emotions towards the long-suffering wife of Homer and mother of Bart, Marge. Anyway, prior to such stardom, The Senators’ first proper recording was produced by Joe Meek, who also produced ‘Telstar’ amongst other tunes for WORLD OF pop stars, The Tornados but nothing seemed to be coming of that session and Tom wasn’t happy. One of the people that he complained about Meek to was the now infamous Jimmy Saville. I have no wish to sully these pages with this man’s history except to mention that it was he who brought Jones to the attention of Peter Sullivan at Decca. The man presented The DECCA Chart show on Radio Luxembourg and so was obliged to bring the record company news of new talent when it showed up. Tom’s first two major hits were ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and ‘What’s New Pussycat?’, which was a little unusual, and both were written by WORLD OF colleague, Burt Bacharach. Another personality from our record collection, Dickie Valentine, impinges on Mr Jones’ life as, it turned out; he lived just up the road from TJ at one point. And there’s more – right next door to the Jones’ lived Dickie’s parents.

So, what do we have? Rock star, pop Star, balladeer, crooner …. We can add to this Company Director, too. Tom Jones’ manager and accountant developed a plan to ease the tax burden on their protégé and, probably not coincidentally, on themselves. They conceived a plan to invent a new record label called Management and Agency Music Ltd and plonked Jones on the Board of Directors. Now there’s a record label name

that needs a bit of creative modification if ever one needed it. It’s more often used title was the acronym MAM which you may recognise as one of the many subsidiary labels of DECCA. In our collection we have THE WORLD OF LYNSEY DE PAUL (SPA 443) on this short-lived label.

Anyway, there was something not quite catchy enough about the new protégé’s name and it was one of Gordon Mills’ partners that suggested the change to Tom Jones after, apparently, noticing a billboard advertising a film called (can you see where this is going?) …. Tom Jones. Similarly, you may be surprised to learn that Engelbert’s parents’ name was not, in fact, Humperdinck; it was Dorsey. Yeah, I know. Confusing! Well, I’m here to tell you that Mr and Mrs Dorsey produced George (known as Gerry) and a few years later, Gordon Mills took exception to that name too. The story goes that Mills was reading the Grimm Brothers’ Hansel and Gretel to his children so you might think he’d be thinking of Hansel Dorsey. Oh no, Mills recalled that the fairy tale had been retold as an opera with music composed by the original E. Humperdinck. One might, indeed, say that The WORLD OF GERRY DORSEY doesn’t have much of a ring about it but neither, I would argue, does Gerry Monroe…

GERRY MONROE

… which brings us neatly to THE WORLD OF GERRY MONROE (SPA 351). Monroe was a countertenor which is someone who has a natural singing voice higher than a tenor.

He would also sing falsetto, that is, a modified means of producing sounds within a range above one’s normal speaking voice – a way of positioning the larynx so that on expiration, air passes the thinner edges of the vocal cords. It was with this novelty voice that Monroe cropped up on Hughie Green’s ITV talent show Opportunity Knocks. If you have never seen toes curl and are curious, take off a sock and listen to track 1 side 1 of our record, ‘When the Blue of the Night’. Still, credit where credit is due; Gerry Monroe (stand by for a shock, people. Gerry was born Harry. Harry Morris, in fact) did have a number 4 hit with ‘Sally’ which is track 2 side 2, a song more normally associated with Gracie Fields.

GRACIE FIELDS

Dame Gracie Fields was very popular in the old English Music Hall and if you find walking a bit awkward with just one foot sporting curled toes, you could do worse than take off the other sock and listen to ‘Sally’ off of either THE WORLD OF GRACIE FIELDS (SPA 82) or THE WORLD OF GRACIE FIELDS VOL. 2 (SPA 425) since, curiously, the song features on both LPs.

Now, if you think I’m being a bit harsh, you should know that Ms Fields was actually a comedienne so I assume that some of her singing was supposed to be a bit, well … funny! Indeed, on a tour to the US, she was introduced as The Funniest Woman in the World! Her sense of fun may have been tested earlier in her career, however. As a youngster Gracie performed as a kind of fall-guy (fall-girl?) for Lily Turner, a music hall star who began her own career when she was only eight years old. Young Ms Fields’ part, whilst sitting amongst the audience, was to l

ustily convey the choruses of Lily’s songs to add a kind of novelty to the act. During one performance, though, a member of the audience took her to be a heckler out to spoil the show and thought things could be improved by setting about poor Gracie with an umbrella! Anyway, Lily Turner apparently heard Fields singing whilst cleaning toilets close to the theatre and contrived a way to involve her in her act. I wonder if she missed a trick really because maybe if she’d kept the umbrella gimmick in, it may have boosted her gig even further. Incidentally, Gracie’s family name was Stansfield and was shortened, apparently in order that it would be more easily noticed when viewed from the billboards.

KATHLEEN FERRIER

A lady who could actually sing was Kathleen Ferrier, a contralto who mainly sang classical and opera though also enjoyed to perform fun pieces in less formal company. A contralto has the lowest female singing voice. Ferrier contributes two volumes to our collection, THE WORLD OF KATHLEEN FERRIER (PA 172) and KATHLEEN FERRIER SINGS BACH & HANDEL (SPA 531). The latter album comes with

the endorsement of Kathleen’s sister Winifred, who claims to have had reservations about its posthumous release but whose mind was soon put at ease – on listening to the ‘first few bars’, Winnie realised that the perfection of the performance was imbued with the spirit of her sister who would have been unhappy with anything less. Some poignancy is attached to these recording sessions as they proved to be her last. One year exactly after the last recording date, Kathleen Ferrier passed away.

Kathleen features prominently on another Bach/Handel LP later in the collection under the GREAT CLASSICS DECCA logo entitled PASSION MUSIC BY BACH AND HANDEL(SPA 588). Incidentally, PA 172 is also known as SPA 4024 in Canada where it features on the London label and which throws up one of those little twists that turn nutters like me delirious. The front of the

Canadian sleeve is identical to the UK one except for the London logo taking the place of the DECCA one and, and this is the thing; the image of Kathleen Ferrier is flipped horizontally. Well, I don’t need to tell you about the buzz one gets when noticing that sort of thing for the first time, do I?

…. I DO need to tell you? Really?? You may be reading the wrong book after all. Still, stick with it – there’s more! This will turn you older ones on.

Back in Ms Ferrier’s early days, she found herself performing a recital with accompaniment supplied by a relatively unknown folk singer and pianist called Violet Carson. Who’s Violet Carson? It’s only Ena Sharples of Coronation Street fame! What a page turner this is turning out to be, eh?

DONALD PEERS

The early, pre-fame careers of so many successful performers indicates a kind of restless pinball of a mind springing , as if electrified, from one occupational métier to another, always looking to escape from one perfectly good piece of grass to one that appears so much greener. And so it was with balladeer Donald Rhys Hubert Peers. He was lined up to become a schoolteacher but didn’t fancy that so ran away to try his hand at house-painting. Donald didn’t fancy

that either so ended up as a steward on a tanker … naturally … before settling for – and now we are getting somewhere – a singer for a seaside dance band but it was not until he was demobbed from the Armed Forces that he began his recording career. One of his first songs was ‘ In a Shady Nook, by a Babbling Brook’ which became his signature tune and, of course, features on one of his two volumes in our collection; THE WORLD OF DONALD PEERS (SPA 75). For his three chart singles, though, you’ll have to check out THE WORLD OF DONALD PEERS VOL. 2 (SPA 320) where you’ll find ‘Games that Lovers Play’ and ‘Give Me One More Chance’, which charted disappointingly low, the latter, incidentally,

sung in conjunction with The Les Reed Orchestra – Les being a big WORLD OF star. Peer’s No. 3 hit, ‘Please Don’t Go’, which was co-written by Reed, finishes the triumvirate. Donald also provides ‘Was it Yesterday?’ on GOLDEN DECCADE (SPA 481). Whilst not being terribly successful in selling records, he was a popular performer, particularly on variety bills in places such as Blackpool as well as more prestigious venues including the Royal Albert Hall and the London Palladium. He also fronted his own TV series entitled Donald Peers Presents as well as appearing in several films including Sing Along With Me, The Balloon Goes Up’ and ‘Club Night’.

NOEL HARRISON

As the son of Dr Doolittle, who had talkative ‘pushmi-pullyu’, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that Noel Harrison was pulled in more than one direction when a teenager. A pushmi-pullyu, incidentally, is a llama-type animal that has a head at both ends so that it can talk and eat at the same time. Now, that’s all very well but I think the great maker of animals failed to notice a small physiological inconvenience with this design. As far as I know, there was only the one pushmi-pullyu in existence and whilst you might wonder at the appearance of its parents, at least it appears not to have been able to breed any more of itself, which might be a good thing! Any road up, let’s get back on track. Noel had the inclination to follow his father, Rex of course, into theatre life and joined a local repertory company at the same time as learning the guitar. And in case you’re wondering what he did with his spare time, he skied for Britain. In fact he skied in the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics and the 1956 competition in Italy. This is all very well but at 20 years of age, Harrison needed an income and so began plying his trade as a guitar-strumming minstrel bothering diners in a Greek

restaurant in London and was soon playing in the bars of Europe and nightclubs of America. He also had his first charting record in ‘A Young Girl’ which appears on THE WORLD OF NOEL HARRISON (SPA 26) as ‘Young Girl’ on the front and back covers and ‘Young Girl (of Sixteen)’ on the label. Anyway, this tune also shows up on GOLDEN DECCADE (SPA 481). Now, as well as being in the Hit Parade, he had some success in television with, for example, BBC’s Tonight on which he sang topical songs about the big news stories of the time. Harrison cropped up more often in US shows such as The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. in which he played the father of the girl in question. On the strength of these mainly acting shows, he won a recording contract, releasing three LPs. He soon found himself touring with the Beach Boys and Sonny & Cher and I’m sure you’ll remember his major hit of the late 60s, ‘Windmills of Your Mind’, which was not put out by Decca and so does not feature on SPA 26. Harrison’s list of exploits continues with a bit of scriptwriting for such as soft porn film, Emmanuelle, Queen of the Galaxy and several stage performances including the part of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady so reprising his father’s earlier showing as the same character. Noel was still gigging right up to the day before that of his sad death. He suffered a heart attack after getting home after a concert on a Saturday and passed away on the Sunday.

FRANK IFIELD

After a run of unsuccessful singles in the UK, Frank Ifield hit pay dirt with ‘I Remember You’, which was a fine tune but largely noticeable because a bit of novel yodelling. This tune went to No. 1 as did the two subsequent releases, ‘Lovesick Blues’ and ‘Wayward Wind’ completing a record-breaking (for a UK-based artist) hat-trick. Ifield was born in England to Australian parents who had travelled to the UK where his father pursued employment as an engineering inventor (for those wondering who invented the Ifield jet aircraft fuel pump, please find clues above). The family returned home when little Frank was ten years old and a year or so later he was teaching himself the guitar and how to yodel. Ah, from small acorns, eh? He was soon competing in local radio talent shows and being noticed and at 15 years of age, had

his first single release of the song that he performed, ‘Did You See My Daddy Over There?’ and from then on he was heard regularly on the radio and was soon hosting TV show, Campfire Favourites. After a run of six more singles, at age 22, he returned to England. It was only after seven more record releases with unimpressive chart histories that Ifield began to clean up at last. Now, here’s a little something for those of you that are experiencing Eurovision withdrawal symptoms; Frank Ifield twice

attempted to take part in this song contest on behalf of the UK but was pipped in the 1962 pre-Eurovision competition by Ronnie Carroll in the first and in 1976, when the Brotherhood of man won, he was the last of 12. Maybe he was just a bit too Australian for the Brits who voted and maybe there is a lesson to be learned here: yodelling is not big and it is not clever! Ifield has one LP in the collection; THE WORLD OF FRANK IFIELD (SPA 46).

KENNETH MCKELLAR

Eurovision rears its head (and if you think I said ‘ugly’ head, be very afraid. You’ve just read my mind and you really don’t want to go there) in our story, once again

because Kenneth McKellar represented the UK in Luxembourg in 1966 performing ‘A Man without Love’. He scored just 8 points, maybe more for his kilt than the song, which left him in 9th place, first place going to Austrian Udo Jürgens singing ‘Merci, Cherie’. ‘A Man without Love’ appears on THE EVERGREEN WORLD OF KENNETH McKELLAR (SPA 149). Before being signed to Decca, Kenneth was singing opera, his

first work being The Barber of Seville in which, after a spell in the chorus, he took a contract as the Principal Tenor. Opera wasn’t his cup of tea, however, and after playing McHeath in Benjamin Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera he called an end to this type of singing. Ken has quite an impressive showing in our collection with four records on which he is the sole star: SPA 149 above, THE WORLD OF KENNETH McKELLAR (SPA 11), THE WORLD OF KENNETH McKELLAR VOL. 2 (SPA 67) and THE OPERATIC WORLD OF KENNETH McKELLAR (SPA 562). SPAs 11 and 67 are taken up by a combination of traditional Scottish songs and folk but all have that particular essence of Scotland. Tunes like ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’, ‘Skye Boat Song’, ‘Will Ye No Come back Again’, ‘Danny Boy’ and, naturally, ‘Auld Lang Syne’. ‘Skye Boat Song’ crops up on a couple of other records; THE WORLD OF YOUR FAMILY FAVOURITES (SPA-R 457) and THE WORLD OF YOUR FAMILY FAVOURITES VOL. 2 (SPA-R 502) which seems a little lazy of them at Decca. Similarly, ‘My Ain Folk’ is on THE WORLD OF SCOTLAND (SPA 420) as well as SPA 11 whilst on THE PHASE 4 WORLD OF SHOWSTOPPERS (SPA 162), McKellar accompanies Adele Leigh on ‘Stranger in Paradise’, a song from Kismet, a stage musical with music adapted from that of Borodin. On this LP, the singers are backed by WORLD OF titan, Mantovani and his Orchestra. On THE WORLD OF SACRED MUSIC VOL. 2 (SPA 297) he goes all posh on us singing very competently, ‘My Arms! Against this Gorgias…Sound an Alarm’, an air from Handel’s oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus. Staying with Handel, he takes on ‘Silent Worship from the opera, Ptolemy on THE WORLD OF GREAT CLASSICS: WHERE’ER YOU WALK (SPA 566) and finally, THE WORLD OF SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN (SPA 548) throws up KK doing ‘The Lost Chord’. And now for something completely different – Kenneth McKellar had a spell of writing during which he supplied scripts to the Monty Python comedy team. Who’d have guessed eh?

PETER GORDENO

Take a pinch of Burmese and mix well with a little Scottish to make a mother. Place to one side. Separately, blend a smidgen of Italian with a sliver of American to make a father and put this to one side also. Dim the lights and combine the two specimens and what do you get? The genial personality and good looks of Peter Gordeno! Gordeno’s main day job was as a choreographer and dancer but many will remember him more for singing or as Captain Peter Carlin from the sci-fi TV series, UFO. He was born in Burma as Peter Gordenho a couple of months prior to the start of the Second World War, closely escaping bombings and the invading Japanese, eventually being evacuated to India. As a young man, he began dancing in cabaret and after a few years, moved to London, moving from job to job, just trying to make his way. Whilst working in a coffee bar when he was about 19 years of age, a visiting showgirl told him about auditions that were taking place for shows by singer Shirley Bassey and

comic magician, Tommy Cooper. Probably as much to do with his good looks as experience or technique at this stage, he was one of only two successful candidates. Soon he was performing in West Side Story and attracting attention as something a little bit special and it was not long before he was seen on TV, initially in WORLD OF starlet, Kathy Kirby’s show as a singer and dancing choreographer. He also worked alongside WORLD OF fellows Max Bygraves and Tony Hancock. Peter Gordeno’s show biz career went from strength to strength until finally, he found himself hosting his own TV special on BBC, The Peter Gordeno Show. He was now in demand as a choreographer for monster WORLD OF stars such as Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. THE WORLD OF PETER GORDENO (SPA 78) contains his first two Decca singles, ‘Everybody Knows’ and ‘Let Me Go’, plus their B sides, the flip of the latter, ‘Visions of You’, being co-written by Gordeno himself. Incidentally, his son, also called Peter Gordeno, plays bass and keyboards, at time of writing, for band Depeche Mode.

BOBBY HANNA

A crooner that you may not have heard of was born in Glasgow as Robert Faulds but made his name as a smooth songster in 1960s London when he called himself

Bobby Hanna. He played many of the capital’s night spots including the Talk of the Town as a solo performer though in earlier days he was vocalist with a handful of bands. He released some 14 singles but not many charted significantly. One that did, however, was ‘Written on the Wind’ with which Hanna won the Spanish Song Festival and hit no. 2 in Europe. This song can be found on Side 2 of The WORLD OF BOBBY HANNA (SPA 109). As the singing career began to wane, Bobby found himself hosting the Australian TV programme Blind Date in 1974 which resembled the later UK version fronted by Cilla Black.

DAVID WHITFIELD

When David Whitfield was about 23, he entered a singing competition but was disqualified. Booooo! Bad David! He couldn’t even finish his act. Boooo… Oh hang on. He couldn’t finish his act because the audience was applauding so much the judges couldn’t hear the big finish. Oh, well, then … There was no such problem next

time, though because success depended on a clapometer. Sorted! The competition, of course, was the TV show Opportunity Knocks compered by Hughie Green and Whitfield walked it. Another contest that he entered was the International Song Festival which preceded the Eurovision Song Contest. Of course, he won it and did so with ‘I Believe’, his second single release, which pops up on THE WORLD OF DAVID WHITFIELD (SPA 40). The next single, ‘Answer Me’, along with the inaugural one, ‘Maria’, are also to be found on the record. The final track on the LP is single No. 4 ‘Cara Mia’ which turned out to be Whitfield’s signature tune. This song was co-written by Whitfield’s producer and WORLD OF’s Number One, Mantovani, but if you check the label on the single, you’ll find that it appears to be credited to someone else. Tulio Trapani was Mantovani’s nom de plume and it was he that composed the music whilst Lee Lange, the pen-name of Bunny Lewis, came up with the words. ‘Cara Mia’ in Italian means something like ‘my darling’ in English and if you listen to the end of the song when David hits that last top C, you might detect some difficulty in getting there. First of all he employs the device of beginning with a lower note and then swooping up to the big finish and then his voice doesn’t sound completely safe as he just about manages to complete the note. You won’t, then, be surprised to learn that he claimed afterwards that he could never hit that note when singing live. ‘Cara Mia’ features on THE WORLD OF YOUR FAMILY FAVOURITES VOL.2 (SPA-R 502) whilst the orchestral version can be found on THE WORLD OF MANTOVANI (SPA 1). Whitfield has a second LP in the series imaginatively entitled THE WORLD OF DAVID WHITFIELD VOL. 2 (SPA 388).

MATT MONRO

Born Terry Parsons but credited as Fred Flange by Peter Sellers for his contribution to the album Songs for Swinging Sellers, our next songster is Matt Monro.

So, how did Terry P become Matt Monro? Well, in another little twist of WORLD OF fun, it turns out that popular WORLD OF pianist Winifred Atwell had a say in things. Heroine of Stanley Dwight’s piano-playing 5-year old son, Winifred was already a DECCA artist and after hearing Terry singing, suggested that the record label might be

interested in checking out this new voice on the block. Parsons was soon one of Wini’s stable-mates but not before a name change was mooted. Terry Parson’s does sound less of a popular singing star and more of a bus driver, which, if you know anything at all about Matt Monro, it is that in one of his previous lives, he was indeed a bus driver. Ding! (a little something for those of a certain age, there – for those a little younger, there were two members of staff looking after the bus in those far-off days, the driver who was shut away in his blissful cockpit sanctuary, and the conductor who took care of the passengers and when said passengers were all seated comfortably, the conductor would pull a cord which rang a bell which alerted the driver for the need to move the bus). Anyway, the name Matt was selected as it was the name of a journalist friend of Atwell and Monro was Winifred’s father’s name. Fame came slowly but spots on radio and TV shows such as The Winifred Atwell Show on BBC helped him on to become a household name with hits like ‘Portrait of My Love’ and From Russia with Love. We’re all pretty familiar with those hits so it is interesting that the songs on THE WORLD OF MATT MONRO (SPA 133) are from his less well-known time. Still, if you were a fan of Matt, you’d listen to him sing ‘Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner’, which is a rather contrived way of moving onto the next contributor to our story. Oh, by the way, Mr Dwight’s little boy mentioned above is, if anyone needs such advice, crocodile rocker Elton John.

HUBERT GREGG

So, yes, Hubert Gregg is the author of the song, ‘Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner’ and it opens up THE WORLD OF HUBERT GREGG (SPA 516). Gregg wrote it to boost morale during World War II but Hubert kept it up his sleeve until a couple of years

after the war ended when contemporary Bud Flanagan needed a song. It is Bud’s version that is most well-known today. A second war-time Gregg song (his first to be published) opens Side 2 called, ‘I’m Going to get Lit Up when the Lights go Up in London’ but there was a lot more to the man than just music – he was also an actor on stage and screen, director of stage plays, author of novels, playwright and made use of during the war when he was posted to the Political Warfare Executive in order to broadcast misleading propaganda to the confused German public. In the London West End, Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap began a year before Hubert Gregg became its director for roughly seven years until 1960 and this play is still being performed in the Capital as I write. Hubert Gregg’s middle name might have been Nostalgia as this was the theme for his many TV shows and it certainly is for the record in our metaphorical hands.

References available on request

Regarding the LP cover images, they are photographs of the records in my own collection and are taken by my own hand (which explains the slight wonkiness of some of them). All images are, however, copyright of Decca.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of any image in any form is prohibited.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the text in any form is prohibited, restricted by permission of the author.

Thank you very much for visiting the Groover's Lounge. It's always good to 'see' you. All being well, Part 4 will be here ready and waiting next Thursday 23rd where we'll be getting in amongst the Big Bands and Easy Listening Orchestras. Not your thing? Well, don't forget that one of my aims in producing these words was to bring different styles of music, and to introduce different cultures, to a new audience as well as amusing those already familiar with some of the music of the names discussed.