FROM THE VAULTS

Kurt Edelhagen (5 June 1920 – 8 February 1982) was a major European big band leader throughout the 1950s.

Edelhagen was born on June 5, 1920 in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany as Kurt Ludwig Edelhagen. He was trained as a clarinetist and pianist in Essen, Germany, discovered Jazz during the Second World War, and after the war, along with his long-time associate, drummer Bobby Schmidt, formed a big band that originally played in the clubs of the occupying Allied Armed

Forces and subsequently performed before German audiences.

Edelhagen patterned his music after the big bands of Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and, the man who was to become his idol, Stan Kenton. "Stan Kenton," said Joachim Ernst Berendt [the leading German authority on Jazz], "at that time was the last word in big band jazz and Kurt Edelhagen appeared to us from the beginning as the German response to the American challenge posed by Kenton."

Edelhagen was a natural bandleader and his band did radio recordings for the American Forces Network (AFN) in Frankfurt/Main in 1948 He also headed ensembles for the radio

station in Frankfurt, in Nuremberg (1949-1952) and most notably the orchestra of Sudwestfunk (1952-1957).

It seems that Edelhagen’s big break came in March 1954 when he took his band on the weekly television series "Jazz Time Baden-Baden" which was produced and hosted by Joachim-Ernst Berendt. His appearance of the series made the band known far beyond the southwest of Germany. Edelhagen performed along with numerous stars of the international jazz scene including Lionel Hampton, Mary Lou Williams and Chet Baker, among many others. Looking for a singer for his big band Edelhagen discovered Caterina Valente who joined his orchestra in 1953. Together they recorded her first album that same year.

Kurt with Elvis & Bill Haley, Frankfurt 1958

In 1957 Popular singer Tony Sandler recorded several songs, such as "Ik weet wat je vraagt", with his orchestra for the Polydor label. Below is one of my favourites from the band recorded in 1956.

In 1957 he joined Westdeustcher Rundfunk in Cologne which in time included such players as trumpeters Dusko Goykovich and Jimmy Deuchar, altoist Derek Humble, and trombonist Jiggs Whigham. He headed that band until it broke up in 1973 and remained semi-active up until near his death. Kurt Edelhagen recorded fairly often in Germany during 1949-1972 although few of his records (other than one put out by Golden Era) have been made available in the U.S. His Radio Orchestra played at the opening ceremony of the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Edelhagen died February 8, 1982 (age 61) in Cologne, Germany.

(Info edited from Wikipedia, Jazz Profiles & AMG)

James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford (June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader of the swing era.

Lunceford was born in Fulton, Missouri, but attended school in Denver and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Fisk University. In 1927, while teaching high school in Memphis, Tennessee, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra when it began touring. The orchestra made its first recording in 1930. After a period of touring, the band accepted a booking at the prestigious Harlem nightclub, The Cotton Club in 1933.

The Cotton Club had already featured Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, who won their first widespread fame from their inventive shows for the Cotton Club's all-white patrons. Lunceford's orchestra, with their tight musicianship and often outrageous humour in their music and lyrics made an ideal band for

the club, and Lunceford's reputation began to steadily grow.

The orchestra waxed a few notable songs for Victor, and then started recording regularly for Decca. Their tight ensembles and colourful shows made them a major attraction throughout the remainder of the swing era. Among their many hits were "Rhythm Is Our Business,""Four or Five Times,""Swanee River,""Charmaine,""My Blue Heaven,""Organ Grinder's Swing,""Ain't She Sweet,""For Dancers Only,""'Tain't What You Do, It's the Way That Cha Do It,""Uptown Blues," and "Lunceford Special." The stars of the band included arranger Sy Oliver (on trumpet and vocals), Willie Smith, Trummy Young (who had a hit with "Margie"), and tenor saxophonist Joe Thomas.

Lunceford's stage shows often included costumes, skits, and obvious jabs at mainstream white jazz bands, such as Paul Whiteman's and Guy Lombardo's. Despite the band's comic veneer, Lunceford always maintained professionalism in the music befitting a former teacher; this professionalism paid off and during

the apex of swing in the 1930s, the Orchestra was considered the equal of Duke Ellington's, Earl Hines' or Count Basie's.

As well as recording for the Decca label the band later signed with the Columbia subsidiary Vocalion in 1938. They toured Europe extensively in 1937, but had to cancel a second tour in 1939 because of the outbreak of World War II. In 1939, it was a major blow when Tommy Dorsey lured Sy Oliver away (although trumpeters Gerald Wilson and Snooky Young were important new additions). Unfortunately, Lunceford underpaid most of his sidemen, not thinking to reward them for their loyalty in the lean years. Columbia dropped Lunceford in 1940 because of flagging sales so he returned to the Decca label. The orchestra appeared in the 1941 movie Blues in the Night.

In 1942 Willie Smith was one of several key players who left for better-paying jobs elsewhere, and the orchestra gradually declined. Jimmie Lunceford was still a popular bandleader in 1947 when he suddenly collapsed and died from cardiac arrest.

Rumours have
persisted that he was poisoned by a racist restaurant owner who was very reluctant about feeding his band. After Lunceford's death, pianist/arranger Ed Wilcox and Joe Thomas tried to keep the orchestra together, but in 1949 the band permanently broke up.

(info edited from Wikipedia & AMG)

Harry Hopkinson (8 June 1902--4 March 1979) has been credited as one of the world's greatest yodellers. He was billed as the "Yodelling Cowboy from Chesterfield."

Born Harry Hopkinson at the turn of the century at North Wingfield, Derbyshire, England, in one of the long-since demolished Little Morton Cottages, he went from butcher’s errand boy to become a music-hall superstar who was idolised for his

yodelling talents, and during a show business career which spanned half a century made over 25 single records, which today are valuable collectors’ items.

It is said that he was blessed with a voice `sweeter than any nightingales’; a voice recognised for its purity by choirmaster Herbert Butterworth who encouraged Harry to become a boy soprano with the North Wingfield Church Choir. Harry’s Sunday evening solos had the building packed to the seams. After a spell working in the local colliery, he entered show business in a troupe of travelling entertainers.

Harry moved to the newly opened Williamthorpe Colliery. He loved the ponies but hated the pit work, and after suffering an accident which left him partially buried for some hours, decided

that being a miner was not for him - and set his heart on a singing career.

When harry was still a teenager, he won a local talent contest where his unique voice was recognised by an entertainment agent who signed him up to tour the country with a music-hall troupe. He changed his name and his image; Harry Hopkinson ex-miner and former butcher’s errand boy became Austin Layton, Music Hall Star.

Dressed in his top hat and tails and looking the picture of elegance with his white gloves and silver-topped cane, the image-makers of

the day made the young man with the boyish good looks into the epitome of the 1920’s `Toff’. By the time he was 25 Harry had become the complete showman – and was soon to become an international celebrity following a further change of management and style. For the Music Halls he had been billed as `The Singing Puzzle’ and opened his stage act mysteriously concealed behind a curtain, or sometimes a newspaper, wearing a long wig and a cloak which the audience were allowed brief glimpses of during the performance. The unamplified voice would ring around the theatre, convincing the audience by it’s amazing high-pitched clarity that its owner was female – until the song ended and Harry revealed himself, throwing off the cloak and tossing the wig across the stage t

o rapturous applause.

The yodelling part of Hopkinson's act was expanded, and he adopted the more commercial and continental sounding name Harry Torrani.

Success followed success for `Torrani’. Harry toured the world during the 1930’s, appearing at theatres as far apart as the U.S.A., Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In an era that witnessed a revolution in the medium of entertainment with the advent of the wireless and the new-fangled gramophone records, Harry Torrani became a yodelling legend.

Hopkinson recorded his first yodelling song on 27 August 1931 for the Regal Zonophone label, Honeymoon Yodel coupled with Happy and Free. His recording career continued until 1942. Some of his songs were Yodel All Day, Yodellers Dream Girl, Honeymoon Yodel, The Australian Yodel, Mammy's Yodel! and

Mississippi Yodel!.

As well being an accomplished performer, he also wrote most of his own material. He appeared in Variety Theatres worldwide and also made wireless broadcasts.

Hopkinson retired from show business during the late 1940s. In his retirement he worked as a watch repairer, after suffering a stroke he entered a Nursing Home where he remained until his death on 4th March, 1979 at the age of 77.

Slim Whitman, when asked who in his opinion was the world’s greatest yodeller, answered without hesitation, “Harry Torrani.” (Info mainly edited from oldcountrystyle.webs.com)

Thanks to "gruntlesnoot" @You tube for making this clever video.

John Marshall Alexander, Jr. (June 9, 1929 – December 25, 1954), known by the stage name Johnny Ace, was an American rhythm and blues singer. He scored a string of hit singles in the mid-1950s before dying of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Alexander was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a preacher, and grew up near LeMoyne-Owen College. After serving in the

navy during the Korean War, Alexander joined Adolph Duncan's Band as a pianist. He then joined the B. B. King band. Soon King departed for Los Angeles and vocalist Bobby Bland joined the army. Alexander took over vocal duties and renamed the band The Beale Streeters, also taking over King's WDIA radio show.

Becoming "Johnny Ace", he signed to Duke Records (originally a Memphis label associated with WDIA) in 1952. Urbane 'heart-ballad'"My Song," his first recording, topped the R&B charts for nine weeks in September. ("My Song" was covered in 1968 by Aretha Franklin, on the flipside of "See Saw".)

Ace began heavy touring, often with Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. In the next two years, he had eight hits in a row, including "Cross My Heart,""Please Forgive Me,""The Clock,""Yes, Baby,""Saving My Love for You," and "Never Let Me Go." In December, 1954 he was named the Most Programmed Artist of 1954 after a national DJ poll organized by U.S. trade weekly Cash Box.

Ace's recordings sold very well for those times. Early in 1955, Duke Records announced that the three 1954 Johnny Ace recordings, along with Thornton's "Hound Dog", had sold more than 1,750,000 records.

After touring for a year, Ace had been performing at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas on Christmas Day 1954. During a break between sets, he was playing with a .22 caliber revolver. Members of his band said he did this often, sometimes shooting at

roadside signs from their car.

It was widely reported that Ace killed himself playing Russian roulette. Big Mama Thornton's bass player Curtis Tillman, however, who witnessed the event, said, "I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded… see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ — sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran out of the dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed himself!"

Thornton said in a written statement (included in the book The Late Great Johnny Ace) that Ace had been playing with the gun, but not playing Russian roulette. According to Thornton, Ace pointed the gun at his girlfriend and another woman who were sitting nearby, but did not fire. He then pointed the gun toward himself, bragging

that he knew which chamber was loaded. The gun went off, shooting him in the side of the head. According to Nick Tosches, Ace actually shot himself with a .32 pistol, not a .22, and it happened little more than an hour after he had bought a brand new 1955 Oldsmobile.

Ace's funeral was on January 9, 1955, at Memphis' Clayborn Temple AME church. It was attended by an estimated 5,000 people. "Pledging My Love" became a posthumous R&B No. 1 hit for ten weeks beginning February 12, 1955. As Billboard bluntly put it, Ace's death "created one of the biggest demands for a record that has occurred since the death of Hank Williams just over two years ago." His single sides were compiled and released as The Johnny Ace Memorial Album.

One of the brightest stars of the R & B world was lost much too soon and certainly because of a moment of foolish youthful indiscretion. Johnny Ace had a definite shot at becoming the first great cross over artist of the rock 'n roll years had he lived. His ballad singing style seemed to transcend the social barriers that had existed up to that time, and his in person performances made him a popular and influential star of the time. He was a once in a lifetime performer, and he left us much too soon. (Info mainly Wikipedia)

Bonnie Lee (June 11, 1931 – September 7, 2006) was an American Chicago blues singer, known as "The Sweetheart of the Blues.“ She was a long-time fixture of Chicago's contemporary blues scene as well as one of the last surviving links to its post-war heyday. Many great blues artists have come from the Texas area but, arguably, none so adorable as Ms. Bonnie Lee. With a career that spanned

more than fifty years, Lee stirred the mixture of jazz sophistication, deep rooted blues feeling and southern charm to come with a style that's was all her own.

Born Jessie Lee Frealls on June 11, 1931, in Bunkie, LA, Lee grew up in Beaumont, TX, where she studied piano and sang in her church's choir. Gospel singer Lillian Ginn was sufficiently impressed to extend an invitation to join her on tour, but Lee's mother refused to grant her permission. As a teen Lee nevertheless toured the South as a member of the Famous Georgia Minstrels, befriending blues

legends Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Big Mama Thornton along the way.

She relocated to Chicago in 1958, hitching a ride with a delivery van driver and settling at the West Side apartment of an aunt. After toiling in anonymity as a singer and dancer, in 1960 Lee signed to J. Mayo Williams' Ebony label to cut her debut single, "Sad and Evil Woman," credited at Williams' insistence to Bonnie "Bombshell" Lane, a moniker she reportedly despised. The single fared poorly, and Lee continued touring the Chicago jazz and blues club circuit, developing a potent voice as earthy as it was electrifying.

Family obligations forced her to retire from music during the middle of the decade, but in 1967 she resurfaced alongside the legendary pianist Sunnyland Slim, a longtime confederate of Muddy Waters. Lee regularly opened for Slim in the years that followed, becoming a legend on the North Side blues circuit via residencies at clubs including Wise Fools, B.L.U.E.S., and Blue Chicago.

In the late '70s, she also cut a handful of singles for Slim's own Airway label. In 1982, performing with Zora Young and Big Time Sarah as Blues with the Girls, she toured Europe, and they recorded an album in Paris.

In 1992 Lee performed on Magic Slim's album 44 Blues, with John

Primer. Lee also enjoyed a decade-long collaboration with renowned bassist Willie Kent, during which time she recorded the 1995 Delmark LP Sweetheart of the Blues as well as the 1998 Wolf Records set I'm Good. In addition, she contributed to myriad compilations, most notably Women of Blue Chicago and Chicago's Finest Blues Ladies.

Health problems nevertheless plagued Lee throughout the latter half of her life, and she died in Chicago, Illinois, on September 7, 2006, at the age of 75. (Info edited from AMG)

Charlie Feathers (June 12, 1932 – August 29, 1998) was an influential American rockabilly and country music performer.

Charles Arthur Feathers was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and recorded a string of popular singles like "Peepin' Eyes,""Defrost Your Heart,""Tongue-Tied Jill," and "Bottle to the Baby" on Sun Records, Meteor and King Records in the 1950s.

Feathers was known for being a master of shifting emotional and sonic dynamics in his songs. His theatrical, hiccup-styled, energetic, rockabilly vocal style inspired a later generation of rock vocalists, including Lux Interior of The Cramps.

He studied and recorded several songs with Junior Kimbrough, whom he called "the beginning and end of all music". His childhood influences were reflected in his later music of the 1970s and 1980s, which had an easy-paced, sometimes sinister, country-blues tempo, as opposed to the frenetic fast-paced style favoured by some of his rockabilly colleagues of the 1950s.

He started out as a session musician at Sun Studios, playing any

side instrument he could in the hopes of someday making his own music there. He eventually played on a small label started by Sam Phillips called Flip records which got him enough attention to record a couple singles for Sun Records and Holiday Inn Records. By all accounts the singer was not held in much regard by Phillips, but Feathers often made the audacious claim that he had arranged "That's All Right" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" for Elvis Presley and recorded "Good Rockin' Tonight" months before Presley. He also claimed that his "We're Getting Closer (To Being Apart)" had been intended to be Elvis' sixth single for Sun. He did, however, get his name on one of Elvis' Sun records, "I Forgot To Remember To Forget" when the writer Stan Kesler asked him to record a demo of the song.

He then moved on to Meteor Records and then King Records where he recorded his best-known work. When his King contract ran out he still continued to perform, although Feathers—perhaps typically—thought there was a conspiracy to keep his music from gaining the popularity it deserved.

When the rockabilly revival started up in Europe in the early '70s, Feathers became the first living artist up for deification by collectors. His old 45s suddenly became worth hundreds of dollars, and every interviewer wanted to know why he never really made it big and what his true involvement with Sun consisted of. Feathers embroidered the story with a skewed view of rock & roll history with each retelling, to be sure, but once he picked up his guitar and sang to reinforce his point, the truth came out in his music. Never mind why he didn't make it back in the '50s; he could still deliver the goods now.

In the mid-1980s, he performed at times at new music nightclubs like the Antenna Club in Memphis, Tennessee, sharing the bill with rock-and-roll bands like Tav Falco's Panther Burns, who, as devoted fans of Feathers, had introduced him to their label's president. During this time, rockabilly icon Colonel Robert Morris played drums for Charlie. Charlie said "Robert tore up a brand new set of drums, but the crowd was dancing on the tables".

He released his New Jungle Fever album in 1987 and Honkey Tonk Man in 1988, featuring the lead guitar work of his son, Bubba Feathers. These later albums of original songs penned by Feathers

were released on the French label New Rose Records, whose other 1980s releases included albums by cult music heroes like Johnny Thunders, Alex Chilton, Roky Erickson, The Cramps, The Gun Club, and others.

With health problems plaguing him from his diabetes and a surgically removed lung, Feathers continued on his own irascible course, recording his first album for a major label in 1991 (Elektra's American Masters series) and continuing to perform and record for his wide European fan base. Truly an American music original, Feathers died August 29, 1998, of complications following a stroke; he was 66. (Info edited from Wikipedia & All Music)

David Rose (June 15, 1910 – August 23, 1990) was a British-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, and orchestra leader and was one of the most popular and distinctive mainstream instrumental pop composers of the '40s,'50s and '60s, He was responsible for two numbers that embody the two moral poles of

exotica: "Holiday for Strings" and "The Stripper."

Recipient of four Emmy awards, David Rose was born in London to Jewish parents and raised in Chicago and he studied at the Chicago College of Music. After starting as an arranger for NBC Radio in Chicago, he moved to Hollywood in 1928 and led the orchestra for the Mutual Broadcasting network. Mutual is supposed to have forced Rose to cut his orchestra back to just a string section to save costs, leading him to focus on writing

for strings.

He was married on October 8, 1938, to the actress Martha Raye. They were divorced on May 19, 1941. He was married for a second time, on July 28, 1941, to the actress and singer Judy Garland. They had no children, though Garland reportedly underwent at least one abortion during the marriage, at the insistence of her mother, her husband, and the studio that employed her, MGM. Garland and Rose divorced in 1944. He had two daughters with his third wife, Betty Bartholomew. His granddaughter is singer-songwriter Samantha James.

The climax of this period was his 1944 hit, "Holiday for Strings," or as we all know and love it, "that shopping song.""Holiday for Strings" was also later used as the theme song for the Garry Moore and Red Skelton shows.

Rose joined MGM after the war and worked for the studio in television, film, and recordings. He orchestrated much of the first few seasons of "Bonanza." He backed a number of MGM's vocalists, including Connie Francis on her hit, "My Happiness," and had several instrumental hits of his own. He cashed in on the calypso craze of 1956-57 with "Calypso Melody," a Top 40 hit. He also released an album of classical pieces done with upbeat rhythm sections, titled "Concert with a Beat." Rose was a live steam hobbyist, with his own backyard railroad.

"The Stripper" was composed by Rose and recorded in 1958. It was originally used as the B-side to his single, "Ebb Tide". The choice

of the record's B-side was not by Rose, but by an MGM office boy. MGM indicated they wanted to put the record on the market quickly. A B-side was needed and with Rose away, the office boy went through some of Rose's tapes searching for one. "The Stripper" featured especially prominent trombone lines, giving the tune its lascivious signature, and evokes the feel of music used to accompany burlesque striptease artists. The piece features in the films Slap Shot, The Full Monty and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as well as TV series Little Britain and Scrubs. It was also famously used in a parody by British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, where they danced to the tune while making breakfast.

He continued to work in television, serving as musical director for the series "Little House on the Prairie" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He died in Burbank, California of a heart attack at the age of 80 and was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California. (info edited from spageagepop.com & Wikipedia)

Floyd Arthur Dakil (June 16, 1945 – April 24, 2010) was a Texas musician best known for his often compiled song "Dance Franny Dance". He later went on to play guitar in Louis Prima's band.

Dakil was born in
Childress County, Texas. He started out as an adolescent wildman, forming his Floyd Dakil Combo with five other high school
sophomores in 1963. In 1964, the combo recorded their first and
best-known single for the Jetstar label, the regional hit “Dance,
Franny, Dance,” live in front of a crowd at the Pit Club, where they were the house band. They were clean-cut teens in sharp suits who played savage, crazy and loose dance music that still stands out today as one of the hottest sounds to come out of the happening Dallas-Fort Worth ‘60s garage scene.

"Dance Franny Dance", reached the sixtieth slot on a "top sixty"
chart compiled by a San Francisco radio station. It was re-issued nationally on the Guyden label. Its inclusion in compilations on Texas rock has become essential. Floyd Dakil went on to record three 45s on the Earth label as the Floyd Dakil Four.

After the Earth 45s, Floyd kept the band together while earning a B.A. from Texas Tech. In 1968 he had a solo 45 “Merry Christmas Baby” / “One Day” on Pompeii. Sometime after that Floyd became
the guitarist for one of his idols, Louis Prima, and remained for several years until Prima’s ill health curtailed his touring. Dakil stayed in Las Vegas, where he played the lounges and opened for the likes of Bill Cosby and Phyllis Diller. During July 1972 he married Jolene Nunn.

In 1975 he released a LP with his own group, Live! in which he runs
through 42 songs in as many minutes. It’s definitely an odd mix, if you can imagine “Everyday People” segueing to a chorus of
“Yummy Yummy Yummy” then straight into “Whiskey River”! Also about 1975 Floyd turned down a two LP contract with CBS, feeling that the contract was unfair in charging promotional costs back to the artist.

In the late ’80s he started a band with Larry Randall, and this group’s songs were featured in a 1991movie, Love Hurts with a brief cameo by the group.He was working in real estate, and teaching guitar lessons at the Grapevine Antique Mall inGrapevine, Texas, but occasionally appeared with reunited members of his original band under thename The Pitmen. . In 2009 Floyd was one of the featured acts at the Ponderosa Stomp at SXSW in Austin.

Recently, the economic downturn put a halt at his real estate business and put him in financial troubles. Tragically Floyd committed suicide 24 April 2010, age 64.
(Info edited from various sources)

Back in July

Terence Harris MBE (6 July 1939 – 18 March 2011), known as Jet Harris, was an English musician. He was the bass guitarist of the Shadows until April 1962, and had subsequent success as a soloist and as a duo with the drummer Tony Meehan.

He was born Terence Harris into a working-class family in

Kingsbury, north-west London. His prowess as a sprinter at Dudden Hill secondary modern school earned him the nickname Jet. Leaving school at 15, he went to work with his father as an apprentice welder making milk churns at the Dairy Supply Company in Park Royal.

As a child he played the clarinet, but his interest in bass rhythms was piqued by hearing records by the pianist Winifred Atwell. This inspired him to make his own double bass. In 1958, Harris joined the backing group of the singer Larry Page before going on tour with Tony Crombie and the Rockets, one of the first British rock'n'roll instrumental groups. Crombie got a Framus bass guitar for Harris, making him one of the first British exponents of the instrument. He later favoured the Fender Precision bass

left to right, Bruce Welch, Cliff Richard, Jet Harris and Hank Marvin.

After playing with the Vipers skiffle group and the Most Brothers, he was invited to join Cliff Richard's backing group, then called the Drifters, whose lead and rhythm guitarists were Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch respectively. In 1959, the quartet made their first recordings as the Shadows, a name change suggested by Harris, because of the prior existence of the American vocal group the Drifters.

The Shadows' first and most memorable hit was Apache, which reached No 1 in 1960. Over the next two years, Harris played on more top 10 singles, including Man of Mystery, FBI and Kon-Tiki,

before suddenly quitting the group in 1962.

The most photogenic of the group, the moody-looking Harris was persuaded that he had a future as a solo star. He was immediately signed to a recording deal with Decca, releasing the top 30 hits Besame Mucho and The Theme from The Man With the Golden Arm, although the latter was banned by the BBC for the drug associations of Otto Preminger's 1955 film. With a backing group, the Jetblacks, he went on tour with Little Richard and the then unknown Liverpool group the Beatles. A triumphant 1962 ended with the award of the title top instrumentalist in the readers' poll of the New Musical Express.

Harris next teamed up with the Shadows' former drummer Tony Meehan. As Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, they had big hits in 1963

with Diamonds – which reached No 1 – Scarlett O'Hara and Applejack. Among those Harris had inspired to take up the electric bass was the future Led Zeppelin member John Paul Jones, who was briefly a member of the Harris-Meehan touring band.

By this time, Harris was also making news offstage. There were several court appearances involving drunkenness and violent behaviour before the partnership with Meehan came to an abrupt end in September 1963, when Harris was seriously injured in a car accident involving a vehicle in which he was travelling with the pop starlet Billie Davis.

Six months later he attempted the first of several unsuccessful

comebacks, failing to complete a brief appearance at the Edmonton Granada in north London. He subsequently took a variety of manual jobs ranging from bricklayer to hospital porter, getting back on stage occasionally during the summer season in Jersey in the early 1970s.

Harris was declared bankrupt in 1988. The BBC reported that it took Harris 30 years of heavy drinking before he finally admitted to

being an alcoholic and sought help. For many years Harris made a point in his stage shows of saying how long it had been since he quit drinking, winning applause from audiences who knew how it had wrecked his career in the 60s. Harris still played occasionally, with backing band the Diamonds or as a guest with the Rapiers, and guested with Tony Meehan at Cliff Richard's 1989 'The Event' concerts.

Harris's significance as a pioneer of the bass guitar was recognised by Fender, who presented him with a lifetime achievement award

in 1998, and by the Burns company, who gave him a special Jet Six instrument. He was appointed MBE for services to music in the 2010 New Year honours list.

After the diagnosis of Jet's cancer in 2009, fulfilling dates provided a focus for him, and last autumn he made 29 appearances with the Marty Wilde tour. In his last concert, on 5 February in Fareham, Hampshire, he was on brilliant form despite ill health. Buoyed by audiences keen to hear his music, he very much wanted to keep playing to them.

He was a heavy smoker and died on 18 March 2011, two years after being diagnosed with cancer of unknown primary, at the home of his partner Janet Hemingway, in Winchester. (Info mainly theguardian.com obit)

Kitty White (July 7, 1923 – August 11, 2009) was a jazz vocalist, who for years was a nightclub favourite among audiences in Los Angeles, known for her sophisticated songs with well-travelled lyrics. Kitty picked up her catchy jazz name legitimately by marrying songwriter Eddie White in the 1940s.

She recorded mostly on the West Coast with top jazz musicians like Buddy Collette, Gerald Wiggins, Chico Hamilton, Bud Shank and

Red Callender. She sang many demo recordings for her friend, the prolific Los Angeles blues composer Jessie Mae Robinson, including "I Went to Your Wedding," a No. 1 hit for Patti Page in 1953.

Kitty Jean Bilbrew was born on July 7, 1923 in Los Angeles, California. She was raised in a musical family—her parents were singers, and her uncle was a well-known vaudevillian and disc jockey. She started her career at the age of sixteen as a singer and a pianist. She appeared in local night clubs in her home town Los Angeles like the Hob Nob, the Club Gala, the Haig and The Captain's Table. When Kitty branched out and opened at the Black Orchid in Chicago, Illinois, she was introduced to the executives of Mercury Records, and she

became a Mercury recording artist.

Her twin sister, Maudie Jeanette, also sang and briefly worked with Duke Ellington's revue, Jump for Joy, but never pursued an active career. Their mother, known as A.C. Bilbrew, organized an all-black chorus that performed in the 1929 film Hearts of Dixie. A.C. later recorded the 1955 protest song "The Ballad of Emmett Till" for Dootone Records.

Kitty White worked in several films. She sang "The Lullaby Song" that accompanied the magical scene of the children floating down the Ohio River in a rowboat in Charles Laughton's 1955 classic The Night of the Hunter, after composer Walter Schumann, who wrote the song, discovered her in a small club. She sang "Crawfish" with Elvis Presley in his 1958 film King Creole; the duet appeared on the soundtrack album.

She voiced the song "Rather Have the Blues" for actress Mady Comfort in Robert Aldrich's 1955 cult film noir Kiss Me Deadly, accompanied by pianist Earl Grant, who is best known for the 1958 pop hit "The End." She also sang the title theme of Riders to the Stars in 1954 and The Magnificent Matador in 1955.

Kitty released a few singles during the 50's and 60's on the KEM, Mercury, GNP, Dot and Clover labels. Her only chart entry being with "A Teenage Prayer" in 1955. But here's her Mercury release "I'm Gonna be Fool next Monday" from the same year.

In the 1960s, she recorded for the jazz division of Mercury Records with hits including "The End", The Ballad of Emmett Till", "Roly Poly", "Rather Have the Blues" and "I Went to Your Wedding". She also performed and recorded with jazz artists, Duke Ellington, Laurindo Almeida, Red Callendar, Buddy Collette and Ben Webster. She only recorded seven LPs during her lifetime, the last in 1978.

She moved to Palm Springs, California in 1967 and sang at the Spa Hotel for sixteen years.

White died of complications from a stroke on Aug11, 2009 at Palm Springs Health Care and Rehabilitation Centre. She was 86 years old. (Info mainly Wikipedia)

Here’s the original acetate version of Crawfish recorded January 15, 1958 at Radio Recorders, Hollywood. From the motion picture "King Creole".

Jerry Vale (born Genaro Louis Vitaliano; July 8, 1930 – May 18, 2014) was an Italian-American singer and actor. During the 1950s and 1960s, Vale reached the top of the pop charts with his interpretations of romantic ballads, many of which he sang in Italian.

The crooner showed his love of Italian music with his albums, I

Have But One Heart (1962) and Arrivederci, Roma (1963), full of Italian standards such as "Amore, Scusami", "Ciao, Ciao, Bambina", "Arrivederci, Roma", and "O Sole Mio". His renditions of "Volare", "Innamorata (Sweetheart)", and "Al di là" became classic Italian-American songs.

Genaro Louis Vitaliano was born in the Bronx, N.Y., to Italian immigrant parents, and grew up in the Bronx Italian American community. In high school, to earn money, Vale took a job shining shoes in a barbershop, singing while he worked. His boss liked the sound so well that he paid for music lessons for the boy. Vale started singing in high school musicals and at a local nightclub. Still a teenager, he left school to work in a factory as an

oiler alongside his father.

His early nightclub performances led to additional shows in the early 1950s, including one lasting for three years at a club in Yonkers, New York. When Paul Insetta, (road manager for singer Guy Mitchell and hit songwriter) heard him there, he signed him to a management contract and further coached him. Genaro changed his name to the Americanized Jerry Vale. Insetta arranged for Vale to record some

demonstration records of songs he'd written, and brought them to Columbia Records. Guy Mitchell introduced Vale to Mitch Miller,influential executive at Columbia Records. Vale signed a recording contract with Insetta his manager for many years to come.

Vale’s first recording with the label, with accompaniment by Percy Faith and his band, was "You Can Never Give Me Back My Heart", #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Vale's first U.S. hit.

His version of "The Star-Spangled Banner", recorded in the late 1963, was a fixture at many sporting events for years, the Gold Record Vale received was displayed at the National Baseball Hall

of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Vale frequently sang the song at the Yankee Stadium. Additionally he owned the Daytona Beach Admirals.

In 1959, Vale married Rita Grapel, an actress who appeared in the 1952 film The Thief. and was his wife of over 54 years, residing in Palm Desert, California. His biography A Singer's Life, by Richard Grudens, was published in 2000 by Celebrity Profiles. He sang the Late Night with David Letterman anthem "It's a Late Night World" on the program's eighth anniversary special in 1990. He made cameo

appearances as himself in the 1990 film Goodfellas and the 1995 film Casino, both directed by Martin Scorsese.

In 1968, Vale recording the song "Don't Tell My Heart To Stop Loving You", in Tagalog, "Daihil Sa'yo", become the most massive hit in the Philippines and later it was popularized by Filipino singer, Bobby Gonzales in 1969. He performed for Marcos at the Malacañang Palace.

Vale reportedly suffered a stroke in 2002 and did not perform in his recent years

Jerry Vale died of natural causes in his sleep on May 18, 2014 at

his home in Palm Desert, California. His death is mired in controversy, as he was suffering a kidney infection and brought home to die, with many alleged family members visiting to say goodbye, while conspiring not to notify his son and long-time producer, Robert Vale, who was at his summer home in Vaitaoe, Bora Bira, he was contacted by the State Department and couldn't get back, even in his own plane until after the funeral. "The classiest man in showbiz", said Steve Lawrence. Vale was 83 years old. He is interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery, in Cathedral City, California. (Info Wikipedia)

Alan Dale (July 9, 1925 – April 20, 2002) was an American baritone crooner from the 1940s who later flirted with rock 'n' roll.

He was born Aldo Sigismondi in the Brooklyn borough of New York. His father, Aristide Sigismondi, immigrated to the United States from Abruzzi, Italy in 1904 at the age of 21, and became a

comedian in Italian language theatre, with a radio program of his own. His mother, Agata "Kate" Sigismondi, was born in Messina, Sicily, and was 15 years younger than Aristide.

At the age of nine, Aldo got his first chance to perform publicly when his father was running short on his program and called on Aldo to sing. Though Aldo fainted immediately upon completing his song, he was good enough that he became a regular on his father's program.

Dale's intention was originally not to be a singer, but to go into journalism. However, he quit school after an argument with a

teacher and ended up going from one job to another, until one day in 1943 he and a friend passed by a casino in Coney Island and the friend suggested he try out for a singing job. He was told to come back in the evening, and when he came back prepared to sing two songs, was called back for seven encores.

He was immediately hired. In 1944, he joined the Carmen Cavallaro Orchestra as featured vocalist, and at Cavallaro's insistence got a new name. The name was taken from Alan-a-Dale. In 1944 and 1945, Dale sang for George Paxton's Orchestra and became increasingly popular on the East Coast performing at the Roseland Ballroom in New York and recording for Majestic Records.

In 1947 he was encouraged by Bob Thiele, a record producer, to

sign up as a solo artist with Signature Records. He premiered as a soloist on Columbia records in a December 1947 film short featuring the Elliot Lawrence Orchestra. The next year he got his own television show, The Alan Dale Show, on the DuMont Television Network and later on CBS.

In the early 1950s, he shuttled around from one record label to another, going from Columbia to Decca before settling with Coral, the label on which he had his major hits: "(The Gang that Sang) Heart of My Heart" (together with Johnny Desmond and Don Cornell), which reached #10 on Billboard in 1953, a vocal version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" which reached #14 in 1955, and "Sweet and Gentle," which also charted in 1955, at #10. The latter two recordings sold over one million copies each, and were awarded gold discs. Also in 1955 the singles "I'm Sincere" (the flip of "Cherry Pink") and "Rockin The Cha-Cha" reached the Music Vendor top 40.

He became a friend of Alan Freed, and as a result got a chance to play a role as a rock and roll singer in the 1956 film, Don't Knock the Rock. In this movie, he played alongside Freed, Bill Haley &

His Comets, Little Richard, and The Treniers. He sang the title song, which he also recorded as a single.

In 1957 he resumed his shuttling from one record label to another, going to ABC, MGM, and United Artists. In 1958, while in a nightclub in New York, Dale was attacked, suffering cuts and a serious hand injury when he crashed into a plate glass window after having fallen down a set of stairs. Dale recovered from his injuries, but the assailant who knocked him down the stairs was never identified.

At the end of the 1950s, Dale found television hosts such as Ed Sullivan were refusing to have him on their shows, causing his career to go into decline. This was not helped by his authorship of a 1965 autobiography, The Spider and the Marionettes, in which he listed names of people who were trying to affect his career adversely, with descriptions of their activities toward this end. Despite this, Dale was able to maintain a lower-profile version of his singing career over the ensuing decades, performing at nightclubs, dinner theatres and concert appearances.

He died in New York after a long illness in 2002, at the age of 76. (Info Wikipedia)

Evelyn Laye OBE (10 July 1900 – 17 February 1996) was a British actress and singer who had a career that nearly spanned 80 years. Between the two world wars Evelyn was London’s most successful star of stage musicals and operettas.

Born Elsie Evelyn Lay in Bloomsbury, London, England, Laye

made her first stage appearance in August 1915 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton as Nang-Ping in Mr. Wu, and her first London appearance at the East Ham Palace on 24 April, 1916, in the revue Honi Soit, in which she subsequently toured. She appeared in a minor role at The Gaiety Theatre in The Beauty Spot (1917), but the following year she achieved stardom in Going Up!, one of the first aviation musicals.

In 1920 she was Bessie Brent in a revival of the first Gaiety musical-comedy, The Shop Girl. Among her successes during the 1920s were Madame Pompadour (1923), The Dollar Princess and Lilac Time. She made her Broadway debut

in 1929 in Noel Coward's Bitter Sweet and became a favourite both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1925 Laye fell in love with and married the light comedian Sonnie Hale, much against the wishes of her parents, who refused to attend her wedding or to give her a reception afterwards. Since she had never before been separated from them, her deep distress soon led to a reconciliation, but it may well have been the strain that this must have imposed on the marriage that led Hale to abandon her in 1928 for another emerging talent, Jessie Matthews. The break-up led to the greatest mistake of her career.

Imported to Hollywood by producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1930, Evelyn Laye immediately laid an egg. It wasn't her fault, though;

she was extremely pretty and competently sang "Along the Road of Dreams" but One Heavenly Night's libretto was totally manufactured and leading man John Boles stiff as a board. As a consequence of the operetta failure, Goldwyn refused to ever cast Laye, Boles, Lilyan Tashman, and even comedian Leon Errol in any future ventures. There would be several subsequent Hollywood films and she was back on Broadway in Sweet Aloes (1936) and Between the Devil but she was never as successful in America as in London's West End.

On the outbreak of war, she immediately volunteered to sing for the troops, and, on the formation of Ensa, she was put in command of all entertainments for the Navy. She also did her last Cochran

show, Lights Up, at the Savoy, as well as three musicals, all of which were adversely affected by the wartime bombing.

When the war finished, she made a success, even if it was not a smash hit, of the Yvonne Printemps roles in Oscar Straus's Three Waltzes (Prince's 1945), and, for the next nine years, developed her acting skills, largely in a series of touring versions of West End successes.

She acted several times opposite her second husband, the actor Frank Lawton, including in the 1956 sitcom My Husband and I. Her other stage successes included Silver Wedding (1957) with Lawton, and The Amorous Prawn (1959) and Phil the Fluter (1969).

Awarded an OBE in 1973, Laye continued acting well into her

nineties. One of her last appearances was in Sondheim's A Little Night Music in 1979.It was reported after Laye's death that Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother had planned to try to get her knighted (created a DBE) even though Laye was already in her 90s.

Her acting career ranks as one of the longest in British theatre. During a tribute in 1992 at the London Palladium the actor Sir John Mills described her as "the fairest prima donna this side of heaven".

She died in London from respiratory failure at the age of 95.

(info various sources, mainly Wikipedia)

Tab Hunter was born Arthur Andrew Gelien on July 11, 1931. He is an American actor and singer, who has starred in over forty major motion pictures.

Hunter was born in New York City to German immigrants. His father, Charles Kelm, was Jewish and his mother, Gertrude Gelien, a Roman Catholic who later converted to Judaism. Hunter was

raised as a Roman Catholic. His father was an abusive man, and within a few years of his birth, his parents divorced and his mother moved with her two sons to California. She reassumed her maiden surname, Gelien, and changed her sons' name to that as well. As a teenager, Hunter was a figure skater, competing in both singles and pairs, and an ardent horseback rider.

In later years, Hunter's mother was institutionalized and underwent shock treatments, and he supported her financially until her death. His older brother Walter, whom he idolized, became a medic and was killed in Vietnam.

Arthur Gelien was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. and christened "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks got him pegged as a screen idol. He landed a role in the film Island of Desire opposite Linda Darnell. However, it was his co-starring role as young Marine Danny in 1955's World War II drama Battle Cry, in which he has an affair with an older woman but ends up marrying the girl next door, that cemented his position as one of Hollywood's top young romantic leads. He went on to star in over 40 major Holywood films.

In September 1955, the tabloid magazine Confidential reported

Hunter's 1950 arrest for disorderly conduct. The innuendo-laced article, and a second one focusing on Rory Calhoun's prison record, were the result of a deal Henry Willson had brokered with the scandal rag in exchange for not revealing his more prominent client Rock Hudson's sexual orientation to the public. Not only was there no negative impact on Hunter's career, but a few months later he was named Most Promising New Personality in a nationwide poll sponsored by the Council of Motion Picture Organizations.

Hunter had a 1957 hit record with a cover of the song "Young Love", which was #1 on the charts for six weeks. He also had the hit "Ninety-Nine Ways", which peaked at #11 in the charts, and

was actually his first single, before "Young Love". His success prompted Jack Warner to enforce the actor's contract with the studio by banning Dot Records, the label for which Hunter had recorded the single, from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter, although his singing career foundered after a few more recordings.

Hunter's best role during this period was in the 1958 musical movie Damn Yankees, in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington D.C's American League baseball club. The movie had originally been a Broadway show, and Hunter was the only one in the film version

who hadn't appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the 1954 best-selling book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglass Wallop.

Hunter's failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of West Side Story prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom. The Tab Hunter Show had low ratings and was hence cancelled after one season. Hunter's co-star Richard Erdman starred in 1962-1963 in another NBC series, a drama about a big-city newspaper entitled Saints and Sinners. Hunter guest starred on Erdman's short-lived drama.

For a short time in the latter 1960s, Hunter settled in the south of France, where he acted in spaghetti westerns. His career was revived in the 1980s, when he starred opposite transvestite actor Divine in John Waters' Polyester (1981) and Paul Bartel's Lust in the Dust (1985). He is particularly remembered by later audiences as Mr. Stewart, the substitute teacher in Grease 2, who sang "Reproduction." Hunter had a major role in the 1988 horror film Cameron's Closet. He also wrote and starred in Dark Horse (1992).

In Hunter's 2005 autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, he acknowledged his homosexuality, confirming rumors that had circulated since the height of his fame. Hunter had long-term relationships with actor Anthony Perkins and champion figure skater Ronnie Robertson before settling down with his partner of 25 years, Allan Glaser. The two live in Montecito, California. (Info edited from Wikipedia)

Eduard Van De Walle (12 July 1932 – 6 February 2016), known by his stage name Eddy Wally, was a Belgian singer from Zelzate, East Flanders, and the once self-proclaimed "Voice of Europe".

Eddy Wally was an internationally acclaimed crooner, multi-

talented entertainer, and raconteur. Born in Flanders, Belgium, the charismatic Flemish singer/songwriter began his professional stage career in 1959 and proved an immediate hit in Western Europe, especially with the region’s female populace. He started as a salesman on markets selling handbags and became popular in the 1960s, after his association with Dutch producer Johnny Hoes. He even had his own disco "Chérie-Paris Las Vegas", first known as "Eddy Wally's Texas Bar".

His double-platinum selling 1966 anthem, 'Cherie’, cemented his reputation both as a ladies’ man and a consummate musical

professional. He walked the walk, talked the talk, winked the wink, sang the song, and wowed the wow. In a short number of years, Eddy Wally became to Belgium and France what Cliff Richard was to the South (and some bits in the East) of England.

On stage and off, Wally usually wore flashy, shiny, expensive outfits, characterized by a camp and kitsch style reminiscent of Liberace Wally swaggered his way around stages all over the planet, performing an ever widening canon of hits year after year. As a crooner and showman, Eddy Wally has toured worldwide, from China, to Australia, all of Europe and the United States, and even 24 tour dates in 1979 within the USSR.

Like any artists he had his highs and lows – including some serious

health scares – but, even if his career wasn’t all a dream, he never let this show on the exterior. All smiles and charm, he was beloved by everyone who came across him. He was so nice, in fact, that one begins to wonder if he wasn’t hiding something.

Stints on UK pop culture TV show Eurotrash in the 80s pushed

Wally’s name out into British homes – and, indeed, hearts – as did his numerous interactions with the Eurosong/Eurovision competitions throughout the decades. With an unwavering fanbase standing firm beneath him since the late 1950s, the talented Belgian also decided to proclaim himself ‘The Voice of Europe’.

From what source he found the gumption to do this is a mystery, but apparently no one objected. And so the grand moniker went unchallenged, and would precede his name in all of his public introductions. In the mid 1990s Eddy’s career took an unexpected turn as he delved into the dizzying world of House music disk jockeying (‘DJ-ing’), pumping out a series of beat-heavy bangers, plus a few laser-fried remixes from his back

catalogue.

In 2004, Eddy Wally's extreme wardrobe was acquired by the Stedelijk Modemuseum van Hasselt, and was shown under the title "Eddy Wally's Geweldige Garderobe". The show consisted of 115 custom made outfits, each valued up to $5,300 apiece. Eddy was awarded the Knight of the order of Leopold. Royal Decree of 2005. In October 2009, famed Belgian artist Kamagurka proclaimed: “Eddy Wally is pop-art.”

No one could have predicted the final surprise twist in Eddy Wally’s illustrious life story, least of all him. How did Eddy Wally become a living meme/internet god? You’ve got no clue, but Google Search does.

No one knows why, in the year 2007, an unknown YouTube account holder called djvensterke2 uploaded a seven second clip of Eddy Wally saying “Wow” and then winking and exiting the screen to his left (the viewer’s right) but the fact is that he/she did.

Wally’s ‘Wow’ would pop up now and again in the following years, but it wasn’t until its notable use by YouTubers h3h3 productions – currently the most ‘exe.citing’ channel on the video file sharing website – that the Eddy Wally ‘Wow’ became mainstream-meme.

He died on February 6, 2016, in Zelzate, Flanders, Belgium,.aged 83 from the physical effects of a stroke which he had suffered. He was married to Mariëtte Roegiers.

(Info mainly edited from moviequibble.co & Wikipedia)

George Lewis (13 July 1900 – 31 December 1968) was an American jazz clarinetist who achieved his greatest fame and influence in his later decades of life.

His actual legal name was George Louis Francois Zenon. Born in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Lewis was playing clarinet professionally by 1917. He played with Buddy Petit and Chris Kelly regularly, and sometimes with trombonist Kid Ory and

many other band leaders, seldom traveling far from the greater New Orleans area.

During the Great Depression he took a day job as a stevedore, continuing to take such music jobs after hours as he could find.

In 1942 some jazz fans and writers came to New Orleans to record the legendary older trumpeter Bunk Johnson. Bunk picked Lewis for the recording session. Previously almost totally unknown outside of New Orleans, Lewis impressed many listeners, and he made his first recordings under his own name for American Music Records, a label created by Bill Russell to document the music of Bunk Johnson and other surviving older jazzmen in New Orleans.

In 1944 Lewis was badly injured in a stevedoring accident when a

container fell on his chest. For a time it was thought that even if he recovered he would be unable to play clarinet. However he started playing again while convalescing in bed at home on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter. His friends banjoist Lawrence Marrero and string bass player Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau brought their instruments to Lewis' bedside, Russell brought his portable disc recorder, and they recorded, among other things, the first version of what was to become George Lewis' signature number, Burgundy Street Blues."

Lewis stayed with Bunk Johnson's newly popular band through 1946, including a trip to New York City, where they played for dancing at the Stuyvesant Casino on 2nd Avenue. At this point, the

personnel included Johnson, Lewis, Marrero, Pavageau, trombonist Jim Robinson, pianist Alton Purnell, and drummer Baby Dodds. While in New York, they recorded for both the Decca and Victor labels.

After Bunk's final retirement, Lewis took over leadership of the band, usually featuring Robinson, Pavageau, Marrero, Purnell, drummer Joe Watkins, and a succession of New Orleans trumpet players including Elmer Talbert, Avery "Kid" Howard, and Percy Humphrey. Starting in 1949 he was a regular at the French Quarter's Bourbon Street entertainment clubs, and had regular broadcasts over radio station WDSU. National touring soon followed, and Lewis became a kind of symbol of the New Orleans jazz tradition.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s his recordings reached the UK and strongly influenced clarinetists Monty Sunshine and Acker Bilk. They later became important contributors to the traditional jazz scene in the UK and accompanied Lewis when he later toured

the country.

In 1952 Lewis took his band to San Francisco for a residency at the Hangover Club, then began to tour around the United States. In the 1960s he repeatedly toured Europe and Japan, and many young clarinettists from around the world modelled their playing closely on his.

While in New Orleans, he played regularly at Preservation Hall from its opening in 1961 until shortly before his death in his home town. George Lewis, who recorded for many labels (a Mosaic box set of his Blue Note sessions is one of the best reissues), became a symbol of what was right and wrong about the New Orleans revival movement, overpraised by his fans and overcritized by his detractors. At his best he was well worth hearing. (info edited mainly from Wikipedia)

Vince Taylor (14 July 1939 — 28 August 1991) was a British rock and roll singer. As the frontman for The Playboys, Taylor was successful primarily in France and the Continent during the late 1950s and early 1960s, afterwards falling into obscurity amidst personal problems and drug abuse.

Vince Taylor was born Brian Maurice Holden on July 14th 1939 in

London. In 1946 the Holdens immigrated to the US. They set up home in New Jersey where Brian's dad started work in a coal mine. Around 1955, his sister married Joe Barbera, who became one of the greatest in the cartoon industry. Joe went into partenership with Bill Hanna and founded Hanna/Barbera. It was then decided that the whole family would move to California.

Brian went to Hollywood High and studied radio and weather reports. He also took flying lessons and got his pilot license. Aged 18, much impressed by the music of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, Brian began to sing wherever he could, at parties, school proms and amateur gigs. Backed by a local band, he started playing for the benefit of the American Legion as well as a few nightclubs along Zummah Beach.

Joe Barbera, his brother-in-law, became, in a way, his manager. Joe went to London for business reasons and asked Brian to join him

and check out the London music scene. He met a lad called Paul Taylor who gave him an address of a coffee-bar in Old Campton Street where Tommy Steele was playing. Brian began to meet with several rock amateurs who were always in this bar called "The Coffee 2 I's". Brian had to show what he was worth, so he started up his own band. In doing this he met drummer Tony Meehan (future Shadows) and bass player Tex Makins and named the band The Play-Boys.

'Brian Holden' was not a very good stage name and whilst looking at a packet of Pall Mall cigarettes, upon which is written 'In hoc Vinces' Joe and Brian decided the new stage name would be 'Vince Taylor' (Brian very much liked the actor Robert Taylor). Vince Taylor and the Play-Boys were born. After some changes, the final line-up of The Play-Boys was: Bobbie Clarke (drums), John Vance (bass), Alain Le Claire (piano) and Tony Harvey (guitar), who changed on an off with Bob Steel.

His first recording session was for Parlophone-Odeon, where he recorded, 'I Like Love' and 'Right Behind You Baby'. This record was released in 1958, the name The Play-Boys was not mentioned, followed several months after by a second 45 with 'Pledgin My Love' b/w 'Brand New Cadillac'. Parlophone weren't very happy with the results of the records and decided to break the contract.

Vince then moved to Palette Records and recorded 'I'll Be Your Hero' b/w 'Jet Black Machine', released on August 19th 1960.

Vince's unstable character caused several arguments with the band and they started looking for other people to play with. The Play-Boys, lead by Bobbie Woodman, changed their name to 'Bobbie Woodman Noise'. They were contacted to play at the prestigious Olympia in Paris in July, 1961. At the top of the bill was Wee Willie Harris. Despite of what had happened, Vince was still friends with the band and he asked if

he could come to Paris too.

During a sound check Vince dressed up in his black leather gear and put a chain around his neck with a Joan of Arc medallion, which he had bought at Calais on their arrival in France. The sound check and the effect that Vince had given impressed the organisers and they decided to put Vince up as top of the bill for both shows. From then on things went quickly for Vince Taylor. Eddie Barclay had been contacted by Bruno Coquatrix about Vince's performance (and his band who became once again the Play-Boys) and he signed Vince to a 6 years contract. Between September 61 and January 62, Barclay issued 5

EP's and one LP.

After that, things went downhill for Vince, falling into obscurity amidst personal problems and drug abuse. For a while he was hiding in Switzerland and he attempted many comebacks during the years, performing intermittently throughout the 1970s and 1980s, until his death.

During his last years, Vince Taylor lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he took work as an airplane mechanic. Taylor died in August 1991, from cancer, at the age of 52. He was buried in Lausanne, Switzerland. (Info mainly from Black Cat Rockabilly Europe)

Lynn Annette Ripley (15 July 1948 – 21 May 2015), better known by the stage name Twinkle, was an English singer-songwriter. She had chart successes in the 1960s with her best known songs, "Terry" and "Golden Lights".

Born in Surbiton, Surrey into a well-to-do family, Ripley was known to her family as "Twinkle". She showed early musical talent

when, aged three, she picked out the National Anthem on the grand piano in the family drawing room. Her interest in music rekindled at Queen’s Gate School, where she was a contemporary of the young Camilla Shand (now the Duchess of Cornwall).

One evening in 1963 she took the microphone at Esmeralda’s Barn, a west London night spot, and became a weekly “featured vocalist” with the club’s resident band.

Twinkle owed her rapid entry into the recording studio at the age of

16 to her then-boyfriend, Dec Cluskey, of the popular vocal group The Bachelors, who was introduced to her by her sister, a music journalist, and who passed on to his manager a demo that Twinkle's father played to him. Her song "Terry" was a teenage tragedy song about the death of a boyfriend in a motorcycle crash.

Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and Bobby Graham were among the high profile star session musicians who played on the recording, which conjured up a dark mood with its doleful backing vocals,

spooky organ, 12-string guitar and slow, emphatic rhythm arranged by Phil Coulter. The theme was of a common type for the era, it bore some similarities to the Shangri-Las' slightly later "Leader of

the Pack" (1964).

Its success owed something to Twinkle’s Sixties dolly-bird looks – but also to the horror with which it was greeted by the establishment. Condemned as “dangerous drivel” by Lord (Ted) Willis, the song was subsequently banned by both the BBC and by Ready Steady Go! on ITV, though it brought Twinkle a good luck card from Sir Alec Douglas-Home, a friend of her father’s.

Twinkle went on to tour with the Rolling Stones, although her parents insisted that she be accompanied by a uniformed nanny. Nonetheless she recalled that, on a flight from Dublin, Brian Jones and Mick Jagger had fought (she claimed unsuccessfully) for her favours.

The follow-up, "Golden Lights", was also written by Twinkle, with a B-side again by producer Tommy Scott. By then Cluskey was her ex-boyfriend: Twinkle dated Peter Noone in 1965. The lyrics express disillusionment with the pop business: her EP track "A Lonely Singing Doll", the English-language version of France

Gall's 1965 winning Eurovision Song Contest song for Luxembourg, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", originally written by Serge Gainsbourg, returned to a theme similar to "Golden Lights".

"Johnny" continued to explore dangerous territory, this time that of a childhood friend who becomes a criminal, but it seems the pressure to produce "another Terry" led her producers to pass over her own material, for "Tommy", a song written for Reparata and the Delrons and "The End of the World" a tune composed for Skeeter Davis. Twinkle made few live appearances but performed "Terry" at the annual New Musical

Express hit concerts. After recording six singles for Decca Records she "retired" at the age of eighteen in 1966.

After her brief moment of fame, Twinkle recorded four more singles for Decca, wrote television theme tunes and commercial jingles and cut a few more discs. In 1969 she recorded a self-written single, the Tamla Motown-styled "Micky", backed by "Darby and Joan", both produced by Mike d'Abo for the Immediate label. The single vanished, unpublicised. In the ensuing years, unsigned and working in music for advertising, she recorded a suite of songs inspired by her relationship with "Micky", the actor/model Michael Hannah, who was killed in an air-crash in 1974. These remained unreleased until they were included on CD

compilations. Her later recordings appeared under the name Twinkle Ripley. She recorded a 1975 single, "Smoochie" with her father, Sidney Ripley as "Bill & Coo".

In 1972 she married Graham Rogers, who appeared on television as the Milk Tray Man in several Cadbury’s adverts. For many years they lived in Oxshott, Surrey, where Twinkle became an animal-rights activist, later moving to the Isle of Wight. In the 1990s she performed occasionally on the Sixties nostalgia circuit.

On 21 May 2015, Twinkle died at 66 on the Isle of Wight, after a five-year battle with cancer.

(Info edited from Wikipedia & telegraph obit)

Tony Jackson (16 July 1938 – 18 August 2003) was an English bass guitar player and singer who was a member of the Searchers who quit the group at the height of their fame.

Anthony Paul Jackson was born in Dingle, Liverpool, Lancashire. After leaving school he went to Walton Technical College to train as an electrician. Jackson was inspired by the skiffle sound of

Lonnie Donegan, and then by Buddy Holly and other U.S. rock and rollers. He founded the skiffle group the Martinis.

Nicknamed Black Jake, he joined the guitar duo the Searchers, which had been formed by John McNally and Mike Pender in 1959. The band soon expanded further to a quartet with the addition of the drummer Chris Curtis. Jackson built and learned to play a customised bass guitar. Learning his new job on the four-stringed instrument proved too difficult to permit him to continue singing lead so he made way for a new singer, Johnny Sandon, in 1960.

They played in Liverpool's nightclubs and the beer bars of Hamburg, Germany. Brian Epstein considered signing them but he

lost interest after seeing a drunken Jackson fall off the stage at the Cavern Club. Sandon moved on in February 1962 and the band were signed by Pye Records in mid-1963 when the Beatles' success created demand for Liverpudlian acts.

Jackson was lead singer and played bass on the band's first two United Kingdom hits, "Sweets for My Sweet" and "Sugar and Spice", but was not the vocalist on the band's biggest hit "Needles and Pins". He was featured on both "Don't Throw Your Love Away" and "Love Potion No. 9".

In 1964 the band toured the United States, including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jackson was unhappy with the band's

move away from rock and roll to a softer, more melodic sound and felt that he was not getting appropriate attention. He left the group in July 1964 in some acrimony and immediately moved to London and put together a new band, the Vibrations, which had an organ-based sound instead of the Searchers' guitar based one.

After leaving the Searchers Jackson spent £200 on cosmetic surgery on his nose. He said at the time that he had had a lifelong complex about his nose to the extent that he could not mix socially. The surgery had followed psychiatric treatment. That same year he revealed that his 1960 marriage to Margaret Parry had been effectively over for two years.

The Vibrations toured the UK with the Hollies, Marianne Faithfull and other acts. They released four singles on the Pye Records label

but only the first had any success. In 1965 they changed their name to the Tony Jackson Group but the fourth single also failed and Pye dropped them. The band then signed to CBS without improvement and they found that there were few bookings in the UK so they toured southern Europe until even that withered. Disillusioned and out of options, Jackson left the music business.

Jackson took a variety of jobs including Spanish night club

manager, entertainments representative, furniture salesman, disc jockey and golf club manager. In the 1980s he tried to establish a Searchers revival band, but was unable to compete effectively with the other two that already existed.

In 1991, Tony Jackson and the Vibrations reformed and an album of Jackson's material after the Searchers was released. The resuscitation of his career was short-lived, however, although he did appear four times with Mike Pender's Searchers between 1992 and 1995. That ended in 1996 when he was convicted of threatening a woman with an air pistol after an argument over a phone booth, and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.
The arthritis in his hands became so bad that he had to abandon even recreational guitar playing. In 2002 he said, "The spirit's willing, but the body's knackered."

Towards the end of his life he suffered from diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver from a lifetime of heavy alcohol consumption. Jackson died on 18 August 2003 in a Nottingham hospital, he was 65. (Info Wikipedia)

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