Billy Ternent (b.10 October 1899, Newcastle, England, d. 23 March 1977, London, England) was a band leader, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, popular from the 1940s to the 1970s. Many bands of the past attempted to create their own style, some more successfully than others. Perhaps one of the most
distinctive styles of all time belonged to Billy Ternent. Indeed, the phrase 'that unmistakable sound' will always be synonymous with him on broadcasts and records.
Frederick William Ternent took up the violin at the age of seven and his first job was with a trio at a North Shields cinema when he was 12. At 16, he was conducting a cinema orchestra on a circuit run by George Black. Jack Hylton is supposed to have discovered Billy while playing with the Selma Four in a Newcastle restaurant. He took him to London where Ternent played in Al Starita’s band at the Kit-Kat Club.
It was probably his long spell with Jack Hylton and his Orchestra (1927 to 1939) that really brought him to the public's attention, during which time he acted as Deputy Conductor and principal arranger. Many well-known bandleaders were better managers than they were musicians — some bands even regarded their conductor as a liability! Not the case with Billy, who was a fine and much respected musician who could, and sometimes did, play every instrument in the orchestra. This was very useful to Jack Hylton, who was able to use him whenever a player was off sick.
Ternent wrote most of the Hylton band’s familiar top-class
He conducted the first ITMA broadcasts with Tommy Handley, worked on 'Variety Bandbox', where he helped to launch the successful career of Frankie Howerd. This included several 78s for the Harmony and Columbia labels, which have become comedy classics, some featuring Ternent as the butt of Howerd’s jokes. Billy also had a weekly slot on 'Music While You Work'. When he resigned from this post in 1944, he handed over the baton to Stanley Black, who conducted the band until its demise in the early fifties.
When Billy formed his own band in 1944, he toured throughout the UK to enthusiastic audiences. His life-long signature tune was Vivian Ellis’ 'She’s My Lovely', from the musical 'Hide and Seek'. This, however, attracted some complaints due to the fact that the opening glissando, to some people, sounded like the start of an air-raid warning! Nevertheless, it remained the signature tune of Billy Ternent and his Orchestra for many years to come. The original 1943 Decca recording featured the singing of actor/guitarist Ken Beaumont, who was later to find fame on the radio with his sextet.
The secret of Billy Ternent's success was the combination of the superb musicianship of both leader and players, coupled with having created one of the most distinctive styles in broadcasting. It was a seemingly old-fashioned style, using a tenor-dominated saxophone section with a strong vibrato and a trumpet section
which was frequently required to play muted passages with rapid triple tonguing — a sort of 'stuttering' effect — possibly inspired by the American band of Hal Kemp. The overall effect, however, was original and required a musical expertise far above that of the average palais player; indeed, the top session men Billy used found the arrangements to be very challenging.
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| Billy with Gracie Fields |
Billy continued to broadcast tasteful programmes of mainly dance music well into the 1970s, although his later years were troubled by recurring bouts of illness. Alan Dell persuaded him to conduct a selection of his arrangements, to rapturous applause, during a "Dance Band Days" concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 12 June 1976, as part of the BBC’s Festival of Light Music. This was to be his last major engagement, although stoically he continued to work until a few weeks before his death.
Billy Ternent died on 23rd March 1977, but this amiable Geordie can still be remembered through his legacy of 78s and long-playing records and CD’s spanning a long and distinguished career.
(Compiled and edited from various sources mainly Masters Of Melody & robertfarnonsociety.org.uk)