96. Mainly Musical Memories

A FEW CHERISHED RECORDINGS.

Have been sitting here with a tape playing on the ancient hi-fi. Thought it was rather good, then realized it was one of my own compilations from way back.
I was always particular. If I hadn't thought David Whitfield made a great job of Bernstein's Maria he wouldn't be on the tape. Same applied to Dolly Parton's version of Cole Porter's I Get A Kick Out Of You and to Robert Preston singing Jerry Herman's I Won't Send Roses.
Trouble is, I have seldom bought a tape or CD (let alone a DVD) which has not been a disappointment once the single which enticed me to buy it has worked its magic. This particularly applies to the works of modern singer/songwriters, many of whom surround their one deservedly popular composition with a load of self-penned dross.
I solved the problem by transferring the stuff I really liked onto blank tape.
There are now several such tapes floating around the place. Jimmy Durante singing Make Someone Happy is on the same tape as Enrico Caruso's recording of Because. Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli are there, too, with their rendition of Gershwin's They Can't take That Away From Me: so is Shirley Bassey (There's a Place For Us) and Georges Guetary (I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise).There is also a marvellous Welsh contralto called Iris Williams singing He Was Beautiful and a couple of classics from Freddie Gardner, arguably the greatest alto sax player ever.
There is the joy of hearing Franco Corelli sing Nessun Dorma, of smiling as Ethel Merman yet again belts out There's No Business Like Show Business and of laughing aloud as Elvis Presley fights that hilarious losing battle with the truly wonderful backing singer on Are You Lonesome Tonght.
It's not all home-made recordings of course. A tape of Bing Crosby's 20 Golden Greats bears listening to right through, especially the tracks made with John Scott Trotter's orchestra.
And it would be sacrilege to filch a movement from Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2, none of which, despite David Lean's film Brief Encounter, was composed by Noel Coward. (Ol' Noel wrote the 'frightfully-frightfully' Brief Encounter script. It was based on his 1936 one-act play Still Life. The fragrant Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard - a man who, according to Robert Mitchum, "You'll never catch acting" - then turned in classic British performances. The rest is 'frightfully-frightful' history.) Anyway, only a vandal would meddle with a recording made by the great pianist John Ogden.

AND MEMORIES...

The memories of those I have seen on stage are particularly cherished.
When the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber sang at The Kings Theatre, Southsea, he took centre stage (without microphone) and his voice hit the dome which looms above the gallery and filled it with breathtaking sound.
I was a teenager sitting in 'the gods' for one and sixpence in the old money (seven and a half pence now) and that evening I joined the ranks of the truly privileged. I witnessed a superb performance by the finest lyric tenor of the age who, to close his programme, acknowledged our wild applause with half a dozen encores. What a star.
Tenors were very popular on the variety stages back then. The second world war was barely over, there was radio but no television. Theatres and cinemas provided the bulk of our entertainment.
I saw Harry Secombe at the South Parade Pier Theatre, Southsea. He did a crazy shaving act which he brought to a conclusion, in the customary way, with a song. The young Secombe had a beautiful bel canto tenor voice. I think he sang Rodgers and Hart's With A Song In My Heart. He then blew a raspberry and fell flat on his back.
I liked ol' Harry. Nothing ever changed him. Not the success, not the knighthood, not the vagaries of colleagues. He was just a thoroughly nice man. It came as no surprise when, after his death, a friend said: "He sang 'If I Ruled The World.' If he had ruled the world it would have been a better place."
I was in an army camp when I first heard Josef Locke. I noted his name and the next time I saw my mother told her:
"I heard a great tenor on the wireless a few weeks back. I've written down his name."
"I heard a good 'un recently, too," said my mother. "What's your chap's name? Mine's Josef Locke."
Josef Locke (real name Joseph McLaughlin) was a top of the bill favourite and, by all accounts, a generous after show party giver. He was a big, tall, former policeman who stood all of his own height back from the microphone when he sang.
Perfect microphone technique. Perfect clarity. Perfect presentation.
When he appeared at the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, I was one of a packed house held spellbound. He could embrace an entire audience. Years later one of the old variety turns, interviewed on television, was asked who was the most charismatic performer he ever saw. There was no hesitation, "Josef Locke," he said.
Eventually ol' Jo took off to Ireland leaving the tax man short changed. Everybody but the tax man saw the funny side of it.
Before the second world war I was taken by my parents to see many fine music hall performers at The Hippodrome, Portsmouth.
I still vaguely remember seeing Gracie Fields, Cyril ("Odd ode coming up") Fletcher, Tessie O'Shea and the show Me and My Girl starring Lupino Lane. Sadly the old Hippodrome became an early victim of the war and was never rebuilt.
My Leader tells me that we went to see the great Australian soprano Joan Hammond in 1961 or early 1962. Anyway, before we were married.
I expect she's right.
Why Dame Joan chose to give what was billed as Her Farewell Performance in England at Portsmouth Guildhall I have no idea. Suffice to say we went and she was as good as she had been when, long before my Leader came into my life, I had seen her in La Boheme and in Madam Butterfly.
It was a memorable evening made doubly so when, during the interval, a charming woman came over to us.
"Maureen, how lovely to see you here," she said.
My future Leader introduced me and a pleasant conversation ensued in which we all agreed that Joan Hammond was still far too good for retirement.
When we resumed our seats Maureen said: "I always liked Miss Berry. She was my music teacher at school."
Maureen was seventeen or eighteen and later became a devotee of The Hollies. Operatic sopranos were not really her scene.
But she enjoyed that evening: not least, I suspect, because the following day a few eyebrows would have been raised at her alma mater.

95. Another load of readin' and watchin'

COOPER AND CARSON - TWO GOOD READS.

Towards the end of last year I finished reading Jilly Cooper's Wicked! (Corgi Books 2007) and read Michael Carson's The Knight of the Flaming Heart (Black Swan 1996).
I like Jilly's bonkbusters. Never read one without feeling that (1) she's having a laugh and (2) it will sell and sell and sell. Her research is thorough, whatever the subject, and she is a darned good story teller. Wicked! runs to close on a thousand pages and is well worth buying with your Christmas book vouchers.
The Knight of the Flaming Heart is a slightly fey, very Irish tale in which the ghost of Sir Roger Casement appears and performs miracles in Africa and Ireland. I found it an amusing and interesting read and am still wondering why nobody has adapted it for film or television.
Come to think of it, though, I was the one who did not know that Philip Pullman's Northern Lights had been filmed under the title The Golden Compass, so perhaps The Knight of the Flaming Heart exists in movie form but has been renamed Roddie or Miracle at Ardfert or Boma's Ghost or something.
Oh well, back to...

THE GOLDEN COMPASS.

We saw this film last week: Roz, Jess and me. Jess and I had read Northern Lights so knew, individually, what we expected of it.
Roz is still threatening to borrow my copy of His Dark Materials so she had no preconceptions. No matter. We all enjoyed it. Director Chris Weitz stuck closely to Philip Pullman's book. The well chosen cast - Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra in particular - acted sublimely and the daemons and bears were equal to the imagination of the most demanding Dark Materials fan.
A super film.

NCIS (FIVE - Fridays)

Episode 5/24 of series four and Gibbs has got rid of the moustache. Perhaps he, too, has seen The Golden Compass and concluded that Sam Elliott will be Lee Scoresby for keeps. Or maybe he has heard that Johnny Depp is the rumoured choice to play Wyatt in the next Wyatt Earp film. (With Daniel Craig as Doc Holliday?) If he's heard that I'll be surprised. I just made it up.
Anyway, he looks better clean shaven.

POLITICS (Very briefly)

Our radio and television news is currently filled to bursting with the American political scene. Don't know why.
I cannot imagine that America gives a shit about our political scene. I doubt if ninety percent of Americans know we exist.
So it matters not to me whether the U.S. gets its first black President or its first controlled-weeping female President.
I have made known my views on politicians as a race and when I see thousands of excitedly screaming supporters hailing the victory of one or other of them in any country my heart sinks at the gullibility of those so easily conned into the belief that the victor is there for anyone other than him or herself.
I'll say no more (sniff) for fear of losing New Hampshire.

NEGLECTED ONES.

"You've been neglecting me," said the cat Shadow. "This festive season malarkey has occupied you far too much."
From his chair at the end of the computer room he gazed past me and took in the heading of this item.
"Is that part of the 'Old Ones, New Ones' thing you come out with sometimes?" he asked. "Where did you get it?"
"Semprini," I said. "Albert Semprini. Very good pianist. Popular on BBC radio many years ago. Always started his programme by saying: 'Old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones.' Then he'd give you half an hour or so of charming pianoforte. That's back when music was music, not the stuff you hear now."
"Don't be a music snob," he admonished. "You like Katie Melua and Beth Nielsen Chapman."
"Well, yes, and I liked Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore and Doris Day. I liked Al Bowlly, too. Heck, there were loads of singers I liked back in the old days. Some bloody good composers, too. Best CD I've heard over the years has been Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. All stuff by wonderful composers like Irving Berlin, Sylvia Fine and Gus Kahn. Michael Bolton did a similar thing a few years back and that was magic, too."
He dropped down off the chair and stretched. "Need to feed and beat the bounds," he said. "We must talk music again later. I like hearing about who was who in your day."
"Why not," I said. "I've bored everybody else daft with it. Why should you escape? I'll try to avoid reeling off a list of names, though, that's taking the boring old git persona a tad too far."
"Breaking the habit of a lifetime, then, just for me. You are kind," he said.
And was gone.

FOOTNOTE.

Am currently reading The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman and Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter.
Keeps me off the streets.