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.