Spotlight for January 08, 2008
Happy Birthday Elvis!

BIRTHDAYS


1937
Shirley Bassey
Pops Vocalist
b. Cardiff, Wales, UK.
A fine vocalist whose first fame came as a result of her singing the background music "Goldfinger", - theme song of 'James Bond - 007' picture. (Film also brought actor Sean Connery his fame.)
DIVAS BIO:
www.divasthesite.com/Singing...ssey.htm

1947
David Bowie
R&R singer/songwriter
b. Brixton, England.

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in London) is an English rock musician and actor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie
www.davidbowie.com/
www.bowiewonderworld.com/


1941
"Little Anthony" Gourdine
Doo Wop/R&B Vocals
b: New York (Brooklyn), NY, USA.
né: Jerome Anthony Gourdine.
"Little Anthony" came from a musical family. His mother, with her sisters, sang gospel. The name of the group was the Nazareth Baptist singers. and his father played saxophone (tenor, alto). He performed with the Sinclair Orchestra and the Buddy Johnson Orchestra. 'Little Anthony's' three brothers were also involved in music. He is now best recalled as the lead vocalist with "Little Anthony and the Imperials." When 'The Duponts' disbanded, "Little Anthony" and his friends Clarence Collins, Ernest Wright, Tracy Lord and Nat Rogers, formed "The Chesters," but a popular New York disc jockey (Alan Freed) induced them to change the name to 'The Imperials'. In 1964, they scaled down to a quartet, and the sound changed from doo wop to a harder, more uptown R&B sound. Between 1958 and 1974, they had a total of ten entries in the "Hot 100" chart. Happily, the group is still touring.

1903
Edwin (Eddie) Grosso
reeds/flute/electric steel guitar/violin
(and many novelty instruments)
b. New York, NY, USA.
d. July 7, 1971, Mew York, NY, USA.
In the 1920s, Eddie Grosso went to Europe with the Alex Hyde Orchestra. Upon returning to the USA, he worked with "Fred Hall's Sugar Babies". In the mid-1930s, he played with Russ Morgan Orch , and he also played saxophone and clarinet with the George Olsen Orch. . One of his proudest recordings was the steel guitar solo he did with Russ Morgan's recording of "Blue Hawaii." He left Morgan in 1940 to play with the Korn Kobblers. ( Some information on the Kobblers may had seen in our Freddie Fisher and the Schnicklefritzers, entry.

The Kobblers were a novelty band that was broadcast live from 'Rogers Corner', a huge nightclub in New York city, at 50th St. and Broadway. The band also played at Jack Dempsey's Restaurant (in New York) for many years. It also had one of the first TV shows, broadcast live from the New York CBS studio in Grand Central Palace (The University of Wisconsin has a music museum that has much of the memorabilia from the Korn Kobblers). He also was with a radio band "The Rex Cole Mountaineers." It was live on Sunday mornings on New York's radio station WEAF (NBC). (Naturally, Rex Cole of Long Island City, NY. sponsored the show). Eddie Grosso played with a lot of famous musicians doing studio and commercial work (they all did it before they had their bands). Grosso, not wanting to travel, found that he could make a very good living in recording studios. As he grew older, he worked with the New York based 'society' bands of Lester Lanin , and Meyer Davis . Later, he did a lot of advertising commercials and staff work at the radio (and later TV) networks.

1900
"Fiddlin' Joe" Martin, violin
b. Edwards, MS, USA.
Worked with Son House, and others



1935
Elvis Aron Presley
vocals/guitar
b. Tupelo, MS, USA.
d. Aug. 16, 1977, Memphis, TN, USA.
né: Elvis Aron Presley.
Immensely popular rock and roll singer whose singing style and stage presentation changed the shape and direction of American popular culture. Also known as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" and "Elvis the Pelvis".

Rolling Stone magazine claimed "Elvis Presley is rock 'n' roll" and called his body of work "acres of perfect material." During an active recording career that spanned more than two decades, Presley set and broke many records for both concert attendance and sales. Since then, those records have only been matched and/or broken by the likes of The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey. Presley had more than 100 singles in the US top 40 and 17 went to number one. He has reportedly sold an estimated one billion records to date.
to continue bio go to the 1st link:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley
www.elvis.com/
www.imdb.com/name/nm0000062/
AND the FBI Freedom of INformation ACt files on Elvis:
www.foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/presley.htm


1904
"Tampa Red", (Blues)
Guitar/vocals/kazoo/songwriter
b: Smithville, GA, USA.
d: March 19, 1981, Chicago, IL, USA.
~Biography by Barry Lee Pearson
Out of the dozens of fine slide guitarists who recorded blues, only a handful -- Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Robert Johnson, for example -- left a clear imprint on tradition by creating a recognizable and widely imitated instrumental style. Tampa Red was another influential musical model. During his heyday in the '20s and '30s, he was billed as "The Guitar Wizard," and his stunning slide work on steel National or electric guitar shows why he earned the title. His 30-year recording career produced hundreds of sides: hokum, pop, and jive, but mostly blues (including classic compositions "Anna Lou Blues," "Black Angel Blues," "Crying Won't Help You," "It Hurts Me Too," and "Love Her with a Feeling"). Early in Red's career, he teamed up with pianist, songwriter, and latter-day gospel composer Georgia Tom Dorsey, collaborating on double entendre classics like "Tight Like That."

Listeners who only know Tampa Red's hokum material are missing the deeper side of one of the mainstays of Chicago blues. His peers included Big Bill Broonzy, with whom he shared a special friendship. Members of Lester Melrose's musical mafia and drinking buddies, they once managed to sleep through both games of a Chicago White Sox doubleheader. Eventually alcohol caught up with Red, and he blamed his latter-day health problems on an inability to refuse a drink.

During Red's prime, his musical venues ran the gamut of blues institutions: down-home jukes, the streets, the vaudeville theater circuit, and the Chicago club scene. Due to his polish and theater experience, he is often described as a city musician or urban artist in contrast to many of his more limited musical contemporaries. Furthermore, his house served as the blues community's rehearsal hall and an informal booking agency. According to the testimony of Broonzy and Big Joe Williams, Red cared for other musicians by offering them a meal and a place to stay and generally easing their transition from country to city life.

Today's listener will enjoy Tampa Red's expressive vocals and perhaps be taken aback by his kazoo solos. His songwriting has stood the test of time, and any serious slide guitar student had better be familiar with Red's guitar wizardry.


Notable Events
on this date include:

1973.
"Archibald" (né: Leon T. Gross), piano
died in New Orleans, LA, USA.
Age: 60

1979.
Sara Carter Bayes
Guitar/Autoharp/Vocals with the "Carter Family"
died in Lodi, CA, USA. Age: 79

1984.
Walter F. Bishop, songwriter
died in New York, NY, USA.
Age: 78.
Worked with Louis Jordan

Songs Recorded/Released
on this date include:

1924
“Do-Doodle-Oom”
(Fletcher Henderson / Porter Grainger)
- Piron's New Orleans Orchestra
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/pi...leoom.ram

1924
“Old-Fashioned Love”
(from the Musical Comedy "Runnin' Wild"),
(Cecil Mack / James.P.Johnson )
- Sissle and Blake
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/si...dlove.ram

1924
“Frosty Morining Blues”
(Eddie Brown)
- Bessie Smith
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/be...blues.ram

1925
“Done Made a Fool Out Of Me”
(Tom Delaney)
- Margaret Johnson accompanied by Clarence Williams' Blue Five
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/Ma...tOfMe.ram

1925
“If You Only Knowed”
(Porter Grainger)
- Clara Smith
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/cl...uonly.ram

1926
“Don't Want It At All”
Alberta Hunter
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/hu...itall.ram

1926
“Just Around The Corner” (May Be Sunshine For You)
(Harry Von Tilzer / Dolph Singer)
-Art Landry and His Orchestra
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/la...round.ram

1929
“You Lose”
(Emmett Miller)
- Emmett Miller accompanied by his Georgia Crackers
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/Em...ulose.ram

1929
“Doin' The Voom Voom”
(Bubber Miley /Duke Ellington )
- Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/el...nvoom.ram

1936
“I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter”
(Joe E. Young / Fred E. Ahlert)
- Red Mckenzie and his Mound City Blue Blowers
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/mo...nasit.ram

1955
Melody Of Love
- David Carroll

1955
Sincerely
- McGuire Sisters

LYRICS:

I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter
~Lyrics by Joe Young
~Music by Fred E. Ahlert

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you

I'm gonna write words, oh, so sweet
They're gonna knock me off my feet,
A lotta kisses on the bottom,
I'll be glad I got 'em

I'm gonna smile and say:
"Gee, I hope you're feeling better."
And close "with love" the way you .
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came,
(Make believe)
I'm gonna make believe it came from you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AL BOWLLY...


Albert Allick 'Al' Bowlly
www.squidoo.com/bowlly
(January 7, 1890/1899(?)-April 17, 1941) was a popular singer in the United Kingdom during the 1930s, making more than 1,000 recordings between 1927 and 1941. Bowlly was born in Mozambique to Greek and Lebanese parents who met en route to Australia and moved to South Africa. He was brought up in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was killed by the explosion of a parachute mine outside his apartment in London during the Blitz.
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Early life and career -
Bowlly showcased a range of material unsurpassed by any contemporary other than perhaps Bing Crosby. He was also a true international recording artist. After a series of odd jobs across Europe in his youth, he gained his musical experience singing for a dance band led by Jimmy Liquime on a tour of India and Singapore during the mid-1920s. However, he fell out with Liquime and was fired whilst the band was still in India. Bowlly had to work his passage back home, through busking. Just one year after his 1927 debut recording date in Berlin, Bowlly arrived in London for the first time as part of Fred Elizalde's orchestra. That year, "If I Had You" became one of the first popular songs by an English jazz band to become well known in America as well, and Bowlly had gone out on his own by the beginning of the 1930s. First, however, the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 resulted in Bowlly being made redundant and returning to several months of busking to survive.

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Early stardom -
In the 1930s, he was to sign two contracts which were to change his fortunes - one in May 1931 with Roy Fox, singing in his live band for the Monseigneur Restaurant in London, the other a record contract with Ray Noble's orchestra in November 1930. During the next four years, he recorded over 500 songs. He also found time to occasionally record with other orchestras such as Lew Stone's ; however, he was inundated with demands in this period, and made the bulk of his recordings with Noble. There was considerable competition between Noble and Fox for Bowlly's time, as for much of the year, Bowlly would spend all day in the recording studio with Noble's band, rehearsing and recording, only to then spend the evening playing live at the Monseigneur with Fox's band. A visit to New York in 1934 with Noble resulted in more success and their recordings first achieved popularity in the USA; he appeared at the head of an orchestra hand-picked for him and Noble by Glenn Miller (the band included Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak, and Bud Freeman, among others).

During the early-mid 1930s, such songs as "Blue Moon", "Easy to Love", "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "My Melancholy Baby" were sizable American successes — so much so that Bowlly gained his own radio series on NBC and travelled to Hollywood to co-star in The Big Broadcast in 1936, which also starred one of his biggest competitors, Bing Crosby. Al Bowlly often worked with Ray Noble and His Orchestra.

In December 1931, Bowlly had married Freda Roberts, but the marriage proved a disaster, with Bowlly discovering his new wife in bed with another man on their wedding night. The couple separated after two weeks, and sought a rapid divorce. He remarried in December 1934, this time to Marjie Fairless, the marriage lasting until his death.

Move to the United States and return to Britain -
Despite Bowlly's stellar success in Britain through the early 1930s, he never achieved the same measure of fame in the USA, and his absence from the UK when he moved to the States in 1934 damaged his popularity with UK audiences. His career also began to suffer as a result of problems with his voice from around 1936, which affected the frequency of his recordings. He and Marjie moved back to London in January 1937, with Bowlly appearing with his own band, the Radio City Rhythm Makers, but they had dissolved by late 1937 when his vocal problems were traced to a wart on the inside of his throat, which briefly caused him to lose his voice entirely. He flew back to the USA to successfully undergo major throat surgery for its removal, but had further difficulties with his voice late in his career.

With his success in Britain a shadow of its former self, he toured regional theatres and recorded furiously to make a living, moving from orchestra to orchestra, including those of Sydney Lipton, Geraldo, and Ken Johnson. He underwent a brief revival from 1940, as part of a double act with Jimmy Messene (whose career had also suffered a recent downturn), with an act called Radio Stars with Two Guitars, performing on the London stage. It was his last venture before his death in April 1941. The partnership was an uneasy one, as Messene suffered from a serious drinking problem by this stage, and was known to turn up incapable on stage, or not to turn up at all, much to Bowlly's consternation. Bowlly's last recorded song, made two weeks before his death, was a duet with Messene of Irving Berlin's satirical song on Hitler, "When That Man is Dead and Gone".

Death -
The evening of April 16, 1941, Bowlly and Messene gave what was to be Al's last performance in High Wycombe. In the early hours of the following morning, April 17, 1941, Bowlly was in his flat on Jermyn Street when he was killed by a German Luftwaffe parachute mine which exploded outside his apartment. Bowlly's body appeared unmarked - the blast had not harmed him, but it had sent his bedroom door off its hinges and the impact against his head proved fatal.

Some speculation surrounds his age at the time of his death. Bowlly claimed at the time of his death that he was born in 1899, making him forty-two, but his death certificate gives his age as forty-three, and several contemporaries claimed that the perpetually boyish-faced singer was born as early as 1890. As no birth certificate exists, and much of his early years in South Africa remain shrouded in mystery, his actual age may remain unknown. Al was buried with other bombing victims in a mass grave at the Westminster Cemetery, Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, London, where his name is spelt Albert Alex (sic) Bowlly. In 1986, British singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson paid tribute on his album Daring Adventures with the song "Al Bowlly's in Heaven".

Bowlly remains one of the most highly regarded singers of his era because of his extraordinary range, his command of pitch and rhythm, and above all, the sincerity with which he could deliver a lyric.
" "Isle of Capri" Partial discography "Time on My Hands" February 19, 1931 "Goodnight, Sweetheart" February 19, 1931 "Guilty" December 2, 1931 "Lullaby of the Leaves" June 10, 1932 "Looking on the Bright Side of Life" September 1, 1932Love Is the Sweetest Thing" September 8, 1932 "What More Can I Ask?" December 23, 1932 "Hustlin' and Bustlin' for Baby" March 16, 1933 "Midnight, the Stars, and You" February 16, 1934 "The Very Thought of You" April 21, 1934August 30, 1934 "Dinner for One Please, James" November 14, 1935 "You Couldn't Be Cuter" August 12, 1938 "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow" February 15, 1940
http://limelight-884.static.dailymotion.com/dyn/preview/160x120/2659884.jpg
References -

* Sid Colin and Tony Staveacre, Al Bowlly (H. Hamilton, 1979)
* Ray Pallett, Good-Night, Sweetheart: Life and Times of Al Bowlly (Spellmount, 1986)

AL BOWLY on YouTube:

Al Bowlly "The Very Thought of You"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYrXcQj4JI&feature=related

Al Bowlly "Melancholy Baby"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ZHpkJfRpM