Albert Allick "Al" Bowlly (7
January 1899 – 17 April 1941) was a popular British
Jazz singer and crooner in the United Kingdom during the 1930s, making more than 1,000 recordings
between 1927 and 1941. Bowlly showcased a diverse range of
material unsurpassed by any contemporary other than perhaps
Bing Crosby.
He was also a truly
international recording artist.He was killed by the explosion of a
parachute mine outside his flat in
Jermyn
Street
, London
during
the Blitz.
Early life and career
Bowlly was
born in Laurenco
Marques
, 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. After a series of odd
jobs across South Africa in his youth, namely as a barber and
jockey, he gained his musical experience singing for a dance band
led by Edgar Adeler on a tour of South Africa, Rhodesia, India
and Indonesia
during the mid-1920s. However, he fell out
with Adeler, throwing a cushion at his head as he played piano on
stage and was fired whilst the band was in Surabaya
, Indonesia. After a spell with a Filipino band in Surabayo he was then employed by
Jimmy Liquime in India (Calcutta
) and Singapore
(Raffles
Hotel
). Bowlly had to work his passage back home,
through
busking.
Just one year after
his 1927 debut recording date in Berlin
, where he
recorded Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" with Edgar Adeler, Bowlly
arrived in London for the first time as part of Fred Elizalde's orchestra, though nearly
didn't make it after foolishly frittering away the fare which was
sent to him by Elizalde. 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.
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. By 1933
Lew Stone had ousted Fox as bandleader,
and Bowlly was singing Stone's arrangements with Stone's band.
After much
radio exposure and a successful UK
tour with Stone, Bowlly was inundated with demands for personal
appearances and gigs—including undertaking a subsequent solo UK
tour - but continued to make the bulk of his recordings with Noble.
There was considerable competition between Noble and Stone 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 Stone's band.
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
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.
Despite Bowlly's stellar success in Britain through the early
1930s, he never achieved the same measure of fame in the United
States, 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. Bowlly also
played a few bit parts in films around this time, yet Bowlly had
never professed to be an actor and his parts were, predictably,
often cut and scenes that were shown were brief. Noble was offered
a role in Hollywood though the offer did not, unfortunately,
include Bowlly, as a singer had already been instated. Consequently
Bowlly and his wife Marjie moved back to London in January 1937.
Bowlly never really explained why he had returned, with
contemporaries and fans being treated to a variety of stories
ranging from the fact that he missed London to claims that he got
mixed up with a gangster's moll, so was run out of America. Bowlly
was always one for exaggeration and story telling.
Bowlly had appeared with his own band, the Radio City Rhythm
Makers, but they had split by late 1937 when his vocal problems
were traced to a
wart in his throat, which
briefly caused him to lose his voice entirely. With he and Marjie
separated and his band dissolved, that year Bowlly was once again
down on his luck. Al was forced to borrow money from reluctant
friends for a trip to New York for the surgery of which he was so
in need. In 1938, he finally returned to the USA to successfully
undergo major throat surgery for the removal of his vocal wart, 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 as often as possible to make a
living, moving from orchestra to orchestra, including those of
Sydney Lipton,
Geraldo, and
Ken Johnson. He underwent a 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 his death on 17 April 1941, Bowlly and Messene had just
given a performance at the Rex Cinema in High Wycombe
. Both were offered the opportunity of an
overnight stay in the town, but Bowlly opted to take the last train
home to his flat in Jermyn
Street, London instead. Bowlly's decision proved to
be fatal; he was killed by a
Luftwaffe
parachute mine which
detonated outside his flat later that evening.
Bowlly's body appeared unmarked: although the massive explosion had
not disfigured him, it had blown his bedroom door off its hinges
and the impact against his head proved fatal.
Bowlly was buried
with other bombing victims in a mass grave at the Westminster
Cemetery, Uxbridge Road, Hanwell
, London, where his name is spelled Albert Alex
Bowlly.
Year of birth discrepancies
Some speculation surrounds his age at the time of his death. Bowlly
claimed that he was born in 1899, making him 42 at the time of his
death. However, his death certificate gives his age as 43, which
would indicate that he was born in 1898. 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
remains unknown.
Legacy
Al Bowlly is invariably credited with inventing
crooning, or "The Modern Singing Style", releasing a
book of the same name. Bowlly experimented with new methods of
amplification, not least with his
Melody
Maker advert, showing him endorsing a portable vocal megaphone.
With the advent of the microphone in 1931, Al adapted his singing
style, moving away from the Jazz singing style of the 20s, into the
softer, more expressive crooning singing style used in popular
music of the 30s and 40s. It was Al's technique, sincerity, diction
and his personality that distinguish him from many other singers of
the 30s era.
Al is also credited with being the first "Pop Star". Prior to the
advent of Bowlly, the bandleaders were the stars and the main
attractions, with the records being sold as "Ray Noble and his
orchestra (with vocal refrain)" a phenomenon that can be seen on
78s of the period. Most singers were all but anonymous, but Al's
popularity changed this, with him being the first singer to be
given a solo spot on BBC radio due to popular demand, and records
appearing featuring his own name. Bowlly's personality, good looks,
charisma, and above all his voice, earned him the nickname "The Big
Swoon", with Al finding himself being mobbed by female fans for
autographs and photos after his
performances.
As well as singing, Bowlly played both the
guitar and the
ukelele, with
Joyce Stone, widow of Lew Stone saying "You only had to play
anything once to Al and he'd got it." 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. Ray Noble is often quoted as saying that Al
often stepped away from the microphone with tears in his eyes;
"never mind him making you cry, he could make himself cry!"
References in popular culture
- Bowlly's music is an integral part of many Dennis Potter dramas
like The Singing
Detective (1986), Pennies from Heaven
(1978) and in particular Moonlight on the Highway (1969).
Potter also used Bowlly's song titles as titles for his plays, e.g.
Rain on the Roof and Cream in my Coffee.
- "Midnight, the Stars and You" has been the signature piece and
the final music cut since 2001 on the John Batchelor Show, an American
national radio program.
- Bowlly is portrayed by Graham
McPherson in the 2008 film The
Edge of Love. Also, Bowlly's version of "My Hat's on the
Side of My Head" is heard later in the film.
- Al Bowlly's "Guilty" was featured in the soundtrack for the
French film Amelie.
- In 1997, Bowlly's "My Woman" was sampled by British one-man
band White Town, appearing in the song
Your Woman.
- The song "Hang Out The Stars In Indiana" was featured in the
cult comedy film Withnail and I.
Partial discography
| "Time on My Hands" |
19 February 1931 |
| "Goodnight,
Sweetheart" Lyrics |
19 February 1931 |
| "Guilty" |
2 December 1931 |
| "Lullaby of the Leaves" |
10 June 1932 |
| "Looking on the Bright Side of Life" |
1 September 1932 |
| "Love Is the Sweetest Thing" |
8 September 1932 |
| "What More Can I Ask?" |
23 December 1932 |
| "Hustlin' and Bustlin' for Baby" |
16 March 1933 |
| "Midnight, the Stars and You" |
16 February 1934 |
| "The Very Thought of
You" |
21 April 1934 |
| "Isle of Capri" |
30 August 1934 |
| "Dinner for One Please, James" |
14 November 1935 |
| "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow" |
15 February 1940 |
References
- Sid Colin and Tony Staveacre, Al Bowlly (H. Hamilton,
1979)
- Ray Pallett, Good-Night, Sweetheart: Life and Times of Al
Bowlly (Spellmount, 1986)
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