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A Review of Famous Songs of the Past 'Fascinating Facts' February

A Review of Famous Songs of the Past 'Fascinating Facts' February

A Review of Famous of the Past

‘Fascinating Facts’ February 2020

Track 1 The Dashing White Sergeant The Dashing White Sergeant is a Scottish Country Dance, performed to a similarly titled piece of music. The dance is in the form of a reel performed by groups of six dancers. The title comes from the original lyrics, traditionally attributed to the 18th century General, John Burgoyne. The better known lyrics were written by the Scottish Composer, Sir Hugh S. Roberton for the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. It quickly became very popular in the both as a and a dance tune, and was added to the repertoire of the West Point Military Academy, where it is still played today at certain events.

Robert Wilson (2 January 1907 – 25 September 1964) was a Scottish tenor. Wilson was born in Cambuslang. His father, Alexander, was a tailor, and his mother was Marion née McLurg. He trained at first as a draughtsman, then, in his twenties, as a professional singer in Glasgow. He initially performed for several seasons as part of the Rothesay Entertainers in Scotland. At the same time, he sang at Clan concerts and Scottish Festivals. In 1931, Wilson joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. After this, Wilson became a solo artist, heading his own concert party singing Scottish ballads for several years on tour throughout Britain. He also continued in demand as a recording artist, signing with HMV in 1943. His recordings of such Scottish songs as "A Gordon for Me" and "Down in the Glen" were big sellers. He became a well-known variety performer and in the he was an early presenter of the White Heather Club and recorded with them.[2] He continued to tour into the 1960s.

Track 2 The Happy Wanderer The Happy Wanderer is a popular song by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller written shortly after World War II. It is often mistaken for a German folk song, but it is actually an original composition. His sister Edith Möller conducted a small amateur children's and youth choir in Northern Germany. In 1953 a BBC radio broadcast of the choir's winning performance at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod turned the cheerful encore into an instant hit.

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Frank Weir (30 January 1911 - 12 May 1981) was a British orchestra leader and musician. He reached Number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in 1954 with Vera Lynn and the song "My Son, My Son". His version of "The Happy Wanderer" became one of the most popular recordings of 1954, in both the UK and the US. It featured Weir's soprano saxophone solos between verses.

Track 3 Pack Up Your Troubles Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, is a World War I marching song, published in 1915 in . It was written by George Henry Powell. Music Hall stars rescued the song from their rejects pile and re-scored it to win a wartime competition for a marching song. It became very popular, boosting British morale despite the horrors of that war. It was one of a large of music hall songs aimed at maintaining morale, recruiting for the forces, or defending Britain's war aims. The title of Wilfred Owen's bitter anti-war poem "Smile, Smile, Smile" (September 1918) was derived from the song.

Max Bygraves OBE (born Walter William Bygraves on 16 October 1922 – 31 August 2012) was an English comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. He appeared on his own television shows, sometimes performing comedy sketches between songs. Shows he presented included the game show Family Fortunes. Bygraves was born the son of poor parents in London, England. His father was a professional boxer, known as Battling Tom Smith, and a casual dockworker. Bygraves later changed his name from Walter William to Max after comedian .

Track 4 Leaving of Liverpool Also known as "Fare Thee Well, My Own True Love", is a folksong. The song's narrator laments his long sailing trip to California and the thought of leaving his loved ones (especially his "own true love"). He pledges to return to her one day. Liverpool was a natural point of embarkation for such a song because it had the necessary shipping lines and a choice of destinations and infrastructure, including special emigration trains directly to The Prince's Landing Stage (which is mentioned in the song's first line).

The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop quartet, originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were popular during the 1960s. were offered a twelve-month position as on-board entertainment on the Sitmar cruise liner, Fairsky, in March 1964. In May, they travelled to the UK and had intended to return to Australia after staying ten weeks, but upon arrival they were offered work in London. The group had Top 10 hits in the 1960s with "I'll Never Find Another You", "", "", "Someday, One Day" (written by Paul Simon), "" and "”. who was ’s brother wrote many of their big hits - I'll Never Find Another You, World of Our Own and Georgy Girl.

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Track 5 When Father Papered the Parlour When Father Papered the Parlour is a popular song, written and composed by R. P. Weston and Fred J. Barnes in 1910. It is performed by comedian Billy Williams, and was one of his most successful hits.

Richard Isaac Banks (1878 – March 1915), who changed his name to Billy Williams after leaving his birthplace of Australia, was one of the most recorded popular entertainers of his time. His many recordings sold in their thousands long after his early death in 1915. Born in Melbourne, Williams tried a number of jobs before embarking on an entertainment career which led him to come to England in 1899. He became a popular entertainer in the music halls singing what were known as chorus-songs – he also appeared in pantomime.

Track 6 Be Like The Kettle And Sing Be Like the Kettle and Sing is a fantasy, upbeat song from 1943 era England sung by Vera Lynn. She sung it in the movie ‘We'll Meet Again’ in which she starred.

Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born Vera Margaret Welch on 20 ) is an English singer, and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. She became known as "The Forces' Sweetheart". The songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again", "The ", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "There'll Always Be an England". She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the United States and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and "My Son, My Son". In 2009 she became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 in the British chart, at the age of 92 with her We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn. She has devoted much time and energy to charity work connected with ex-servicemen, disabled children and breast cancer.

Track 7 Greensleeves There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously". However, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin.

James Roger McGuinn (born James Joseph McGuinn III on July 13, 1942) was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were involved in journalism and public relations, and during his childhood, they had written a bestseller titled Parents Can't Win. He attended The Latin School of Chicago. He became interested in music after hearing 's "" and asked

Available at www.dailysparkle.co.uk and via our App his parents to buy him a guitar. During the early 1980s, he paid tribute to the song by including ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ in his autobiographical show). Around the same time, he was also influenced by country artists and/or groups such as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, and The Everly Brothers.

Track 8 I Won’t Forget You I Won't Forget You is a single by American singer Jim Reeves. It was released in 1964

James Travis "Jim" Reeves (August 20, 1923 – July 31, 1964) was an American country and singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound (a mixture of older country-style music with elements of popular music). Known as "Gentleman Jim", his songs continued to chart for years after his death. Reeves died at age 40 in the crash of a private airplane.

Track 9 Love’s Old Sweet Song This delightful ballad is composed by James Lyman Molloy in the nineteenth century.

Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".

Track 10 Me And My Shadow Me and My Shadow is a 1927 popular song. Officially the credits show it as written by Al Jolson, Billy Rose, and Dave Dreyer. In fact, Billy Rose was exclusively a lyricist, Dreyer a composer, and Al Jolson a performer who was often given credits so he could earn some more money!

Frank Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his musical career in the with bandleaders and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of , in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best-known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded .

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Track 11 My Old Man Said Follow The Van My Old Man is a music hall song written in 1919 made popular by Marie Lloyd. The song, although humorous, also reflects some of the hardships of working class life in London at the beginning of the 20th century. It joined a music hall tradition of dealing with life in a determinedly upbeat fashion. In the song a couple are obliged to move house, after dark, because they cannot pay their rent.

Jessie Wallace is an English actress. She is best known for her role of Kat Slater in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. She was also the lead role in Miss Marie Lloyd – Queen of The Music Hall for BBC Four in 2007.

Track 12 Ol’ Man River Ol' Man River (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a black dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. Meant to be performed in a slow tempo, it is sung completely once by the dock worker "Joe" who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, "This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway."

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American singer and actor who was a political activist for the Civil Rights Movement. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with Communism, and criticism of the US brought retribution from the government and public condemnation. He was blacklisted, and to his financial and social detriment, he refused to rescind his stand on his beliefs and remained opposed to the direction of US policies. Robeson won a scholarship to Rutgers University, where he was a football All- American and class valedictorian. He graduated from Columbia Law School while playing in the National Football League(NFL) and singing and acting in off-campus productions. After theatrical performances in The Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings he became an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance.

Track 13 Rose of England A patriotic song written by Welsh composer Ivor Novello in 1937 for his musical Crest of the Wave. The flower to which the song's lyrics refer is one of England's national emblems, the Tudor Rose. The song's popularity has led to some calls for it to replace "God Save the Queen" as the English sporting anthem.

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Ivor Lewis Emmanuel was a Welsh musical theatre and television singer and actor. He is probably best remembered, however, for his appearance as "Private Owen" in the 1964 film Zulu, in which his character rallies outnumbered British soldiers by leading them in the stirring Welsh battle hymn "Men of Harlech" to counter the Zulu war chants.

Track 14 My Funny Valentine A sweet love song about how you don’t have to be beautiful to make someone’s heart sing.

Frank Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) began his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, and Nice 'n' Easy). He toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternised with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy- winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".

Track 15 When You're Smiling When You're Smiling is a song by Larry Shay, Mark Fisher, and Joe Goodwin and made famous by Louis Armstrong, who recorded it at least three times, in 1929, 1932, and 1956. Duke Ellington also recorded it several times earlier in his career.

The cast of the The Mighty Aphrodite: The Mighty Aphrodite is a 1995 romantic comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. The screenplay was inspired by the mythological tale of Pygmalion. In the film, the song ‘When you’re smiling’ is performed by the Chorus & Orchestra

Track 16 Ten Green Bottles Ten Green Bottles is a song for children that is popular in the . In essence the song is a single verse repeated, each time with one bottle fewer.

A Traditional Song

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Track 17 A Four Legged Friend This track is from the film “Son of Paleface” 1952 and was written by Jack Brooks. It was made famous by singer Roy Rogers and later Bob Hope with Jimmy Wakely also in 1952 and Andy Mackay in 1974.

Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye (November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies and The Roy Rogers Show. The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957. Rogers's nickname was "King of the Cowboys". Evans's nickname was "Queen of the West". Rogers and Evans remained married until Rogers's death in 1998.

Track 18 Always True To You In My Fashion A 1948 show tune by Cole Porter, written for the musical Kiss Me, Kate. In the lyrics, the singer protests that she is always faithful to her main love in her own way, despite seeing, and accepting gifts from, wealthy older men.

Ann Miller was famed for her speed in tap dancing. Studio publicists concocted press releases claiming she could tap 500 times per minute! Because the stage floors were slick and slippery, she actually danced in shoes with rubber soles. Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and actually dancing on a "tap board" to match her steps in the film.

Track 19 Anything Goes Anything Goes is a popular song written by Cole Porter for his musical Anything Goes (1934). Anything Goes was the first of five Porter shows featuring Merman. He loved her loud, brassy voice and wrote many numbers that featured her strengths. The original idea for the musical to be set on board an ocean liner came from producer Vinton Freedley, who was living on a boat, having left the US to avoid his creditors. According to theatre legend, the title was born from the haste with which the show was revamped: at a late- night production meeting, an exasperated and over-worked member of the production team cried out "And just how in the world are we going to end the first act?" "At this point," one of the producers, responded "anything goes!"

Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performance as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables.

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Track 20 Beautiful Dreamer Beautiful Dreamer is a parlour song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864). The first edition declares on the title page that Beautiful Dreamer is "the last song ever written by Stephen C. Foster. The song tells of a lover serenading a Beautiful Dreamer, who is oblivious to all worldly cares.

Jonathon Guyot Smith is a modern singer of country classics, melodies and ballads.

Track 21 I Can’t Stop Loving You I Can't Stop Loving You is a popular song written and composed by country singer, songwriter and musician Don Gibson, who first recorded it in December 1957

Donald Eugene Gibson (April 3, 1928 – November 17, 2003) was an American songwriter and country musician. He penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s. Don Gibson was born in North Carolina, into a poor working-class family, and he dropped out of school in the second grade. In 1957, he went to Nashville to work with producer Chet Atkins and record "Oh Lonesome Me" and "I Can't Stop Loving You". It was a double-sided hit. Gibson recorded a series of successful duets with Dottie West in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A talented songwriter, Gibson was nicknamed The Sad Poet because he frequently wrote songs that told of loneliness and lost love. His song "I Can't Stop Loving You", has been recorded by over 700 artists, most notably by Ray Charles in 1962.

Track 22 A Little Dream Of Me Dream a Little Dream of Me was originally recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra in 1931. It was also recorded for the Mamas & the Papas in April 1968. The group had often sung the song for fun, having been familiarised with it by member Michelle Phillips, whose father had been friends with the song's co- writer, Fabian Andre.

The Mamas & The Papas were an American/Canadian vocal group who came to prominence in the 1960s. The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968. They have sold nearly 40 million records worldwide. Their signature sound was based on four-part male/female vocal harmonies arranged by John Phillips, the band's songwriter. Their first successful single, California Dreamin', was re- released in the UK and peaked at number nine in 1997.

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Track 23 From Me to You From Me to You is a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and released by as a single in 1963. Lennon and McCartney began writing "From Me to You" while on a coach. McCartney noted that their early songs tended to include the words "I", "me" or "you" in them, as a way of making them "very direct and personal".

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. They became perhaps the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the history of popular music. The band's best-known line up consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and . In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania". The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three- year period from 1960. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first single, "Love Me Do", became a modest hit in late 1962. They acquired the nickname the "Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "" of the United States pop market. From 1965 on, they produced what many critics consider their finest material. After their break-up in 1970, the ex-Beatles each found success in individual musical careers. Lennon was murdered in 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr remain active. The Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion records. They were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people.

Track 24 Comin' Through the Rye A poem written in 1782 by Robert Burns. It is well known as a traditional children's song, with the words put to the melody of the Scottish Minstrel Common' Frae The Town.

Dame Nellie Melba (19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931) was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and early 20th century. She was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. Melba studied singing in Melbourne and then moved to Europe in search of a singing career. Failing to find engagements in London in 1886, she studied in Paris. Returning to London she established herself as the leading lyric soprano at Covent Garden from 1888. She soon achieved further success in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, and later at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. During the First World War, Melba raised large sums for war charities. She returned to Australia frequently during the 20th century, singing in opera and concerts. She continued to sing until the last months of her life and made a legendary number of "farewell" appearances. Her death, in Australia, was news across the English-speaking world.

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Track 25 Little Things Mean a Lot is a popular song written by Edith Lindeman (lyrics) and Carl Stutz (music), published in 1953. The best known recording of "Little Things Mean a Lot," is by .

Kitty Kallen (born May 25, 1922 – January 7, 2016) was an American popular singer. Born in to a Jewish family, she won an amateur contest as a child doing imitations of popular singers of the day. While still a child, she sang on The Children's Hour. As a pre-teen, she had her own radio program and sang with the big bands of in 1938, and in 1940. She scored her biggest success in 1954 with the song "Little Things Mean a Lot. She followed up this song with "Chapel in the Moonlight".

Track 26 In Dreams In Dreams is a song composed and sung by rock and roll performer Roy Orbison. An operatic ballad of lost love, it was released as a single in February 1963. It became the title track on the album In Dreams, released in July of the same year. The song has a unique structure in seven musical movements in which Orbison sings through two octaves, beyond the range of most rock and roll singers.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988), also known by the nickname The Big O, was an American singer-songwriter, best known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis. His greatest success came with Monument Records between 1960 and 1964 with "Only the Lonely", "Crying", and "Oh, Pretty Woman". He died of a heart attack in December in1988, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and his two eldest sons in separate accidents. Orbison was a natural baritone, but music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. The combination of Orbison's powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many critics to refer to his music as operatic. While most men in rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability. He was known for performing while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses, which lent an air of mystery to his persona.

Track 27 Puppet on a String Puppet on a String is the name of the Eurovision Song Contest-winning song in 1967 by British singer Sandie Shaw. It was her thirteenth UK single release. The song was a UK Singles Chart number one hit on 27 April 1967, staying at the top for a total of three weeks.

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Sandie Shaw (born Sandra Ann Goodrich; 26 February 1947) is an English singer. On leaving school, she worked at the nearby Ford Dagenham factory, and did some part-time modelling before coming second as a singer in a local talent contest. As a prize, she appeared at a charity concert in London, where her potential was spotted by singer Adam Faith. One of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s, in 1967 she became the first Briton to win the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Puppet on a String". After a long and successful career, Shaw announced her retirement from the music industry in 2013.

Track 28 Bobby’s Girl Is a song and single written by Gary Klein and Henry Hoffman and performed by American teenage singer, Marcie Blane. It was first released in 1962 in America and was popular with the American teenage audience.

Marcie Blane (born Marcia Blank, May 21, 1944, Brooklyn, New York) is an American singer who recorded . The Seville issued a demo performed by the high school student as a favour for a friend. The song was "Bobby's Girl". Marcie retired from the music business in 1965.

Track 29 Buttons and Bows Buttons and Bows is a popular song published in 1947. The music was written by Jay Livingston with lyric by Ray Evans. The song appeared in the Bob Hope and Jane Russell film, ‘The Paleface’, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The most popular version of the song was recorded by Dinah Shore in 1947.

Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality. She reached the height of her popularity as a recording artist during the era of the 1940s and 1950s, but achieved even greater success a decade later, in television, mainly as hostess of a series of variety programs for Chevrolet. After failing singing auditions for the bands of and both and his brother Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own to become the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success. She had a string of 80 charted popular hits, lasting from 1940 into the late '50s, and after appearing in a handful of films went on to a four-decade career in American television, starring in her own music and variety shows in the '50s and '60s and hosting two talk shows in the '70s. Stylistically, Dinah Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late '40s and early '50s, Doris Day and .

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