Cyril Stapleton (31 December 1914 – 25 February 1974) was an

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violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ist and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

bandleader A bandleader is the leader of a music group such as a rock or pop band or jazz quartet. The term is most commonly used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues o ...

Biography

Born Horace Cyril Stapleton in

Mapperley Mapperley is a residential and commercial area of north-eastern Nottingham, England. The area is bounded by Sherwood to the north-west, Thorneywood to the south and Gedling to the east. History At various periods the terms 'Mapperley' and 'M ...

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

, England, Stapleton began playing violin at the age of seven, and played on local

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at the age of 12. He performed on the

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

often in his teenage years at their Birmingham studios, and played in

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

s accompanying

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

s. Cyril Stapletonat

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

He attended

Trinity College of Music Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a music and dance conservatoire based in London, England. It was formed in 2005 as a merger of two older institutions – Trinity College of Music and Laban Dance Centre. The conservatoire has ...

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, and played in a dance band there led by Henry Hall. This ensemble also played on the BBC and made several

recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

for EMI. After losing his position in the band, he went back to Nottingham and formed his own. In the 1930s, Stapleton toured

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with the Jack Payne Orchestra. Later in the decade, Stapleton and his band relocated to

; they won their own spot performing on the BBC in 1939.

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

interrupted Stapleton's musical career, as he joined the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

late in 1939. While enlisted, he played in the RAF Symphony Orchestra. Following the war, Stapleton played with the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

, the National Symphony Orchestra of London, and the

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, ...

. In 1947, he recreated his band, and quickly won back slots on the BBC; among the

singers Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

he accompanied were

Dick James Dick James (born Leon Isaac Vapnick; 12 December 1920 – 1 February 1986) was a British music publisher and singer. He and Brian Epstein established the Beatles' publisher Northern Songs. Later, with his son Stephen, James founded the DJM re ...

and

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the " Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and ...

. As leader of the BBC Show Band, Stapleton became a fixture on the English musical scene, broadcast across the nation throughout the mid-1950s. Players in the ensemble who went on to gain a profile in their own right included

Bert Weedon Herbert Maurice William Weedon, OBE (10 May 1920 – 20 April 2012) was an English guitarist whose style of playing was popular and influential during the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first British guitarist to have a hit record in the UK S ...

, Bill McGuffie,

Tommy Whittle Tommy Whittle (13 October 1926 – 13 October 2013) was a British jazz saxophonist. Biography Tommy Whittle was born in Grangemouth, Scotland. He started playing clarinet at the age of 12 before taking up tenor saxophone at 13, guided by A ...

, and Matt Monro. In 1957, the BBC disbanded the Show Band, and Stapleton immediately reassembled his own group. He even managed two

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hits Hits or H.I.T.S. may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * '' H.I.T.S.'', 1991 album by New Kids on the Block * ''...Hits'' (Phil Collins album), 1998 * ''Hits'' (compilation series), 1984–2006; 2014 - a British compilation album s ...

in the United States with the

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...

"The Italian Theme" (#25, 1956) and " The Children's Marching Song (Nick Nack Paddy Whack)" (#13, 1959).

Joel Whitburn Joel Carver Whitburn (November 29, 1939 – June 14, 2022) was an American author and music historian, responsible for setting up the Record Research, Inc. series of books on record chart placings. Early life Joel Carver Whitburn was born in W ...

, ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits''. 7th edn, 2000 The latter record sold one million copies. Stapleton continued to tour and record into the 1970s; in 1965 he also became head of A&R for

Pye Records Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherho ...

. Stapleton died in 1974, at the age of 59.

Selected discography

*"Elephant Tango" (1955) – UK Number 19 *"Blue Star (The Medic Theme)" * (1955) – UK Number 2 – global million seller. *"The Italian Theme" (1956) – UK Number 18 *" The Happy Whistler" † (1956) – UK Number 22 *"Strings on Parade" (1954) – (Decca LF 1184) *"Forgotten Dreams" (1957) – UK Number 27 *"Come'n Get It" (1958) – (Decca LK 4286) *"Song of the Golden West" (1958) – (London LL 1723 *"All Time Big Band Hits" (1959?) – (Richmond Stereo, a product of London Records) *Cyril Stapleton Orchestra featuring

Julie Dawn Julie Dawn (originally Juliana Rosalba Maria Theresa Mostosi; 2 August 1920 – 18 May 2000) was an English singer, singing with leading dance bands in the 1940s and 1950s, and making recordings and radio broadcasts. In later years she presented ...

†Cyril Stapleton Orchestra featuring Desmond Lane,

penny whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteri ...

References

External links

Biography at Allmusic.com A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stapleton, Cyril 1914 births 1974 deaths English jazz bandleaders English violinists British male violinists Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England People from Mapperley Royal Air Force personnel of World War II 20th-century violinists 20th-century English musicians 20th-century British male musicians British male jazz musicians