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Alan Breeze
Alan Louis Breeze (9 October 1909 – 15 January 1980) was an English singer of the British dance band era and regular entertainer on the post-war BBC radio programme the Billy Cotton Band Show. He was born in West Ham, London, to Louis Breeze, a concert and oratorio singer and a member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and his wife Isobel, who taught with the old London County Council. At the beginning of his career, Breeze sang in working men's clubs, restaurants and even theatre queues. He produced some 78 recordings, for example from his later repertoire: "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts". He produced recordings at film studios for actors who could not sing. He met the band leader Billy Cotton, who was to change his career forever. Breeze started with Billy Cotton in 1932, without a contract, and stayed for 36 years. He became one of the most popular UK vocalists, on radio, television and in theatres around the United Kingdom. His recordings are still occasionally hea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Cotton
William Edward Cotton (6 May 1899 – 25 March 1969) was an English band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the British dance band era. Cotton is now mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, but his musical career had begun in the 1920s. In his younger years, Billy Cotton was also an amateur footballer for Brentford (and later, for the then Athenian league club Wimbledon), an accomplished racing driver and the owner of a Gipsy Moth, which he piloted himself. His autobiography, ''I Did It My Way'', was published in 1970, a year after his death. Life and career Born in Smith Square, Westminster, London, England, to Joseph and Susan Cotton, Cotton was a choirboy and started his musical career as a drummer. He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers by falsifying his age and saw service in the First World War in Malta and Egypt before landing at Gallipoli in the middle of an artillery barrage. He was recommended for a commi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Male Singers
English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish term for non-Amish, regardless of ethnicity * English studies, the study of English language and literature Media * ''English'' (2013 film), a Malayalam-language film * ''English'' (novel), a Chinese book by Wang Gang ** ''English'' (2018 film), a Chinese adaptation * ''The English'' (TV series), a 2022 Western-genre miniseries * ''English'' (play), a 2022 play by Sanaz Toossi People and fictional characters * English (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * English Fisher (1928–2011), American boxing coach * English Gardner (born 1992), American track and field sprinter * English McConnell (1882–1928), Irish footballer * Aiden English, a ring name of Matthew Rehwoldt (born 1987), American former professional wrestle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1980 Deaths
Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – In Saudi Arabia, 63 Islamist insurgents are beheaded for their part in the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in November 1979. * January 14 – Congress (I) party leader, Indira Gandhi returns to power as the Prime Minister of India. * January 20 – At least 200 people are killed when the Corralejas Bullring collapses at Sincelejo, Colombia. * January 21 – The London Gold Fixing hits its highest price ever of $843 per troy ounce ($2,249.50 in 2020 when adjusted for inflation). * January 22 – Andrei Sakharov, Soviet scientist and human rights activist, is arrested in Moscow. * January 26 – Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations. * January 27 – Canadian Caper: Six United States diplomats, posing as Canadians, mana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1909 Births
Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escapes death by fleeing across drift ice, ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * January 9 – The British Nimrod Expedition, ''Nimrod'' Expedition to the South Pole, led by Ernest Shackleton, arrives at the Farthest South, farthest south reached by any prior expedition, at 88°23' S, prior to turning back due to diminishing supplies. * January 11 – The International Joint Commission on US-Canada boundary waters is established. * January 16 – Members of the ''Nimrod'' Expedition claim to have found the magnetic South Pole (but the location recorded may be incorrect). * January 24 – The White Star Liner RMS Republic (1903), RMS ''Republic'' sinks the day after a collision with ''SS Florida'' off Nantucket. Almost all of the 1,500 passengers are rescued. * January 28 – The last United States t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
45rpm
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the outside edge and ends near the center of the disc. The stored sound information is made audible by playing the record on a phonograph (or "gramophone", "turntable", or "record player"). Records have been produced in different formats with playing times ranging from a few minutes to around 30 minutes per side. For about half a century, the discs were commonly made from shellac and these records typically ran at a rotational speed of 78 rpm, giving it the nickname "78s" ("seventy-eights"). After the 1940s, "vinyl" records made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) became standard replacing the old 78s and remain so to this day; they have since been produced in various sizes and speeds, most commonly 7-inch discs played a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LP Record
The LP (from long playing or long play) is an Analog recording, analog sound storage medium, specifically a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of revolutions per minute, rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a vinyl (a copolymer of vinyl chloride acetate) composition disk. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire US record industry and, apart from a few relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound in 1957, it remained the standard format for record albums during a period in popular music known as the album era. LP was originally a trademark of Columbia and competed against the smaller 7-inch sized Single (music), "45" or "single" format by RCA Victor, eventually ending up on top. Today in the vinyl revival era, a large majority of records are based on the LP format and hence the LP name continues to be in use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palace Theatre, London
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus, London, Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400. Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera ''Ivanhoe (opera), Ivanhoe''. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's ''La Basoche'', Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palace Theatre, Manchester
The Palace Theatre is one of the main theatres in Manchester, England. It is situated on Oxford Street, on the north-east corner of the intersection with Whitworth Street. The Palace and its sister theatre the Opera House on Quay Street are operated by the same parent company, Ambassador Theatre Group. The original capacity of 3,675 has been reduced to its current 1,955. History The theatre, originally known as "the Grand Old Lady of Oxford Street", opened on 18 May 1891, having been designed by the architect Alfred Darbyshire at a cost of £40,500. The Palace Theatre was redecorated and altered in 1896 to the designs of the renowned theatre architect Frank Matcham, and he again worked on some improvements to the theatre in 1899, when he was commissioned to put in a pass door so that the manager did not have to go outside in the rain and snow to reach backstage, and at the same time he also proposed to carry out some minor alterations and to redecorate the theatre. The interi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Neville (actor)
John Reginald Neville (2 May 1925 – 19 November 2011) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned more than sixty years. He was renowned for his roles on both stage and screen in genres ranging from classical theatre to fantasy and science fiction. Neville was one of the young leading lights of the Theatre of the United Kingdom, British theatre in the early 1950s, with he and contemporary and friend Richard Burton honing their crafts at The Old Vic, where over the course of five years they worked their way through the Shakespearean canon. Based on their performance styles and physicality, it was commented at the time that Burton was seen as the successor to Laurence Olivier, whereas Neville was seen as the natural successor to John Gielgud. Neville was a great champion of young talent throughout his career, as was evident when a 23 year old Judi Dench made her professional debut as Ophelia opposite his Hamlet in 1957. Alongside the classical repertoire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hylda Baker
Hylda Baker (4 February 1905 – 1 May 1986) was an English comedian, actress and music hall performer. Born and brought up in Farnworth, Lancashire, she is perhaps best remembered for her role as Nellie Pledge in the Granada ITV sitcom '' Nearest and Dearest'' (1968–1973) and for her role in the 1960 film '' Saturday Night and Sunday Morning''. Early life and career Baker was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the first of seven children. Her father, Harold Baker, was a painter and signwriter, who also worked part-time in the music halls as a comedian. At ten, Baker made her debut at the Opera House, Tunbridge Wells, and continued to tour as a single variety act — singing, dancing and performing impersonations. By 14, she had started writing, producing and performing her own shows. Her stage act included a gossip from the North of England, with a silent, sullen companion named "Big Cynthia", almost always played by a man in drag (such as Victor Graham, and lastly by Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts
"I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" is a novelty song composed in 1944 (as "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts") by Fred Heatherton, a songwriting pseudonym for a collaboration of English songwriters Harold Elton Box and Desmond Cox, with Lewis Ilda (itself a pseudonym of American songwriter Irwin Dash). The song was published by Box and Cox Publications (ASCAP). The song celebrates the coconut shy (coconut toss) at funfairs, and the chorus of "Roll or bowl a ball a penny a pitch" is based on the call of the showman "standing underneath the flare" (of gaslight), inviting the public to play. The ball is tossed or bowled (as in cricket) or pitched at the coconuts with the object of knocking one off its stand. Recording history In 1950, the song was a top-ten hit in the United States for Freddy Martin And His Orchestra with vocalist Merv Griffin and sold over three million copies. The following year, it was a number-25 hit for Danny Kaye. It was a staple song of the '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
