Dick Leaver Pepper (24 June 1889 – 15 October 1962) was a musician, actor, and writer for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Life

Born in

Putney Putney () is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ...

, Pepper was the son of Will C. Pepper, founder of a long-running concert party called the White Coons, and the older brother of Harry S. Pepper."Dick Leaver Pepper", in Uli Heier, Rainer E. Lotz, ''The Banjo on Record: A Bio-discography'', p. 346 His middle name of Leaver came from his mother, whose name was Annie Leaver before her marriage. Brought up by his father as an entertainer, Pepper picked up the

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

from those around him in the White Coons, and he also trained as a cinematograph operator. In the 1930s, he formed the "Kentucky Banjo Team" with

Joe Morley Joe Morley (December 3, 1867 in Kinver, South Staffordshire, England – September 16, 1937 in London) was a British classic banjoist who achieved great fame and renown in his homeland and abroad. During his lifetime, he composed hundreds of ...

and Tarrant Bailey, for a

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

radio programme called ''The Kentucky Minstrels''. In April 1934, he contributed an article to ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

'' on "Minstrels and Banjo-playing". He went on to become a writer for the BBC. In 1925, Pepper married Eva C. Fazan. He died at Ashford Hospital,

Stanwell Stanwell is a village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Spelthorne district, in Surrey, England. It is west of central London. A small corner of its land is used as industrial land for nearby Heathrow Airport. The rest of the village is made up o ...

, on 15 October 1962, aged 73, leaving an estate worth £9,212. At the time of his death he was living at Little Prouton, 93 Chertsey Lane, Staines, Middlesex. His widow was still living there when she died in 1968.''

The London Gazette ''The London Gazette'', known generally as ''The Gazette'', is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, i ...

'' dated 7 January 1969
p. 278
/ref>

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepper, Dick Leaver 1889 births 1962 deaths English banjoists