Who’s who in the Singers of the Century list 2 - SOUNDS FAMILIAR by Baby A. Gil

This piece continues the column that came out last Monday about some of the artists included in the greatest singers of the century list that the British Broadcasting Corporation of London recently came out with. This is to accommodate the requests of some readers who wish to know more about some of the names cited as among the best song artists of the 20th century. Here are more of them:

Michael Ball: The very talented Ball is one of the leading lights of London’s West End. He was born in Midlands, England and went to the Guildford School of Acting. His first professional performance was in a Welsh production of the rock opera Godspell where he played the parts of John the Baptist and Judas. Since then he has starred in Les Miserables, Aspects of Love, and Passion. He is also a star of British television with The Michael Ball Show, the TV movie England My England and various specials like the Andrew Lloyd Webber Birthday Gala Concert. He has released several albums like the self-titled Michael Ball, Always, One Careful Owner, First Love, The Musicals, Passion, The Movies and others.

Al Bowlly: Born Lourenco Marques in Mozambique in 1899, Bowlly started out playing the banjo and the guitar but later became a vocalist with the Jimmy Liquime band in Singapore. He made his first recordings in Berlin with the Fred Bird’s Salon Symphonic Jazz Band and other groups. He moved to London in 1928 where he worked with Fred Elizalde at the Savoy Hotel and later struck out on his own in what proved to be his most productive period. He was able to record almost 700 songs. He went to America with Ray Noble’s New Mayfair Dance Orchestra and was soon also making hits in the US charts with Blue Noon and My Melancholy Baby. He had his own radio series and also appeared in the movie The Big Broadcast of 1936 where he sang Goodnight Sweetheart. Some of his other hits were Love is the Sweetest Thing, The Very Thought of You, The Shadow Waltz, Maybe I Love You Too Much and others. He was killed when a German bomb exploded outside his flat in London in 1941. He remains a popular figure in British music where he is acknowledged as the best pop singer of the ’30s. His music was immortalized in the stage musical titled Melancholy Baby.

Dick Haymes: He was the other romantic balladeer of the ’40s and his rich, deep baritone, unique phrasing made him a worthy rival to Frank Sinatra. And like Sinatra, he stalked out as a band singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, was a star of radio and motion pictures and had a tempestuous personal life that included marriage to screen siren Rita Hayworth. A favorite leading man for the likes of Betty Grable, June Haver and Maureen O’Hara, Haymes starred in the films When Irish Eyes are Smiling, Four Jills in a Jeep, Diamond Horseshoe, Dubarry Was a Lady and others. Among the songs he popularized were Do You Love Me, More Than You Know, The More I See You, It Might As Well Be Spring. Driven to stay in Europe because of his personal problems, he made a very successful comeback as a performer in America in the ’70s and remained active until stricken with lung cancer in 1980 when he died at the age of 61.

Sandy Denny: The Fairport Convention was supposed to be Britain’s answer to America’s Jefferson Airplane. It never attained the same degree of success but it did give the world the amazing Sandy Denny. She was the prettiest and certainly one of the finest female troubadours of the folk-rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s. She sang traditional folk ballads the way a siren would and wrote sad, romantic songs with titles like Who Knows Where the Time Goes often accompanying herself on a six or 12-string guitar. She and Richard Thompson were the most popular members of the folk-rock group. Sandy fell down the stairs of their home in April, 1978. A few days later she was dead at the age of 30 of a cerebral hemorrhage. To this day all those who know her music cannot help but wonder what songs she could have sang or written had she lived long enough.