<<<< Back to music menu

LET THERE BE MUSIC
by Neil Stevens

initially published in the Greater London Pensioner
 

Planned as saviour of British Film musicals, London Town, which bowed at London's Leicester Square Theatre August 28 1946 was a disappointment, a let down, a Box-Office flop! Comedian/singer Sid Field starred supported by American expertise   (Wesley   Ruggles;   Tutti Camerata; songwriters Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke.

Their ballad So Would I dominates the picture, reprised several times reached song sheet hits status; hear it on a new CD celebrating this 60th anniversary from Sepia. They include the version from a 78 where Scotty McHarg sings the song sweet, and Beryl Davis swings same in an arrangement by musical conductor Toots Tutti' Camerata past-master at this sort of treatment he being long-time with the Jimmy Dorsey Band and delightful duets from Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell (Amapola; Green Eyes etc).
 

Sepia adds a London Town selection from the superb sounding Peter Yorke and His Concert Orchestra; several tracks from Petula Clark (who played Sid Field's daughter in the film, but never sang). Other numbers recalled are My Heart Goes Crazy (title of the American film version). You Can't keep a Good Dreamer Down and the one which Kay Kendall and the Dozen-and-One lovelies sing (all 'dubbed' by a troupe of then popular vocalists among them GLP reader, Terry Devon), rousing their way along The 'Ampstead Way. Comic gal Tessie O'Shea makes much of the number in the film and on disc, sadly the song was no follow up to The Lambeth Walk, or for that matter the Florrie Forde favourite: Down at the Old Bull and Bush.

Newly-formed Ted Heath and his Music seen and heard in the film give us Albert Chevalier's Knocked Em in the Old Kent Road. In his early days trombonist-leader Ted, often revived music-hall numbers;

like Ted, I too have scoured memory and music shelves with London Town in mind. What a list, wonderfully charting this still great City of ours. There are Chalk Farm to Camberwell Green, the Ballads of both Bethnal Green and Barking Creek (created by amusing Paddy Roberts), still flowing Old Father Thames, Haydn Woods   Horse   Guards,   Whitehall (signature tune of radio's Down Your Way), and Robert Farnon's breathtaking Westminster Waltz.

Let's not forget Eric Coates and his tribute to London and London Again, featuring Knightsbridge March (signature tune of In Town Tonight), and the stirring, always on the move, Oxford Street. Let's All Go Down the Strand; Burlington Bertie from Bow; I Live in Trafalgar Square, and a few yards away; When You Hear Big Ben, You're Home Again. Patriotically: The King is Still in London;

The London I Love, composed by George Posford in 1941, the same year as white flowered, long-stemmed lovely London Pride, by one-and-only Sir Noel Coward.

Then there's a tune featured by Judy Campbell in a 1940 London revue: New Faces,  the once and forever,  A Nightingale Sang In Berkely Square, Dorothy Carless (Geraldo) and Anne Shelton (Ambrose) featured at the time;

Nat 'King' Cole sings it to perfection. Must not forget other London locales, Underneath the Arches which Flanagan and Alien made their own, and Life Begins at Oxford Circus for the Jack Hylton Band.

Nor would I forget Harry Roy's Leicester Square Rag reminding all that Harry helped open the aforementioned Leicester Square Theatre, and took over the dance floor of the same square's Cafe Anglais post war. There too is Piccadilly - where the traffic goes one-way (according to the song), but not in reality. Noel Gay took us Round the Marble Arch, Petula Clark who did not sing in London Town, made a song about the city, London is London in the M-G-M musical re-make of Goodbye Mr. Chips; and if we stretch our musical mind just a little there is perennially  popular  Downtown,  not forgetting Chinatown and Limehouse Blues.
 

It's almost dark as I leave the Dargason from the St. Paul's Suite, say farewell to Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green, before recalling the Carroll Coates- Norman Newell popular song known the world over, thanks to Frank Sinatra, London by Night. With Bow Bells and Oranges and Lemons ringing in my ears, among these gladly recalled London musical landmarks.