Dismuke's 78 RPM Blog

“We’ll Gather Lilacs”
Josephine Bradley And Her Ballroom Orchestra
1945 (Decca MW.323 mx DR 9336)
Josephine Bradley And Her Ballroom Orchestra – We’ll Gather Lilacs]

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
Josephine Bradley And Her Ballroom Orchestra
1945 (Decca MW.323 mx DR 9337)
Josephine Bradley And Her Ballroom Orchestra – Wouldn’t It Be Nice]

Here is a record from English Decca’s special “Music While You Work” series which was issued between 1943 and 1947.    The series was named after the BBC radio program Music While You Work which debuted in 1940.   The purpose of the program was to provide periods of uninterrupted on-the-job music to war time factory workers as a means of boosting morale and productivity.  The daily half-hour program was broadcast live and was so well received with both the factory workers and the general public that it eventually offered a morning, afternoon and late night edition.    The program outlasted the war by more than two decades with its last broadcast airing in 1967.

Because of the radio program’s success in the factories, some factory owners began using public address systems to broadcast phonograph records to their workers.   Decca’s Music While You Work series was created to provide music suitable for that purpose – though the records were also available for purchase by the general public.

Josephine Bradley was a famous ballroom dancer and instructor.  Her recordings were designed to provide strict tempo music for dances and dance schools – and, in this case, apparently for factory work as well.    Both of these recordings are very similar in style to those of another dance instructor/bandleader, Victor Sylvester, who I will feature in a future update.

“If You Were Mine”
Jack Hylton And His Orchestra
1929 (HMV B 5720 mx Bb18047)
Jack Hylton And His Orchestra – If You Were Mine]

This Jack Hylton record is a recent acquisition that features a song I was not previously familiar with.  The song has provided me with a little mystery to solve:    The label’s composer credit says it was written by someone named “Myers.”   However, I wonder if this is perhaps a typo and if the actual composer is George W. Meyer who composed a song by that name for the 1929 First National film Twin Beds.  Unfortunately, that film is now believed to be lost.

I did find another British recording of this song from 1930 by Ray Starita on YouTube and have a message in asking the poster if he could provide me with the name listed in the composer credits.

There was another song by the same name composed by Matt Malneck and Johnny Mercer from around 1935 that was recorded by Billie Holliday, Teddy Wilson and others.

Interestingly enough, the song on the flip side of this record is a waltz “My Song of the Nile” which was composed by George W. Meyer who is accurately credited.   That song was featured in another 1929 First National picture Drag.  The film was released in the UK under the alternate title Parasites which is mentioned on the label.   No mention of any film is made on the “If You Were Mine” side.

If anyone reading this is in a position to confirm whether or not the song featured here is the same as the George W. Meyer song from Twin Beds,  I would very much appreciate your posting a comment below letting me know.

“It Was A Lover And His Lass”
Ken “Snakehips” Johnson And His West Indian Orchestra
Al Bowlly & The Henderson Twins, vocal
1940 (HMV BD 5592 mx OEA 8583)
Ken Snakehips Johnson And His West Indian Orchestra – It Was A Lover And His Lass]

“Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind”
Ken “Snakehips” Johnson And His West Indian Orchestra
Al Bowlly & The Henderson Twins, vocal
1940 (HMV BD 5592 mx OEA 8582)
Ken Snakehips Johnson And His West Indian Orchestra – Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind]

When I selected this record to present here on the blog it occurred to me that both of its featured artists were killed less than a year later in two separate bombings during the London blitz.

Ken “Snakehips” Johnson was Britain’s most successful black bandleader.  Johnson’s band had a long term engagement at London’s Cafe de Paris nightclub where it was performing on March 8, 1941 when two bombs came into the building through a ventilation shaft and exploded in front of the band killing Johnson and dozens of others.

A little over a month later on April 17, 1941 vocalist Al Bowlly was killed when a parachute mine exploded outside of his apartment.