Moving now into the 1930’s we will be featuring some famous names and perhaps some less well known ones. So today we celebrate the comedic songs of Leslie Sarony. Sarony was a British entertainer, singer, actor and songwriter. He was born in Surbiton the son of William Henry Frye, an Irish-born artist and photographer, and his wife, Mary Sarony, who was born in New York City. He began his stage career aged 14, with the group Park Eton’s Boys. In 1913 he appeared in the revue, Hello Tango.
Sarony became known in the 1920s and 1930s as a variety artist and radio performer. In 1928, he made a short film in the Phonofilm sound-on-film system, Hot Water and Vegetabuel. In this film, he sang, interspersed with his comic patter, the two eponymous songs – the first as a typical Cockney geezer outside a pub, the second (still outside the pub) as a less typical vegetable rights campaigner (“Don’t be cruel to a vegetabuel”).
His 1929 song “Jollity Farm”, was recorded by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on their 1967 album Gorilla. They also revived another comedic songs made famous by him ‘Hunting Tigers Out in Indiah’ on their 1969 album ‘Tadpoles’.
He recorded novelty songs, such as “He Played his UKulele as the Ship Went Down”, including several with Jack Hylton and his Orchestra. He teamed up with Leslie Holmes in 1933 under the name ‘The Two Leslies’. The partnership lasted until 1946. Their recorded output included such numbers as “I’m a Little Prairie Flower”.
There is some footage of Sarony with the The Empire Girls in Song and Dance. He appears in a tailcoat singing a song about ‘Icicle Joe’ the Eskimo. He then goes into a simple little tap dance; at the end we fade out. This song was first recorded released by Sarony in 1931.
“Jolly Good Company” (or “Here We Are Again, Jolly Good Company“) is a 1931 song written by English songwriter Huntley Trevor using the pseudonym Raymond Wallace. The song was published in 1931 by the firm of Campbell Connelly. It was immediately recorded by several leading British acts, including Jack Hylton and Leslie Sarony.
