Today, we move into the 1950’s for our selection of comedic songs. We begin with a collection of individual songs performed by a variety of performers. “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” is a novelty song composed in 1944 by Fred Heatherton, a songwriting pseudonym for a collaboration of English songwriters Harold Elton Box […]
Comic Songs (13)
Today we feature individual comedic songs by a variety of artistes from the 1940’s. “Everything Stops For Tea” As always, nothing in music is ever that simple, and a song about England’s favourite beverage has only the most tenuous connection with it. “Everything Stops For Tea” was composed by the New York born Maurice Sigler, […]
Comic Songs (12)
As we leave the 1930’s and move into the 1940’s, we are featuring two comedic artistes the careers of whom begin the former decade and blossom in the latter. Today our post features Arthur Askey and Tommy Trinder. Arthur Askey, was an English comedian and actor. Askey was known for his short stature and distinctive […]
Comic Songs (11)
Our final featured comedic artiste from the 1930’s is Gracie Fields. She was an English actress, singer, comedian and star of cinema and music hall who was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and the highest paid film star in the world in 1937. She was known affectionately as […]
Comic Songs (10)
One the major musical figures in 1930’s was George Formby, an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage, screen and record he sang light, comical songs, usually playing the ukulele or banjolele, and became the United Kingdom’s highest-paid entertainer. Born […]
Comic Songs (9)
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 […]
Comic Songs 8
Another composer of comedic songs who began writing in the late 1920’s was Noël Coward, an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise”. Coward attended a dance academy in London as […]
Comic Songs (7)
Another performer who began in the Music Hall but made the transition to Variety was Stanley Holloway. An English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues […]