CategoryBands & Directors

Ambrose

R.I.P. Bob Hoskins

English actor Bob Hoskins passed away today at the age of 71. His thespian accomplishments are too numerous to mention, although this writer particularly recommends seeing him in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) and in Mermaids (1990). I mention him here, however, because of his starring role in Dennis Potter’s 1978 television mini-series “Pennies from Heaven” as Arthur Parker, a traveling sheet music salesman, for which he won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. That show reintroduced a younger generation to the British dance band music of the 1930s, and has notable actors miming original recordings, one of which is featured here for obvious reasons.

Bob Hoskins as Elsie Carlisle, singing “The Clouds Will Soon Roll By”:

Dennis Potter’s ‘Pennies From Heaven’ – ‘The Clouds Will Soon Roll By’
Video from songanddanceman1234 (YouTube)
Ambrose

Her Majesty the Baby

On April 15, 1896, Elsie Carlisle was baptized in the parish of St. James’, Collyhurst, in Greater Manchester. The parish registry gives the date of the baptism and lists her birth as having occurred earlier in the same year, on January 28. Her parents’ names were James and Mary Ellen. They lived at 7 Whitehead St., and her father was described as a greengrocer.

The baptismal font in use in St. James', Collyhurst in 1971
The baptismal font in use in St. James’, Collyhurst in 1971

And now, for a semi-topical musical interlude:

“His Majesty the Baby.” Music by Mabel Wayne, words by Neville Fleeson and Arthur Terker (1935). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with Ambrose and His Orchestra on January 11, 1935. Decca F-5379 mx. GB-6868-?.

His Majesty The Baby. Ambrose & His Orchestra. 1935.
Video by 85scampi (YouTube)

Elsie recorded the song again the next day without Ambrose. Other versions made the very same month were by Henry Hall, Billy Merrin, the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, Lou Preager, Harry Roy, Jay Wilbur, and Eddie Wood.

Jay Wilbur

“She Had Those Dark and Dreamy Eyes”

Clive Hooley has given us quite a treat: an Elsie Carlisle song recorded 73 years ago that was not previously on the Internet and is on no vinyl album or CD that I have ever seen. It is a wartime tune on the flip side of the album with the famous “Hut Sut Song.” Copyrighted in 1941, “She Had Those Dark and Dreamy Eyes” appears to have its roots in older sea shanties, and recurs in a truly filthy form in the doggerel of WWII airmen.1

“She Had Those Dark and Dreamy Eyes.” Music and words by Jimmy Hughes and Ted Douglas (1941). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle on July 4, 1941. Rex 10021.

She Had Those Dark and Dreamy Eyes, Elsie Carlisle, 1941
  1. Cray, Ed.  The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs.  Champaign, Illinois, 1992, 9. ↩︎