British Music Hall - C/D, S &D?

Someone else:
Barry Booth, with his "Diversions" album (recently re-released; highly recommended to all fans of chamber pop, Gilbert and Sullivan, Monty Python, the Bonzo Dog Band) dips into the music hall heritage. Particularly with a song called "Vera Lamonte", which is one of the saddest things I've ever heard; Booth in his resonant northern voice telling a story of a past-prime music hall artiste to a very music hall piano backing. It certainly beats most of McCartney's appropriations of the style... And interestingly, Terry Jones and Michael Palin are the lyricists, providing a rich variety; from such melancholy about the past/present, to the Post War Dream, to Lewis Carroll-esque nonsense, to sentimental British barminess, through to very personal songs ("Somebody Make My Mind Up" reflects Palin's youthful dilettantism). Fine album.

"Alright" indeed, could well be a "Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside" for the mid-1990s with a youthful spin. I would hazard a guess that the chord sequences bear a very distant relation; but it's more the *feel* of it. The video was partly staged on a beach - I know Portmeiron wasn't it? The video's allusions to "The Prisoner" seemed to me to introduce an element of doubt into the song, however partially... It certainly highlighted the "WE ARE FREE!" claims, and put them into relief. It is for me, anyway, a refashioning of the essential optimism of the music hall.

Why did they never do any songs that approached this again (of course, i'm missing having heard the first album)? It was quite wonderful pop.

Ever heard Billy Childish's mate Sexton Ming? Sort of bizarre comedy sketches w/ WW1 references etc. in the Python tradition.

Dan Leno has always sounded like an interesting character, don't you think?

With the likes of Supergrass/Blur you find that the accents they play up are nothing at all like Albert Chevalier or Gus Elen, say; both of which if you've heard, sound completely of another age. Their cockney dialects are long lost it seems. The mockney accents really should be seen as rather a cheapening and reduction of the original dialects, whether spoken by Guy Ritchie, Albarn and co. or Dick Van Dyke.
There are indeed lexically words in Chevalier or Elen that you cannot understand without some research. You do get a sense of people's actual existence in the way these artists spoke/sang; whereas Chas'n'Dave at al just seem to view it all as a 'cockernee knee's up!' Certain artists who seek to appropriate London Music Hall lose any sense of life. It's obviously far better that people stick to their own natural voices; i.e. Ian Dury managed to far more effectively evoke the world of the music hall through being what he was, and looking at life rather than at past stereotypes.

That track, I think, is mainly meant to be sort of a late-60s-era-Ringo Starr pastiche. Starr was of course heavily influenced by Music Hall, though, "Octopus' Garden" being one of the most obviously Music Hall-influenced Beatles-numbers.

Bonzo Dog Band are a meeting between pop, trad/free jazz, avant-MOR, music hall and dadaism... all of which makes them possibly my *favourite* band at the present. The music hall side of the Bonzos would clearly be in things like "Mr Slater's Parrot", "Joke Shop Man" (laughing in song always reminds me of "The Laughing Policeman" which I was exposed to as a child), but of course it is subverted by so many of their other leanings. Music Hall's own deflating of pomposity comes across in quite a few of "Gorilla"'s songs...

And how about the Pet Shop Boys as electro-music hall? Granted, the onus is more on Noel Coward than on Gus Elen, perhaps befitting their modern individualism, but I see a yearning a times in Tennant to indulge in sentiment and reach out to the populace in his lyrics.
"Yesterday When I Was Mad" in its verses is consciously harking back at least to the Coward/Gilbert and Sullivan lineage. But, there's definitely something of the Brecht/Weill about them as well - they covered a song from "Threepenny Opera".
"My Funny Uncle" seems to me much their most Music Hall song in its pared-down quality, and lack of electronics. In this, emotion seems to come to the fore a bit more, musically, vocally and lyrically, than in much of their work - save "Behaviour" I seem to remember.
Hmmm, I will give this further thought - maybe if I buy "PopArt" today which I feel tempted to do. Can any PSB experts elaborate on any of the vague thoughts I raise?

Round the town now on the way from the German Amazon for just over £65 (I never realised my German was so good). On the premise it's for the g/f's b'day, natch. As a PSBs fan she'll love it - or at least that's my excuse.

There's a Bristol band at the moment called Eftus Spectun who are like Zappa covering the Cardiacs, definite music hall influence in their songs though.

Of course, the fact I spent most of the weekend boring my kids by singing the few music hall songs I can remember all the way through at them might have had something to do with it as well...

(If I'm right I wonder how much minstrelsy has to do with the variety-show style performance becoming discredited in the US)

Except of course that Stan Laurel (and Chaplin and so many other actors in silent era in Hollywood) was 100% a product of the British Music Hall. And although the lack of Will Hay films on British TV is to be sorely lamented, the lack of any Arthur Lucan films is something we should ALL be grateful for!

I have the impression that debut album "One Step Beyond" is usually considered their artistic peak by most fans though.

This has obviously been said by someone who doesn't know any Madness fans.

It should always be remembered that Music Hall was in its very essence popular entertainment; but covertly (? it was lauded by the likes of J.B. Priestley) such an *art* also. Mark Sinker goes into this terrain very effectively in his piece on Louis Prima; of course that's American tin pan alley, but it can relate also to the British form of old popular entertainment.

To anyone who's considering buying it: go for it! The box is really beautifully done, same format as the Harry Smith anthology. The liner notes (in a hardcover book!) are a bit scattershot, but still informative and likeable enuff.

Have only gotten to listen to CD1 so far; "The Grass Widower" by Dan Leno is my current favourite, but Billy Williams enthusing about "The Taximeter Car" is also grebt:

"For newly married couples it's the best thing that is out
it fairly beats the hansom cab, without the slightest doubt
while driving to the station, to go on your honeymoon
the driver can't look through the top, and watch you kiss and spoon"

I suspect for me though, the most disturbing thing to discover was that 'The Old Bull & Bush' was originally an advertisment for Budweiser...

Anything else?

any opinion on bert lee & r.p weston? wrote rawtenstall fair for randolph sutton in 1932, but seem to have been quite prolific in music hall before then

The great Luc Sante on *Round the Town*:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0108,sante,22418,22.html

windyridge appear to have a randolph sutton anthology

http://www.musichallcds.com/var1_page.htm

amongst other things

What a great thread - one 'Pop' artist who hasn't been mentioned with, I think, a fair Music Hall streak in his work is Richard Thompson - with a squint it's easy to imagine 'I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight' or 'New Saint George' being sung in variety. Currently listening to a record on Topic, from 1978,by the New Victory Band, which (re-) combines music hall and country dance tunes in a pleasant way

DJ Yoda does something cool and clever with 'if you want to know the time ask a policeman' by george formby on his album 'how to cut n patse volume 2' (track 22). scratching here and there, few beats behind it. dead good.

also his myspace says
"Admired for his originality as well as his sense of fun, he is possibly the only DJ in the world who can fill a club cutting George Formby with Jurassic 5..."

sounds awesome

would be better if he left out the jurassic 5 part though

Caught a 1968 documentary on music hall on the (UK) Performance channel last week called 'A Little of What You Fancy'. Worth looking out for for the historical material and footage, but there's also some amazing contemporary 1968 stuff comparing Carnaby Street fashions with Victorian Dandyism.

There are also songs from the Player's Theatre, who did music hall revival shows at the time and may well have fed into the music hall influence on Brit-psych. Fans of British comedy will be amused to see a young Barry Cryer as MC, looking very sharp in a frock coat and cravat. Performance channel tends to repeat everything, so this should come round again.

there was some MH featured on andrew marr's history of modern britain programme on bbc 2 the other day. sounded good. shame it isnt regarded better in this country.

Would someone more knowledgeable than I be so kind as to attempt a definition, please? I think of it as singalong tin pan alley in a straight major key, or alternatively as cheeky folk music with brass.

it's British pop music before importing rock&roll and before widespread uptake of television.

or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_hall#History_of_the_songs

I wasn't sure if the songs were part of shows; standards performed by the big acts of the day (the big acts being what, solo singers? orchestras?); or even if they were sheet music performed in the home. Your link suggests the second of these.

Strongly recommend Leslie Sarony's Ain't It Grand To Be Bloomin' Well Dead (Parts I and II).

xp it would have been a variety show, so the big act could be a singer (more likely an all-round entertainer), but equally a magician or who/whatever else was popular.

Of course it would, it's obvious now you say it - hence the Royal Variety Show, and the Beatles being booked with conjurers and performing dogs when they first got big.