Lucky Star

[Brian Henson]

Many years ago (when you and I were young, Bernie) we were discussing this sheet music, and as I recall no one was able to explain how or why Ruby's photograph appeared on the cover. Just this afternoon I stumbled across the answer while thumbing through my collection of 1956 copies of the New Musical Express. The following Lawrence Wright Music Co advert was printed on the back page of the edition of Friday 24 February 1956.


The reference to Ruby having sung it on TV will have explained why her photo was on the cover. It was not unusual in those days for music publishers to print several different cover illustrations by singers who didn't necessarily record their songs, but often simply sang it on a radio or tv broadcast. The only recording of 'Lucky Star' I can trace was by Johnny Brandon on Pye Nixa, and Lawrence Wright may well have printed sheet music showing his photograph.

I was curious to know on which TV show Ruby had sung 'Lucky Star'. The music publisher had helpfully mentioned it being on the previous Saturday evening, and this same edition of New Musical Express had conveniently published a review the week's TV, including the following paragraph about ATV's 'Saturday Showtime'.
"Saturday Showtime" (ATV) was one of the best yet in this series. Ruby Murray was not kept until the end this week, and her "Happy Days" spot in mid-programme was charming.

So, there we go - 'Lucky Star' was almost certainly featured on the "Saturday Showtime" on Saturday 18 February 1956, and the sheet music was rushed out by Lawrence Wright to cash in after Ruby sang it. The photograph they used was the same as had appeared on the sheet music cover of a much earlier Lawrence Wright song - Ruby's first recording, in fact - 'Get Well Soon'.

Elsewhere in the 24.2.1956 NME, was an advert for a forthcoming Sunday show at the Davis Theatre, Croydon, on 4 March 1956. Any memories of that show, Bernie (the Four Jones Boys didn't sing 'Lucky Star' by any chance, did they?)


Brian

[Jk]

Hi Brian. Long time since I saw you posting, good to see you still look in with all our old age pensioners. I don't know if you know a recording of Lucky Star was found and Gerald put it on the site under "Song Samples" and it is on Page 3.

[Bernie Burgess]

Thanks to 'Young 'un' - (Brian Henson) for a remarkable piece of research and for posting his results. Brian and I had discussed 'Lucky Star' many years ago but these recent discoveries give full details of the story regarding 'Luck Star' - Brilliant work Brian, you never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of music, - plus of course you're technical ability enabling you to bring your discoveries to everyone's attention - for their enjoyment.

Thanks once again Brian (Young 'un)

[Bernie Burgess]

John -

From memory, I think Gerald discovered some details about Ruby singing 'Lucky Star' on a broadcast and unearthed a recording of that song on said broadcast.

[Bernie Burgess]

Friends
Just discovered that on the bill, the one uploaded by Brian, The 4 Jones Boys are advertised on a Variety Bill at The Davis Theatre - Croydon. We had been travelling around the Variety Theatres but when we were booked on bills with BIG BANDS we had to have bigger arrangements done. Our Musical Director - Paul Burnett did a remarkable job on the Big Band arrangements. The bands that we were booked with included - Kenny Mackintosh, Jack Parnell, Ronnie Aldridge and the Squadronaires.

[Gerald Lawrence]

Hello again, Brian.

John, it was in fact thanks to Brian that we have a recording of "Lucky Star". It was copied from a recording made by a friend of his from the BBC. We think the announcer might have been Paul Carpenter in which case it may well have been a recording of the radio broadcast of the song. Brian was able to get to me a CD with the copy on it, which after a bit of cleaning up with my software, I was able to put into the Library. Here is a link http://www.rubymurray.org/forum/viewtop ... +star#p870 to the original discussion on this Forum back in October 2006.

The TV broadcast information is very interesting. At that time, we in our household only had the BBC channel, we could not get ATV and ITV channels. So almost certainly I would have missed seeing Ruby singing it. As it seems to have appeared in 1956, a year after Ruby's chart domination year, I personally have certainly been fooled by the young photograph into thinking it must have been sung before she became famous. Thanks to Brian all that has now been put right!

[Brian Henson]

Thanks for the fast responses to my earlier post from Bernie Burgess and John Kendall. I know I have a lot of catching up to do, but thanks to your tip-off, John, I've just listened with pleasure to the broadcast recording that Gerald discovered and uploaded to the Song Samples section of this site. I also heard the back announcement by ... who? The mid-Atlantic accent makes me wonder if it was Bernard Braden. Did Gerald know from which broadcast Ruby's version of 'Lucky Star' came? It sounds like a large orchestra & chorus accompaniment, and I'm wondering if the 'live' recording could actually be the ATV 'Saturday Showtime' that I'd seen mentioned in the NME of 18.2.1956.

I mentioned previously that Johnny Brandon had recorded 'Lucky Star' on Pye-Nixa (N15038), but more than that - he composed the song too. The name on the Sheet Music, Ed Franks, is Johnny's composing pseudonym. His record was actually released in February 1956 - i.e. the same month that Ruby sang it on 'Saturday Startime'. The question now is, did Ruby actually record it at Columbia? In theory it should have come to light when Bernie was in discussion with EMI for the CD Box Set. The reason I'm a little unsure now is that, after I posted my message here yesterday, I started browsing through the following week's NME (Friday 2 March 1956) and spotted the following paragraph in the back page gossip column, 'Tail-Pieces by The Alley Cat. Is the market being flooded with too many records by Ruby Murray? Her latest - "Lucky Star" was composed by Johnny Brandon .... Intriguing!

By the way, while browsing still further through the NME's, in the Alley Cat column of issue dated 9.3.1956 the Jones's got a mention ... Cat's "whiskers" to the Jones Boys; this slick vocal group will have the whole town talking about them .... Stick yer chest out Bernie!

Brian

[Brian Henson]

Ha! Hello again Gerald, as you will note from the timing of our respective messages - we were both tapping away at the same time, and your post beat me by just a few minutes.

I haven't had a chance to check that link you just gave to the earlier discussion - but I sure need a memory jog, because I have no recollection of what you described.

Brian

[Brian Henson]

Well! As Frankie Howard would have said ..."I was amazed!" I've just re-read all those posts from 2006 that Gerald kindly linked to in his message, but the entire episode seems to have got completely wiped from my memory. Oh well, having now dusted off these old NME's again, I have at least spotted the reference to the ATV Saturday Startime, that I hadn't noticed previously. Interesting that Gerald suggested the announcer's voice sounded like Paul Carpenter, while I thought it might be Bernard Braden. Does anyone else have any thoughts on that. What we really need is a copy of TV Times covering Saturday 18 February 1956, which would hopefully list everyone who appeared on the show - including announcer, orchestra leader and chorus, plus any other guests.

Brian

[Gerald Lawrence]

Your post just above gave me the idea that we know the Radio Times has been archived, so I wondered if I could find the radio show that we have the recording from. I searched on Ruby's name, and selected the Light Programme and the Home Service, but I couldn't find anything that looked promising for the show that included "Lucky Star". But perhaps I have missed something and someone else would like to have a go at searching.

[Brian Henson]

Meanwhile I've been pursuing the idea that it might have been a recording from the ATV Saturday Showtime, and have found the relevant page of the TV Times for Saturday 11 February 1956. It doesn't prove that Ruby sang 'Lucky Star' on the show, but the presence on the recording of a decent sized orchestra and a choir suggests that it was from a reasonably expensive production. Take a look at the page below. I was hoping to see the name of a host, whether it be Carpenter or Braden. Sadly not, but the George Mitchell Singers are present, together with the Saturday Showtime Orchestra - and being a prime time Saturday evening show, I would expect no expense was spared on the production, so I still feel this might be the source of the recording. But then, the earlier thread on this subject suggests that the recording came from a BBC source, rather than ATV. So we haven't quite cracked the mystery, but we're all a little better informed than we were in 2006.

Brian

[Brian Henson]

Sorry I omitted to include the page from TV Time in my last message. Here it is now, with an enlargement of Ruby's show.





I've now confused myself with dates. What you see above is Saturday 11 February 1956, whereas I was actually looking for Saturday 18 February 1956. The problem now is that I can't find a viewable copy for that latter date. Could it be that Ruby starred on both weeks, or maybe even for a longer season. More research required, but I need to take a break for this evening.

Brian

[Brian Henson]

I couldn't rest until I'd nailed the mystery of Ruby's apparent 2-week appearances on ATV's Saturday Showtime. Some further back-tracking through the NME's of February 1956, establishes that she was on a 6-week run as star of he show. See the TV review cutting from NME of 17.2.1956, which reviewed the 11.2.1956 Saturday Showtime as illustrated in the TV Times page I posted earlier. I've also enlarged the relevant paragraph relating to Ruby.





A busy lady was our Ruby at this time. Her season at the London Palladium with Norman Wisdom had just concluded, and she'd televised their Columbia duet during an 'Off The Record' programme of Monday 30 January 1956. The previous day - Sunday 29 January - she'd appeared in the NME Pollwinners concert at the Royal Albert Hall - and in early March she flew out to USA with Norrie Paramor for TV appearances, and attended the opening of the Capitol Tower building which included her famous meeting with Frank Sinatra to present him with his NME Pollwinner trophy. During the first couple of months of 1956 she will have also been recording at the EMI studios - which probably included her unreleased (until 2005) version of 'Jimmy Unknown'. (Lita Roza's Decca recording made its debut in the NME Top 20 on 23.3.56)

Finally, in the NME's review of the aforementioned 'Off The Record' programme of 30.1.56, another guest on the show was Johnny Brandon. Guess which song he sang on the show. It was 'Lucky Star'. Which brings us almost full circle, except for the unresolved mystery of which programme included Ruby's 'live' recording.

Brian

[Gerald Lawrence]

Thank you Brian for letting me wallow in nostalgia! I was an avid watcher of Jack Payne's "Off the Record" and I think I remember that it was on a Monday evening. Being BBC I was able to watch it and since it featured a good selection of what was popular, my mum and dad were fans of the programme too. Something for everyone.

So we are still no nearer to solving the puzzle of when and where Ruby sang "Lucky Star". If you have the opportunity to contact your friend who provided the recording, perhaps with the passage of time he may now be in a position to reveal the information. I was sure I was going to find a BBC Light or Home Service programme listed in Radio Times for around February of 1956 but no such luck. In fact, it seems Ruby did not appear all that often on the radio, which could account for why it was during this period that I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg - one of her records would be on most evenings. It was just a pity that the reception was not all that good in Barkingside!

[Jk]

I have just spent nearly two days searching for the information on Ruby singing "lucky Star" but nothing doing. I did find this article by Sandi Everitt in a post on the site, A Lawrence Wright ad in the NME - “Ruby Murray set the seal on the new WRIGHT hit - LUCKY STAR in her brilliant and inspired performance last Saturday evening on TV.” I also found this 3 September 1955 20.45 National Radio Show SECOMBE HERE, at Earls Court with Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers Ruby Murray, Ted Durante and George Durante, Audrey Jeans, could Ruby have sung it on that program? Fed up of searching now.