Meeting with Bernie
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 9:36 am
Today I spent a very pleasant day with Bernie, who is continuing to bear up under the strain of pain from his knees. His first knee, which has already been operated upon, is not yet free from pain, and his second knee is awaiting an appointment to get fixed. As Bernie said, it is a long wait for someone who will be 90 this year!
The main purpose of the visit was so that he could hand to me the music "pad" which went everywhere with Ruby while she was performing, and which contains the arrangements made specially for her for piano, bass and drums. He knows I am a pianist and I am looking forward to seeing how the arrangements sound, while imagining Ruby not only singing to them, but discussing the performance with whoever was playing for her that day. There is a handwritten note in the front from Marie, Ruby's long time friend and for many years her main accompanist, so she was also involved with this pad.
What struck me at first look was that the pad contains very few of Ruby's recorded songs, but many arrangements of songs sung by other singers, made specially for Ruby because her name has been written at the top. Examples include "Just Loving You", "Who's Sorry Now", "Feelings", and "It's Impossible", as well as "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (obviously for a Christmas performance!) If only we had recordings of these lovely songs to add to our collection, but the chances of these emerging now will be very remote indeed. Thank you Bernie for giving me the chance to get really close to Ruby in my imagination by playing from the very music that Ruby used to sing from. It will be carefully looked after here, you can rest assured.
It was also very good for me to see some of the other collected items in Bernie's apartment - the special photographs of him with Ruby, the portrait painting hanging over the fireplace, and the plaque from Ruby's dressing room door while she starred in "Painting the Town" with Norman Wisdom at the London Palladium. But the two things which brought the greatest memory for me were the two statues which were awarded to Ruby in 1955 and 1956 by the Daily Mirror when she was voted the top UK singer two years running in the Daily Mirrror Disc Festival. For each year the top artists in each category (such as best Male Singer, Best Female Singer, Best singing group, best small band, best Big Band and so on) were all invited to a concert at the London Palladium for which tickets were not put on sale but were awarded to winners of a competition which ran in the paper. In 1956, when I was just 16, this consisted of proposing a title for a song and naming your preferred singer. My winning entry which got me two tickets was "I've Just Had My First Dance" and the singer was of course Ruby! That was an exciting evening for me attending the concert!
We talked about the sad lack of activity on this forum nowadays, so I am posting this to add a new thread, and perhaps it will trigger others to join in and tell of some of their cherished memories - it does't matter if we have seen them before, none of our memories are what they used to be!
The main purpose of the visit was so that he could hand to me the music "pad" which went everywhere with Ruby while she was performing, and which contains the arrangements made specially for her for piano, bass and drums. He knows I am a pianist and I am looking forward to seeing how the arrangements sound, while imagining Ruby not only singing to them, but discussing the performance with whoever was playing for her that day. There is a handwritten note in the front from Marie, Ruby's long time friend and for many years her main accompanist, so she was also involved with this pad.
What struck me at first look was that the pad contains very few of Ruby's recorded songs, but many arrangements of songs sung by other singers, made specially for Ruby because her name has been written at the top. Examples include "Just Loving You", "Who's Sorry Now", "Feelings", and "It's Impossible", as well as "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (obviously for a Christmas performance!) If only we had recordings of these lovely songs to add to our collection, but the chances of these emerging now will be very remote indeed. Thank you Bernie for giving me the chance to get really close to Ruby in my imagination by playing from the very music that Ruby used to sing from. It will be carefully looked after here, you can rest assured.
It was also very good for me to see some of the other collected items in Bernie's apartment - the special photographs of him with Ruby, the portrait painting hanging over the fireplace, and the plaque from Ruby's dressing room door while she starred in "Painting the Town" with Norman Wisdom at the London Palladium. But the two things which brought the greatest memory for me were the two statues which were awarded to Ruby in 1955 and 1956 by the Daily Mirror when she was voted the top UK singer two years running in the Daily Mirrror Disc Festival. For each year the top artists in each category (such as best Male Singer, Best Female Singer, Best singing group, best small band, best Big Band and so on) were all invited to a concert at the London Palladium for which tickets were not put on sale but were awarded to winners of a competition which ran in the paper. In 1956, when I was just 16, this consisted of proposing a title for a song and naming your preferred singer. My winning entry which got me two tickets was "I've Just Had My First Dance" and the singer was of course Ruby! That was an exciting evening for me attending the concert!
We talked about the sad lack of activity on this forum nowadays, so I am posting this to add a new thread, and perhaps it will trigger others to join in and tell of some of their cherished memories - it does't matter if we have seen them before, none of our memories are what they used to be!