THAT'S YOU BABY { 0:00 }
WALKING WITH SUSIE { 2:49 }
Bobby Sanders accompanied by Gelder's Harmonic Six
Piccadilly 323 (around June 1929)
I acquired this record to hear the accompanying band, Gelder's Harmonic Six.
Pianist Geoffrey Gelder is famous for the records by Geoffrey Gelder and his Kettner's Five. Kettner's was a high society restaurant established in Soho in 1867. Rust & Forbes name the other musicians as: Johnny Mayo-cl-ss-as-o-vn; George Melachrino-cl-as-ts-vn; Geoff Collins-bj-g-vc-vib; Un-Named-bb-sb; Les Arthur-d.
Starting on 27 February 1926 with 'Jack Hylton's Kettner's Band', radio station 2LO London broadcast frequent relays from Kettner's. On the 26 June 1926 broadcast the band changed to 'Kettner's Five' but Geoffrey Gelder was not credited by the Radio Times until 14 September. The band's last broadcast was 23 April 1928.
Geoffrey Gelder and his Kettner's Five recorded for Imperial in December 1926. They moved to Regal in June 1927; and their last recording session was at the Pavilion cinema Shepherd's Bush on 15 March 1928 - four sides, each of two takes, all rejected.
The Piccadilly matrix numbers indicate the sides in this upload were cut around June 1929. Was Gelder's Harmonic Six just a straight rename of Geoffrey Gelder and his Kettner's Five?
Metropole and Piccadilly records were late-comers. Riding the 1920s gramophone boom they debuted in mid-1928. Their records captured good sound in their studio in the Highbury Athenaeum at 96a Highbury New Park. By mid 1932 they were gone and the building became a film, and later TV, studio (Emergency Ward 10, and the first inter-racial deep kiss shown on British TV). Mid-1960s public housing stands on the site. The exact location of the Athenaeum is the open space in this streetview: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5531963,-0.0921335,3a,81.9y,84.69h,90.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swELURyQNuoNbaz1X7vkStg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 The right hand gable of the block of flats is on the axis of the Athenaeum.
Piccadilly's label has more than a slight resemblance to that of the short-lived Fetherflex (an example is at http://www.mgthomas.co.uk/Records/LabelPhotos/Fetherflex (BDM).JPG), a badly-flawed canvas-based flexible record patented by Noel Pemberton Billing in 1923. He was also responsible for other spectacular triumphs such as the constant-linear-speed World Record and its Controller/adapter (which the new Vocalion Gramophone Co Ltd bought and ditched within months) and the paper-cored Duophone unbreakable record (investors lost a great deal of money backing that). There appears to be no connection between Featherweight Flexible Records Ltd, makers of the Fetherflex, and Piccadilly Records Ltd. Piccadilly was owned by the Metropole Gramophone Co Ltd; and its registered office was Metropole House in Finsbury Square. The diversifying parent company renamed itself Metropole Industries Ltd in late 1929.
Bobby Sanders sings these two songs from the film Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 very clearly and without bumping into the microphone. Gelder's musicians get an all-too-brief interlude to themselves in each tune. The arrangements and playing are not unlike the two small HMV groups led by Carroll Gibbons and by Ambrose that were purposely assembled, and styled the Whispering Orchestra, to accompany Jack Smith at separate sessions of his exquisite London recordings.
