Saturday 29 March 2014

Ruby Murray born 29 March 1935

 
Ruby Murray (29 March 1935 – 17 December 1996) was one of the most popular singers in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1950s. In 1955 alone, she secured seven Top 10 UK hit singles.
 
Ruby Florence Murray was born on the Donegall Road in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her voice's unique sound was partly the result of an operation on her throat in early childhood. She toured as a child singer and first appeared on television at the age of 12, having been spotted by producer Richard Afton. Owing to laws governing children performing, Murray had to delay her start in the entertainment industry. She returned to Belfast and full-time education until she was 14.
 
Again spotted by Afton, she was signed to Columbia and her first single, "Heartbeat", reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1954. Afton had offered her the position of resident singer on the BBC's Quite Contrary television show, to replace Joan Regan. "Softly, Softly", her second single, reached number one in early 1955. That same year Murray set a pop-chart record by having five hits in the Top Twenty in one week, a feat unmatched for many years.
 
  

                                  

The 1950s was a busy period for Murray, during which she had her own television show, starred at the London Palladium with Norman Wisdom, appeared in a Royal Command Performance (1955), and toured the world. In a period of 52 weeks, starting in 1955, Murray constantly had at least one single in the UK charts - this at a time when only a Top 20 was listed.
 
She starred with Frankie Howerd and Dennis Price in her only film role as Ruby, in the 1956 farce, A Touch of the Sun. A couple of hits followed later in the decade; "Goodbye Jimmy, Goodbye", a #10 hit in 1959, was her final appearance in the charts.
 
She married her first husband, Bernard Burgess, of the close harmony group the Jones Boys, in 1957, and in 1962 they started a year-long tour of Britain in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When Murray fell in love with the comedian Frank Carson, who was both married and a Roman Catholic, the stresses it put on her marriage increased her reliance on alcohol. She joined Alcoholics Anonymous and twice spent time in a psychiatric hospital after nervous breakdowns. When she and Burgess divorced in 1977, he was awarded custody of their two children Julie and Tim (now the singer Tim Murray).
 
The same year Murray began living with Ray Lamar, a theatrical manager for Bernard Delfont, and in 1993 they were married. Though it was a loving relationship, the chronic alcoholism persisted, despite repeated attempts by Murray to stop. (When she did stop, she would smoke 80 cigarettes a day.) In 1982 she was arrested and fined for being drunk and disorderly - she spent a night in a cell and is alleged to have entertained the police with her hit songs. Still fondly remembered, she received a standing ovation in 1985 when she appeared in the concert Forty Years of Peace in the presence of Princess Anne, but her final London appearance, at Brick Lane Music Hall in March 1993, revealed a frail, halting performer.
 
For the last two years she had totally given up drinking, but her liver had become irreparably damaged and for the eight months until her death she was a patient in a nursing home in Torquay where she died from liver cancer, aged 61, in December 1996. At her beside were Ray Lamar, ex-husband Bernie Burgess and their son and daughter Tim and Julie.
 
The LBC broadcaster Lee Stevens, her manager for 12 years, said, "She gave happiness to millions of people, but sadly she never found real happiness herself."
 
A play about Murray's life, Ruby, written by the Belfast playwright, Marie Jones, opened at the Group Theatre in Belfast in April 2000. (Info edited from Wikipedia & The Independent)
 

4 comments:

boppinbob said...

For EMI Presents The Magic Of Ruby Murray go here:

https://mega.co.nz/#!IoBE1DbQ!gj1oCBsY14l18H6tjO_q28E8TSejd1rUxb75Ry-HU5A

1. Heartbeat
2. Mr. Wonderful
3. Little White Lies
4. Have You Ever Been Lonely
5. When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
6. Let Him Go Let Him Tarry
7. Goodbye Jimmy Goodbye
8. Knock On Any Door
9. Passing Stranger
10. Dear Ol' Donegal
11. I'll Come When You Call
12. Nevertheless (I'm In Love With You)
13. Softly Softly
14. Danny Boy
15. Let Me Go Lover
16. Honestly I Do
17. Evermore
18. Mike Him Jealous (Oh Please)
19. Two Kinds Of Tears
20. Galway Bay
21. How Can You Buy Killarney
22. O'Malley's Tango
23. Smile
24. Happy Days, Lonely Nights
25. Mountains Of Mourne

For Ruby Murray – Change Your Mind (1970)go here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/to2xuq

01 – Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
02 – Trough The Eyes Of A Child
03 – Away From You
04 – Heartbeat
05 – There’s A Little Bit Of Irish
06 – Change Your Mind
07 – Softly, Softly
08 – Ways And Means
09 – Time To Smile Again
10 – Watch The World Go By
11 – Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
12 – Turn And Walk Away
13 – It’s Love That Counts
14 – I Will Wait For You

President Records (Stereo LP) PTLS 1040

Also there are lots of various mp3's on the Internet Archive here:

https://archive.org/details/RubyMurray-01-50

and here;

https://archive.org/details/RubyMurray-01-40


David Federman said...

Today Ruby Murray, the other day Sam Browne. You are a cultural custodian of the highest order and I want to shower you with long-overdue thanks.

boppinbob said...

Wow, thanks for your very kind comment David. Much appreciated, in fact I feel well chuffed!

Terry Christie said...

Ruby Murray was born on Friday March 29th 1935 in Belfast,Northern Ireland and she was the great singer from The Fabulous Fifties & The Swinging Sixties Music also she signed Columbia Records with producer,the late Norrie Paramor with her first hit,Heartbeat made The British Charts peaked at Number 3 on Friday December 3rd 1954 and the following year scored her first number 1 hit,Softly Softly(Turn The Key) in February 1955 and the follow up hits,If Anyone Finds This I Love You,Happy Days & Lonely Nights,Mister Wonderful,Real Love,Let Me Go Lover,Who Knows,Nevertheless(I'm in Love With You),Little One,Pennies from Heaven,You Are My Sunshine,Goodbye Jimmy Goodbye and Ruby's Stage Show at Sunderland Empire Theatre.

Sadly on Tuesday December 17th 1996 Ruby Murray died at the age of 61 years in Devon and the great icon.

Terry Christie,Sunderland.