Billy Thorburn born 12 May 1900

Billy Thorburn (May 12, 1900 - April 4, 1971) was a British pianist, arranger and dance band leader. 

William Arthur Belmont Thorburn was the son of a church verger. He began playing the church organ at a very early age, and aged nine became the church organist at the Holy Trinity, North Kensington. He maintained this position for 11 years and during WW1 Billy worked with the Royal Flying Corps. After the war Billy was regularly playing piano including a spell with a band at the Regent Palace Hotel. 

In 1923 Billy married Ivy and began broadcasting as Uncle Jazz for a children's hour programme from the BBC's new wireless station 2LO, based at Savoy Hill. This impressed band leader Debroy Somers who appointed Billy as second pianist with the Savoy Orpheans at London's classy Savoy Hotel playing alongside first pianist Frank Herbin. Sometime during the Autumn of 1925 Billy began to attend Savoy Orpheans' recording sessions at the HMV studios in Hayes, with new first pianist Carroll Gibbons. He toured various theatres in Dec 1924 - Jan 1925. In the summer of 1925 the celebrated American composer George Gershwin visited Britain. A measure of the respect that Billy Thorburn held at that time is seen by the fact that he was chosen to play a piano duet with Gershwin in a performance of Rhapsody In Blue. 

After Billy left the Orpheans he worked with Jay Wilbur's studio band who began making records for the Dominion label in October 1928. Billy's association with Wilbur's studio bands continued till 1933, also appearing on the small Eclipse records and the Imperial label. Billy is also found on recordings accompanying singers and comediennes who recorded with Dominion, Imperial and Eclipse in the early 1930's, including Elsie Carlisle, Ann Suter, Tommy Handley, Charles Penrose, Phil Arnold, George Formby. Billy can be identified on records where he employs his arpeggio flourishes, for example on Elsie Carlisle's recording of Go Home And Tell Your Mother.

In Feb 1931 the Melody Maker reported that Billy joined Jerry Hoey at the Piccadilly Hotel. Later Billy joined Sydney Kyte's band at the Piccadilly Hotel, attending several recording sessions for Regal during Oct 1931 - June 1932. The vocals often featured the popular trio The Three Ginx - Ivor Robinson, Jack Joy and Eric Hanley. Jack also played piano and Eric the drums. Thorburn joined Jack Payne's band some time June 1932 although he was already attending recording sessions as second pianist as far back as Feb 1932. In Sept 1933 Billy became Payne's first pianist when Bob Busby departed. And stayed with Payne until Feb 1935 when he left. By the summer of 1936 his own band was playing at Bournemouth's Royal Bath Hotel. By October he began recording for the Parlophone label billed as Billy Thorburn and his Music, employing vocalists Ken Crossley and Helen Raymond. 

The big break came in Dec 1936 when Jack Hylton had to cancel a broadcast and the organist Reginald Foort was tasked with getting another band together in time for the broadcast. Billy and some of his band made themselves available and a short 'programme of rhythmic music' was put together featuring Billy's band and the organ of Reginald Foort. The programme proved very popular, an idea was conceived, and very soon in 1937 a regular programme of The Organ, The Dance Band & Me began. 

                             

By April 1938 Parlophone was issuing records under the same name and apparently the identity of the band and the organ were not revealed until November. The records featured the organist H. Robinson Cleaver playing an 8-unit Compton pipe organ that was especially installed at Abbey Road studios. This was the start of Billy's long and successful rhythmic combination which would cut almost 300 recordings over the next 15 years.      

For a few months in 1939 Billy made some recordings without the organ. Each four-song recording session would produce two titles as The Organ, The Dance Band & Me, and two for Billy Thorburn and his Music. Before WWII vocalists included Helen Raymond, Terry Devon, George Barclay and Eddie Guray. Young Terry Devon was a Carroll Levis Discovery and joined Billy's band at just 15 years of age. She stayed with Billy until she was old enough to enlist with ENSA. 

The band toured as Billy Thorburn and his Music and was very popular, but though the public welcomed them when they were on tour they would always be asked 'where's the organ?'. Billy couldn't take a pipe organ with him, in fact he didn't own one. There was a spell when he took a new Hammond organ with the band but it wasn't like the pipe organ and the Hammond idea flopped. Billy also toured as a solo pianist, transporting his grand piano fitted with mirrors so the audience could see his lightning speed hands playing on the keys. 

By the 1950's Billy's style was regarded as old-fashioned but Billy would be reluctant to change and called it a day when the time came. The Organ, the Dance Band & Me finally disbanded in 1953. Billy continued for a while to make records with his Strict Tempo Music before retiring from show business. In 1961 he and Ivy ran the Green Dragon pub in Barnet, Herts until Billy died in 1971. 

(Edited from article in John Wright’s Vintage Music)