Alan Breeze born 9 October 1909

Alan Louis Breeze (9 October 1909 – 15 January 1980) was an English singer of the British dance band era and regular entertainer on the post-war BBC radio programme the Billy Cotton Band Show. 

Alan was born in the East End of London. He was commonly known as the "man with the sunshine in his voice ". But not many people know that whilst he could literally sing anything from opera to a tongue twisting comedy pop song with perfect diction, he in fact, could hardly speak being afflicted by the most terrible stammer.

His father, Louis Breeze, was a concert & oratorio singer & a member of the famous D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.    His mother, Isobel, was a teacher with the old London County Council & the family included two older brothers & a sister.  

At the beginning of his career, Alan sang in working men's clubs, restaurants & even theatre queues!  Eventually, he started dubbing at film studios, recording songs for actors who couldn't sing & it was during one session that he met a band leader called Billy Cotton. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this meeting was to change his life & make him one of the best known & best loved big band singers of the 20th Century.  

He joined the Billy Cotton Band show in 1931 after Bill was agonising with his Musical Director over the problem of choosing a male singer for the band. The vast spectrum of music covered by Big Bands in those days meant that they simply couldn't find one person to perform this task and the band couldn't afford to hire three male singers. 

Whilst Bill was discussing this with his MD, Alan happened to stop by chance, outside The West End Theatre where Bill was appearing and began busking to the waiting theatre queue to earn his bus fare home to the East End. Bill shouted in exasperation, “What I need is someone like that geezer singing outside " . The conversation stopped as they scrambled to open the dressing room window and look below. 

 

There, was an emaciated young man with glasses, singing his heart out and weighing at most, 8 stone. When he finished, Bill whistled down and shouted " Hey you! ..... You down there with the glasses”.  Bill called him in for an audition and afterwards he said to Alan, “O.K. son, I'm going to give you a week’s trial ". Alan replied “Oh.......0h.....Oh .... Oh “and Bill, getting bored, took that as an O.K.!  

 

 

 

Alan Breeze often laughed and said he remained on a week’s trial for the next 40 years. He never had a contract with Bill throughout the whole of their association and never missed a show. He stayed with the band until the end of 1969. During that period, Alan became one of the most popular vocalists of the time, entertaining audiences on radio, television & in theatres all around the country.  In these days of nostalgia, his recordings are still regularly heard on the radio & it was this ongoing popularity that prompted his daughter Olivia to present a tribute show “The Breeze and I” to Alan's life & career with the Billy Cotton Band. 

  

 

 

 

 Alan was highly adept at using different accents. Seen above with Kathie Kay, who sadly passed away in 2005, he was classically trained but swapped it for a life of variety. Sadly, when he grew older, his contract was terminated by Bill Cotton junior who was Head of Light Entertainment. It was a sad parting for Alan and Billy senior who allegedly went their separate ways in tears. The background dancing girls in the above photo were known as The Silhouettes. 

 

Alan met his wife Rene, a dancer, in the 1930s and they had three daughters, Olivia, Melodie and Michele. They moved to the Buck in 1958 partly to provide an opportunity for their son Graham to became a farmer. Tragically he was killed four years later in a tractor accident just before his 21st birthday.  Alan owned The Buck Inn and farm from 1958 to 1975. 

When not singing with the Cotton Band, Alan was host of the delightful Flixton Buck Inn on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk. East Anglia’s very own corner of the West End. Not only was Alan a famous landlord, but his pub was full of stars. Household names who were his friends and perhaps appearing up the road at Great Yarmouth and staying with their mate. 

 Behind the bar Alan and Rene were the hosts with the most and their pub became one of the best loved watering holes in the area. They made sure everybody got the same “Breezy” welcome. From dustmen to famous singers and comedians, everyone got the same warm welcome. Where else could you sit next to Russ Conway or share a laugh with Harry Secombe?   After 16 years at the Buck they decided to retire and moved to Hingham in Norfolk.    

 

Alan died on Jan 15, 1980, at the West Norwich Hospital, Norfolk. 

(Info edited from various sources including Memory Lane, Wikipedia)

Billy Cotton born 6 March 1899

William Edward Cotton (6 May 1899 – 25 March 1969), better known as Billy Cotton, was an English band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the British dance band era. Today, he is mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, although his musical talent emerged as early as the 1920s. In his younger years Billy Cotton was also an amateur footballer for Brentford F.C. (and later, for the then Athenian league club Wimbledon, now AFC Wimbledon), an accomplished racing driver and the owner of a Gipsy Moth which he piloted himself.

Billy Cotton started his musical career playing drums with the Royal Fusiliers when he was just 15 years old. He saw service in the Dardanelles and was given a commission in the Royal Flying

Corps at 18. By this time he was playing the drums in small camp bands. When demobilised, he briefly worked at a bus conductor, a butcher's roundsman and a millwright's assistant, supplementing his income by gigging with Gilbert Coombes and his Fifth Avenue Orchestra in Kilburn. He also played football for Brentford.

In the early 1920s, one of his first jobs, though still a semi-pro musician, was playing in a trio for 5/- (25p) a night. The other two member of the trio were his nephew. Laurie Johnson (only four years Bill's junior) on violin and Arthur Rosebery on piano. Rosebery went on to become a major bandleader himself, but his story belongs elsewhere. Laurie Johnson, despite being only 18 years old, was something of an impresario and after a spell leading the band at the Ealing Palais, with Bill on drums, for £6 a night, he landed the plum job of providing four bands at the 1924 Wembley Exhibition. Laurie himself led one of these, with Bill on drums, and called it Al Johnson and the San Prado Band. The band also broadcast over 2LO. 

After the exhibition, Bill went to work for Jack Howard at the Olympia Ballroom. Then he decided to form his own band, which included Laurie on violin and he auditioned for Gaumont-British; this led to a resident position at the Regent Ballroom in Brighton. This was in 1925.  Bill called the band "Billy Cotton and his London Savannah Band", a name he continued using until 1929. Laurie left to form his own band when Bill moved to Southport Palais on May 29th, 1925. At this time, Bill's musicians included several that were later to become big names, such as Syd Lipton on violin and Joe Ferrie on trombone. They stayed at Southport until 1927. It was here that Bill gradually changed the band from playing purely dance music, to putting on stage acts.  The band moved to the Astoria, Charing Cross Road, then on to the Locarno, Streatham. During this period, Bill started his long recording career, making records for Metropole and Piccadilly, plus a solitary disc for Decca. His big break came on moving to Ciro's Club in about 1929, where he stayed until the spring of 1931.

In early summer 1931, Bill became quite ill with rheumatic fever and had to stop performing. Obviously, his musicians became restless and left him. The three brass players, Nat Gonella, Sid Buckman & Joe Ferrie, joined Roy Fox's new band, while Syd Lipton left to start his own band. Bill had a knack for spotting good musicians, and, undaunted, re-built the band a few months later, with help from his nephew, who disbanded his own band, so that Bill could have the pick of the musicians. His pianist and arranger for almost his whole career, was Clem Bernard. Many other musicians stayed with Bill for years too, including singer Alan Breeze, who joined in the Spring of 1932 and stayed until the end in 1969, coloured trombonist & dancer, Ellis Jackson and violinist Phil Phillips.

From 1930 to 1936, he made many records for Columbia, Regal and Regal Zonophone, switching then to Rex until the late 1940s when the label was discontinued. Subsequent records were made for Decca right up until the late 1950s. 

 

For most of the rest of his career, he and his band did stage shows, with his nephew as his "right-hand" man, starting at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square in 1931. He is well-remembered today for the long-running "Billy Cotton Band Show" which was a popular Sunday lunchtime radio programme on the BBC Light Programme from 1949 to 1968. Bill started each show with the cry “Wakey-Wake-aaaay!”, followed by the band’s signature tune “Somebody Stole My Gal.” The show transferred to BBC Television in 1956, usually on Saturday evenings at 7.00 pm. It ran, under various names, until 1965. Regular entertainers included Alan Breeze, Kathie Kay, Doreen Stephens and the pianist Russ Conway. Pianist Mrs Mills made her first television appearance on the show.

Cotton was presented with an Ivor Novello award in 1959 and voted Show Business Personality of the Year in 1962. The series never witnessed a decline in popularity, with only Cotton's death from a heart attack while watching a boxing match at Wembley on 25 March 1969 bringing it to a close. The final show was transmitted on 20 July 1968. 

Bill had passions other than music. He was a fearless and determined racing driver and actually drove the famous Blue Bird, achieving a speed of 121 mph.  and also had his own aeroplane, a Gipsy Moth, which he often flew in the years before World War II. He married Mabel Gregory in 1921. He had two sons, Ted & Bill junior, the latter becoming head of entertainment at the BBC.
(Info mainly from Dance Band Encyclopaedia)

Highly atmospheric footage from a dance at the Adelphi ballroom in Slough 1931. The combined bands of Arthur Roseberry and Billy Cotton play and sing "I'm Just Wild About Harry".