Esquivel born 20 January 1918

Juan García Esquivel (January 20, 1918 – January 3, 2002) was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavours. Esquivel is sometimes called "The King of Space Age Pop" and "The Busby Berkeley of Cocktail Music."

He was born in 1918, in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and his family moved to Mexico City in 1928. In interviews, Esquivel's family members have stated that the young boy started playing piano when he was around 6 years old, to the amazement of older musicians who would gather around him in disbelief and to his own delight exhibiting his musical gifts. They have also stated that Esquivel continued to eschew formal musical training as he grew older, preferring to learn from books and by listening to and playing music instead.

By the early 1930s, he was appearing on radio station XEW. Self-taught as a player, composer, and arranger, he proved a prodigy, and was soon leading the station orchestra. By 1940, he had formed his own band, with 22 musicians and 5 vocalists.

RCA contracted with Esquivel in late 1957, first releasing one of his Mexican albums in the U.S. as "To Love Again." The label brought Esquivel to record in Hollywood in early 1958. He was given five hours of studio time to record the album ("Other Worlds, Other Sounds"), but he finished the job with 90 minutes to spare and cut a second album, "Four Corners of the World," with a small combo.

                      Here’s “Macarena” from above album.

                               

Most of Esquivel's recordings start with much the same big band with vocal chorus foundation as Ray Conniff and others, but his arrangements take every element to its limit. On "Latin-esque," he went to the extreme of channel separation by placing two 
orchestras in studios a block apart and mixing the result live in the booth. If Roger Williams uses a four octave run in his version of "Autumn Leaves," Esquivel would use six and split them among six different instruments, starting on the right channel and moving over to the left in the process. It's fitting that Esquivel's name was usually printed with an exclamation point: his trademark is the musical exclamation point, whether it's a "Pow!" sung by the chorus or a "zing" from a harpsichord.

In 1963, Esquivel switched from studio work to live performance, creating a stage show featuring four svelte female singers, flashing lights, and choreographed routines and playing the Vegas-Tahoe circuit. His show was a favorite among Vegas insiders, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra regularly dropped in to listen. He liked to party in the fast lane, too. "I have had many loves in my life: music, cars, women and the piano, not necessarily in that order," he once told an interviewer.

He recorded his last U.S. release in 1967 and his last RCA album was released only in Latin American markets in 1968. By then, Vegas had become the focus of his activities. His concerts featured elaborate light shows years before such effects became 
popular in live music. He performed in Las Vegas on several occasions, often as the opening act for Frank Sinatra. He frequently performed at the Stardust casino lounge.

Esquivel also wrote for TV during and after his studio period. He composed theme songs and soundtracks for several TV series, but his greatest legacy has been a huge library of incidental music written mostly for Universal Studios (under Stanley Wilson's leadership) that's been sampled on over 100 different series, from "McHale's Navy" to "Kojak." 

Generations of television viewers have heard Esquivel's most enduring piece of library music--the three-second bombastic fanfare that accompanies the Universal Studios emblem at the end of its productions.

He led the live band for 12 years, but by the end, his audience had begun to dwindle, and his indulgence in drink and drugs led to the end of his contract. His belongings, including many of his compositions, were hauled off when he fell in arrears on his rent. In 1979, he returned to Mexio and composed for a children's series called "Burbujas." An album of songs and instrumentals from the series sold more than a million copies.

Esquivel enjoyed a tremendous revival in the last decade of his life. Indeed, it could be argued that he was more famous after he was "rediscovered" than when he was at the height of his creativity. 

Confined to a wheelchair in the last years of his life and weakened by heavy hardcore partying during his time in Hollywood, Esquivel was still strong enough to marry what he claimed was his sixth wife in May, 2001. He died from the effects of a stroke on 3 January 2002 (age 83) in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. It's fitting that he lived to see the new century in, since his music was often well ahead of its time.

(Edited from Space Age Pop & Wikipedia)

Laurie London born 19 January 1944

Laurie London (born 19 January 1944) is an English singer, who achieved fame as a boy singer of the 1950s, for both his gospel and novelty songs recording in both English and German. He is best known for his hit single of the spiritual song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands".

Lawrence London was born in Bethnal Green, East London. As a thirteen year Laurie was studying at the Davenant Foundation Grammar School in Whitechapel Road . But even at his tender age he already possessed the confidence and showmanship of a veteran performer. He first appeared in a closed-circuit transmission of 6.5 Special at the BBC at the 1958 Radio Show. Producer John Warrinton caught his performance and was so impressed that London was invited back to perform daily. London also caught the attention of EMI Records who sent him to the studio.

                              

It was also at this age where recorded his up-tempo version of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” (composed by Obie Phillis). He was backed up by the Geoff Love Orchestra, and the recording was produced by Norman Newell. The record was then released on Parlophone Records and then distributed in the United States by its co-owned American sister imprint Capitol Records.

In the UK, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” reached #12 on the national charts in 1958. But when the record reached America, it became even a bigger hit. “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957 (some sources say that it reached #2 on Billboard and remained in that position for four weeks). It also reached to its peak position at #3 on the Billboard R&B singles chart. The song was also voted number one by most disc jockeys, and number two in retail sales. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in 1958.

The fame that London was attaining was too much that it forced him to quit school. His father Will also relinquished his sales management job to be his son’s manager. However, London said no to a chance of a 1958 US tour, which would be really too much for an adolescent boy.

Laurie with Frankie Vaughan

However, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” was to be London’s only hit and charting single. He would never have another hit again either in the US or the UK. But at least, in the pre-Beatles era, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” was the most successful record by a British male singer in the US.

London also got to sing in German. For instance, he took part in “Deutsches Schlager-Festival” (German Hit Festival) belting out “Bum Ladda Bum Bum.” He also has singing credits in the 1961 German film Und Du, mein Schatz, bleibst hier (“And you, my darling, stay there”).

London got to record several albums mostly released in Europe, as well as other pop and gospel singles such as “Joshua,” “The Gospel Train” and “I Gotta Robe.” He also released one full-length LP on Capitol. His other singles — such as his cover of Cliff Richard’s hit “Lucky Lips” and “The Bells of St. Mary” (released on CBS label) — did not chart. London's voice changed in 1960, so the records dating from that time onward feature his mature vocal sound on songs mostly in keeping with his established repertoire. It's tempting to attribute his commercial decline to his loss of youth, but his record sales fell off immediately after his first hit while he was still in his early teens.

At the age of only nineteen, he officially retired from show business. Later cover versions of the Cliff Richard hit "Lucky Lips" (1963), and "The Bells of St. Mary" (CBS, 1966) went unnoticed. Except for a very few smattering of appearances, he was virtually out of the public eye. He worked in the clothing business, then in 1990s he ran a hotel, The Angel, in Petworth, West Sussex, but sold it in 2000, and later the Ship and Castle bar and restaurant on the Hard, in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

In 2014 Laurie appeared as one of the stars of the 10th annual Summertime Swing, located in the gorgeous grounds of Saint Hill Manor near East Grinstead, the UK headquarters of the Scientologists, which took place on a beautifully sunny day. 

Backed by the excellent seven piece swing band the Jive Aces, as were all the acts, Laurie began with Take The Hand Of A Fool and followed with Hank Williams' Cold Cold Heart and This Little Light Of Mine, before finishing with his 1957 smash. In between numbers he amused the crowd with jokes about DJ for the day Mike Read (the son of Tony Blackburn, he suggested) 

(Edited mainly from mentalitch.com & the vinylword.com)

Paddy Roberts born 18 January 1910

Paddy Roberts (18 January 1910 – 24 August 1975)who was a prolific singer, writer and performer of smart, funny, satirical songs is largely forgotten now. His commercial peak came in 1959 when his record, Strictly for Grown Ups, reached number 8 in the UK charts.

John Godfrey Owen Roberts was born in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. His early education took place in England. He subsequently attended university in South Africa before joining a law practice. Intent on becoming a songwriter, he returned to the UK where he had some success in the late 30s with songs such as ‘Angel Of The Great White Way’ (written with Elton Box, Desmond Cox and Don Pelosi), and ‘Horsey, Horsey’ (with Box, Cox and Ralph Butler) which became popular for Jack Jackson, Billy Cotton and Henry Hall.

During World War II Roberts flew with the RAF, and when peace came he became an airline captain on BOAC Constellations. Subsequently, he returned to songwriting, and during the 50s, had several UK chart hits, including ‘The Book’ (David Whitfield), ‘Heart Of A Man’ (Frankie Vaughan), ‘Lay Down Your Arms’ (Anne Shelton), ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ (Max Bygraves), ‘Pickin’ A Chicken’ (Eve Boswell); and ‘Evermore’, ‘Softly, Softly’ (number 1) and ‘You Are My First Love’ (the last three sung by Ruby Murray). 

The latter song was featured in the British musical film It’s Great To Be Young, and Roberts wrote several other movie songs, including ‘In Love For The Very First Time’ (for An Alligator Named Daisy, starring Diana Dors) and the title number to The Good Companions. His other 50s compositions included ‘Johnny Is The Boy For Me’, ‘It’s A Boy’, ‘That Dear Old Gentleman’, ‘Send For Me’ and ‘The Three Galleons (Las Tres Carabelas)’.

Most of the aforementioned songs were written in collaboration with others, such as Hans Gottwald, C.A. Rossi, Geoffrey Parsons, Peggy Cochran, Jack Woodman, Gerry Levine, Ake Gerhard, Leon Land, Peter Hart, Garfield De Mortimer, Derek Bernfield, Augusto Alguego, G. Moreu, and Lester Powell (pseudonym of Ray Martin).

His career took another turn in 1959, when he met Frank Lee, the artists' manager for Decca Records, who was looking to follow up on the recent successful release of 'A Night With' Tom Lehrer comedy album. Paddy demonstrated some of his folk song parodies and was invited to record them as well so he was thus reinvented, as a comedy singer songwriter. The 'Strictly For Grown-ups' album was released in 1959 and reached number 8 in the U.K charts.

                              

The hit tune 'The Ballard Of Bethnel Green' was awarded an Ivor Novello Award for best novelty song of that year. The follow up 'Paddy Roberts Tries Again' came out a year later and was another chart success for Paddy, peeking at number 16 (U.K) This was swiftly followed by 'Paddy Roberts at the Blue Angel' live album 

(1961) and finally,  'Songs For Gay Dogs' (1963). It was during the 60s he included several of his own, often wry, witty and sophisticated, numbers in an accomplished cabaret act.

Probably the best-known of these include ‘The Belle Of Barking Creek’, ‘The Big Dee-Jay’, ‘Follow Me’, ‘Country Girl’, ‘I Love Mary’, ‘The Tattooed Lady’, ‘What’s All This Fuss About Love?’, ‘The Lavender Cowboy’ and ‘Don’t Upset The Little Kiddywinks’. Eventually his style of performance fell out of fashion. 

His last studio recording was for a Marble Arch LP based on the score of the film 'Dr. Dolittle'. Other artists on the album included Marty Wilde, Stephanie Voss And Benny Lee, backed by The New World Theatre Orchestra Conducted By Cyril Stapleton. Recorded in 1966 and originally released January 1, 1967.

Roberts was five times the winner of an Ivor Novello Award, four for songwriting and one for services to the British Music Industry.  He also held high office in the Performing Right Society and the Song Writers Guild.

He married twice. His first wife was Sylvia Shephard whom he married during 1937 in Hendon. They had two sons. She died in 1962. He married again in 1963.

Roberts died in August 1975 in Dartmouth, Devon, England.

(Edited  snippets from various sources but mainly AllMusic)

Roy Lanham born 16 January 1923

Roy Lanham (16 January 1923 - 14 February 1991) was known primarily as guitarist for the Sons of the Pioneers from 1961 through 1986. He also led the Whippoorwills for many years and performed as a solo artist, recording albums of country-jazz guitar instrumentals under his own name in the late '50s and early '60s. Despite his relative obscurity, Lanham is often esteemed on the level of such well-known guitar greats as Chet Atkins and Merle Travis.

Roy Howard Lanham was born in Corbin, KY, and picked up the guitar at an early age. Beginning as a teenager he found radio work as a rhythm guitarist in a number of instrumental combos, one of which was eventually hired by pop vocalist Gene Austin and renamed the Whippoorwills. In this group Lanham functioned as lead guitarist, performing in a jazzy style influenced by Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt but distinguished by his development of a four-part harmony chord technique he would alternate with single-string figures.

In 1943 Lanham joined Cincinnati's WLW, a 50,000-watt station that allowed him the opportunity to work with King Records, for which he soon performed regularly as a session guitarist, appearing on recordings by Hank Penny and the Delmore Brothers, among others. After participating in one Chet Atkins session in 1946 for the Bullet label, Lanham moved to Dayton and re-formed the Whippoorwills.

                             

For the next few years the combo toured, recorded transcriptions for Smiley Burnette's radio show in Hollywood and collaborated with Merle Travis on six sides for Capitol in the early '50s. It was during his tenure with Smiley Burnette's show that Lanham first 

met the Sons of the Pioneers, who invited the Whippoorwills to fill in for them on their radio show while the Sons were on tour.

Lanham found additional session work recording separately with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette as well as Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, Bonnie Guitar, the Browns, and the Fleetwoods, in addition to recording singles under his own name and with the Whippoorwills. The success of the Fleetwoods singles on which he appeared led to his recording of a solo LP in 1959 and the sole Whippoorwills album, Sizzling Strings, later that year.

During his time with the Sons of the Pioneers, he appeared in many movies, movie shorts, and a television show with Roy Rogers. His best known acting performance was in the 1963 film short "30 Minutes at Gunsight". Also between tours he demonstrated Fender guitar equipment at National Association of Music Merchant Shows at various cities, including Nashville.

Lanham had open-heart surgery in 1980, but was back onstage within two months. In 1983 he went to Phoenix and worked with pioneer steel guitarist Bud Isaacs, Duane Eddy, Thumbs Carllile, Jethro Burns, and fiddler Johnny Gimble, in an event Isaacs called the Great American Jam. He continued with the Pioneers and played on Tex Williams final LP. Around this time he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Though surgery appeared successful he suffered a stroke although he recovered sufficiently to return playing though not to rejoin the Pioneers.

In 1989 he was found to have prostate cancer, from which he succumbed to on Feb 14^th 1991 (age 68) in Camarillo, California, USA. He was given surprisingly few obituaries outside the western music field. Given the consistency of his work and the artistic sense of his musical vision, ne deserved better.

(Edited from All Music & article in Soutwest Shuffle by Rich Kienzie)

Roy Lanham was one of the best.  The fact that he kept in western circles all his life didn't hide the fact that he was also one of the top jazz guitarists of all time.  Here Roy and his band the Whip-Oor-Wills show why they were one of the greatest ensembles of the 1940's.

Jay McShann born 12 January 1916

James Columbus "Jay" McShann (January 12, 1916 – December 7, 2006) was a jazz pianist and bandleader. He led bands in Kansas City, Missouri, that included Charlie Parker, Bernard Anderson, Ben Webster, and Walter Brown.

McShann was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. His deeply religious parents managed to pay for piano lessons for his elder sister, but couldn't afford them for him. But he listened and found out how to pick out the melodies that his sister played at home on the piano and later in church on the organ. The young boy found jazz in the late-night radio broadcasts by Earl Hines's Orchestra, broadcasting from Chicago's Grand Terrace Café.

Although, by the time he entered Fisk University, he could make his way on the piano, it was to be some time before he learned to read music. During 1931, short of money, McShann left halfway through his course and hiked to Tulsa where he was hired by Al Denny. He then worked with a variety of territory bands until he finally found himself out of work in Arkansas City. He set out for Omaha where he had an uncle. When the bus made a two-hour-long stop in Kansas City he went to the Reno Club, and played. McShann found his second home, playing amongst musicians like Pete Johnson and Joe Turner. Here he developed the raw blues style that was to be his trademark and where he was given the nickname "Hootie."

It was in Kansas City during 1936 that McShann set up his own big band, which variously featured Charlie Parker (1937–42), Al Hibbler, Ben Webster, Paul Quinichette, Bernard Anderson, Gene Ramey, Jimmy Coe, Gus Johnson (1938–43), Harold "Doc" West, Earl Coleman, Walter Brown, and Jimmy Witherspoon, among others. His first recordings were all with Charlie Parker, the first as the Jay McShann Orchestra on August 9, 1940. The big band was a huge success on tour, and eventually arrived in 1942 at New York's Savoy Ballroom where, on its first night, it carved the resident band led by Lucky Millinder.

                                

The band played both swing and blues numbers but played blues on most of its records. Its most popular recording was "Confessin' the Blues". Jay told the Associated Press in 2003 "You'd hear some cat play, and somebody would say 'This cat, he sounds like he's from Kansas City.' It was Kansas City Style. They knew it on the East 

Coast. They knew it on the West Coast. They knew it up north, and they knew it down south." The band was doing so well in 1944 that McShann showed a palpable reluctance to join the army when he was drafted in 1944. This resulted in the group being disbanded. The big-band era being over, he was unable to successfully restart his career after the war ended.

After World War II, McShann began to lead small groups featuring the blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon. Witherspoon started recording with McShann in 1945 and fronting McShann's band; he had a hit in 1949 with "Ain't Nobody's Business". As well as writing much material, Witherspoon continued recording with McShann's band, which also featured Ben Webster. McShann had a modern rhythm and blues hit with "Hands Off", featuring a vocal by Priscilla Bowman, in 1955.

McShann worked in small groups, trios or as a solo player

specialising in blues and boogie-woogie piano for the rest of his life. He drifted from the spotlight in the 1950s and '60s, living and working mostly in the Midwest and Kansas City and raising his family. However in 1968 a general interest in the history of Kansas City jazz brought him to the forefront again and he made the first of many visits to Europe. McShann became popular as a singer as well as a pianist, often performing with violinist Claude Williams.

From then on he was always in demand at jazz festivals and in recording studios across the world. Toronto became one of his favourite cities and McShann visited it often, recording a dozen albums there for the Sackville label. He recorded almost a hundred albums in various parts of the world and one of them, Goin' to Kansas City (2003), was nominated for a Grammy Award.

McShann died on December 7, 2006, in Kansas City, Missouri, at the age of 90. He was survived by his companion of more than 30 years, Thelma Adams (known as Marianne McShann), and three daughters: Linda, Jayne, and Pam.  (Edited from Wikipedia & The Independent.)

Susan Reed born 11 January 1926

Susan Catherine Reed (January 11, 1926 – April 25, 2010) was an American singer, harpist, zitherist and actress. A regular on the New York folk scene, Life magazine dubbed her "the pet of Manhattan nightclubbers" in 1945.

She was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the daughter of Isadora Bennett and Daniel Reed, respectively a theatre publicist and actor. Folk music collector Carl Sandburg and musician Huddie Ledbetter were family friends, as were visiting Irish actors and musicians from the Abbey Theatre Company. After she moved to New York City with her family.- including her older brother Jared, who also performed,

She began singing and playing the zither, harp and autoharp at private parties and for wounded soldiers convalescing in hospitals with renditions of what would become her signature pieces, "Danny Boy", "He Moved Through the Fair", and "Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair." Although she originally aspired to becoming a painter, she was discovered by Barney Josephson, owner of the Café Society club in Greenwich Village, who booked her to appear

there.

Her performances of folk ballads and other traditional songs found immediate success, and she appeared on radio and TV shows with Burl Ives. She made her debut at the Town Hall in New York in 1945, at the age of nineteen, followed by a national tour. She played Broadway in "Billy the Kid", toured with "Finian's Rainbow" and "Brigadoon", and became a regular on the radio, later moving to television on "The Firestone Hour" and similar programs. Reed was seen frequently at New York's Carnegie Hall and Los Angeles' Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

                               

In 1947, Alan Lomax wrote of her, with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie and Josh White, as one of the foremost performers in the "enthusiasm for native balladry and folklore that is running through the country from coast to coast". In 1948, she appeared with Gene
Krupa in the film Glamour Girl (re-titled Night Club Girl in the UK), in which she played a folk-singing country girl brought to sing in New York nightclubs. The movie directly inspired English folk singers Shirley and Dolly Collins.

Reed appeared regularly on TV and radio in the early and mid 1950s, and recorded for the Columbia, RCA Victor, and Elektra record labels. Her albums included an adaptation of Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne (Songs of the Auvergne, 1950), 

Susan Reed Sings Old Airs from Ireland, Scotland and England (1954) and Susan Reed (1956). She also acted on TV, and appeared on Broadway in Shooting Star, a musical about Billy the Kid.

Despite several bestselling albums, her career was somewhat hampered by a perception that she was "too pop for folk and too folk for pop". Reed was the subject of a "Life" magazine cover story on folk music in 1955,and thought it newsworthy to declare that this "chubby freckle-faced redhead ... wears no make-up when performing" but Reed was essentially finished in the music business after she ran afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was blacklisted as a communist sympathiser.

Like various other folk artists who had the temerity to go against the grain and actually stand for something, Reed found herself blacklisted in the second half of the 1950s. She thus joined the ranks of Pete Seeger and the other members of the Weavers, and singers like Jo Mapes, who suddenly found themselves persona non grata in most major venues.  Reed’s broadcast and recording career came to a halt and her performing eventually followed. She was relegated to whistle-stop engagements in Podunk towns. As a result she ended her professional career in the early 1960s to be with her family in the new York City area.

Largely withdrawing from public view, she was said to have kept her voice, performing in local venues into her 80s, always starting by saying, “This is a zither.” Out of the limelight, her voice a bit deeper, she still performed at the occasional fund-raiser. “Everyone with an organization who wants to put over brotherhood and peace,” she said, “they just call old Sue.”

She married actor James Karen in 1958; they had one child before divorcing in 1967. She spent her final years establishing an antiques shop in Greenwich Village, and later sold ethnic handicrafts and clothes in Nyack, New York. She was also an accomplished painter. Tom Chapin used several of her paintings on his album covers.

She died of natural causes in 2010 at a Long Island nursing home, at the age of 84.

(Edited mainly from Wikipedia with a little help from AllMusic,  L.A.Times & The Guardian)