Very rare Autograph Book collection From 1899 to 1960's -Anecdotes of Musicians and Actors, Ronnie Scott, Tommy Steele, Sir Thomas Hicks

Here we have a very rare autograph book collection dating from 1899 to 1960's with anecdotes and signatures of musicians and actors incl. Tommy Steele, Ronnie Scott, Sir Thomas Hicks OBE, Jim Dale MBE and many more

The book itself has seen better days but it is 124 years old, but this is all about the contents.

Initially there are brief anecdotes written by friends of the person who started the book in the 19th Century, it says their name was L Pigeon 1899 - these are a lovely indication of the ability of those that lived in this era's ability to create such wonderful prose and comments - well worth a read. There are 25 or so of these.

Then the book was taken over by a second person Evelyn Franks from Kent, England - who appears to be a big fan of jazz and the films. There are pages and pages of signatures of famous band members of the day and film stars to some of which are as follows:

Ronnie Scott jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner
Ronnie Scott OBE (born Ronald Schatt; 28 January 1927 23 December 1996) was a British jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner. He co-founded Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho district, one of the world's most popular jazz clubs, in 1959.
Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, East London, into a Jewish family. His father, Joseph Schatt, was of Russian ancestry, and his mother Sylvia's family attended the Portuguese synagogue in Alie Street.[4][5][6] Scott attended the Central Foundation Boys' School.[7]
Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of 16. His claim to fame was that he was taught to play by "Vera Lynn's father-in-law!". He toured with trumpeter Johnny Claes from 1944 to 1945 and with Ted Heath in 1946. That same year, he appeared as one of the band members in George in Civvy Street. He worked with Ambrose, Cab Kaye, and Tito Burns. He was involved in the short-lived musicians' co-operative Club Eleven band and club (194850) with Johnny Dankworth. Scott became an acquaintance of the arranger/composer Tadd Dameron, when the American was working in the UK for Heath, and is reported to have performed with Dameron as the pianist, at one Club Eleven gig.

Tommy Steele singer actor

Sir Thomas Hicks OBE (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.
After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recorded a string of hit singles including "Rock with the Caveman" (1956) and the chart-topper "Singing the Blues" (1957). Steele's rise to fame was dramatised in The Tommy Steele Story (1957), the soundtrack of which was the first British album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. With collaborators Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, Steele received the 1958 Ivor Novello Award for Most Outstanding Song of the Year for "A Handful of Songs". He starred in further musical films including The Duke Wore Jeans (1958) and Tommy the Toreador (1959), the latter spawning the hit "Little White Bull".
Steele shifted away from rock and roll in the 1960s, becoming an all-round entertainer. He originated the part of Kipps in Half a Sixpence in the West End and on Broadway, reprising his role in the 1967 film version. As an actor, he notably appeared in the films The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and Finian's Rainbow (1968) and as the lead in several West End productions of Singin' in the Rain. Also an author and sculptor, Steele remains active. He was knighted in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to entertainment and charity and was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 2021.

Jim Dale Actor MBE and composer
Jim Dale MBE (born James Smith; 15 August 1935) is an English actor, composer, director, narrator, singer and songwriter. In the United Kingdom he is known as a pop singer of the 1950s who became a leading actor at the National Theatre. In British film, he is now one of the last surviving actors to appear in multiple Carry On films, along with Valerie Leon, Kenneth Cope, Julian Holloway, Hugh Futcher, Anita Harris, Amanda Barrie, Jacki Piper, Angela Douglas and Patricia Franklin.
Dale was also a leading actor on Broadway, where he had roles in Scapino, Barnum, Candide and Me and My Girl. He also narrated the U.S. audiobooks for all seven novels in the Harry Potter series, for which he won two Grammy Awards. Dale appeared in the ABC series Pushing Daisies (20072009); he also starred in the Disney film Pete's Dragon (1977). He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for portraying a young Spike Milligan in Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1973).
As a lyricist, Dale was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for the song "Georgy Girl", the theme for the 1966 film of the same title.

Pete King Tenor
Jazz saxophonist and co-founder of Ronnie Scott's who strove to keep the club afloat
The instinct of most jazz musicians to chase down the unexpected improvisational twist and avoid the formulaic has been good for the art, but often bad for business. The music stopped having a broad, pop-music appeal more than half a century ago, and since then its survival has depended crucially on the players and their audiences being brought together by a dedicated infantry of promoters, proselytisers and volunteers running precarious clubs, hustling for gigs and publicity, and counting such takings as could be gathered.
That interdependence could hardly have been better symbolised than in the personal and business partnership between the late saxophonist and club proprietor Ronnie Scott and his long-time friend Pete King, who has died aged 80.

Tony Britton Actor
Britton was born in a room above the Trocadero public house in Temple Street, Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Doris Marguerite (ne Jones) and Edward Leslie Britton.[2] He attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham and Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire. During the Second World War he served in the Army and he also worked for an estate agent and in an aircraft factory. He joined an amateur dramatics group in Weston-super-Mare and then turned professional, appearing on stage at the Old Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He appeared in numerous British films from the 1950s onwards, including Operation Amsterdam (1959), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and The Day of the Jackal (1973). Britton won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for The Nearly Man.
He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1977 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews outside London's Cafe Royal.
From 1983 to 1990, he starred with Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan in the BBC sitcom Don't Wait Up, which became a highlight of his career.[3] His other sitcom appearances included ...And Mother Makes Five, Father, Dear Father and as James Nicholls in Robin's Nest.
In September 2013 Sir Jonathan Miller directed a Gala Performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear at the Old Vic in London. Britton played the Earl of Gloucester.[4]


Frank Holden Vocalist and Bongoes

Singer and percussionist who toured with Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine and performed with the Johnny Dankworth Seven
Frank Holder, who has died aged 92, forged a lengthy career on the London jazz scene that encompassed everything from singing with big-name bands to solo appearances on cabaret and supper club circuits. Along the way he taught himself to play the conga drums and bongos, adding his percussive skills to jazz rhythm sections and later functioning as a kind of one-man variety act, incorporating a few dance steps and always singing with sensitivity and gusto.
From 1950 he sang with the Johnny Dankworth Seven, played percussion for Joe Harriott, gave a young Cleo Laine tips in stagecraft and shared tours with Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine. In his later career there were associations with the top Latin group Paz, and with Pete Longs Gillespiana, a big band that recreated Dizzy Gillespies music, plus a series of fine albums on the Mainstem label, his accompanists all top contemporary jazz musicians. Frank performed in venues small and large, for ever on the go until very recently.

Bill Le Sage Cool practitioner in Britain's modern jazz era

With his surreal one-liners, trim goatee and impassive ease in the most taxing of venues, Bill Le Sage, who has died aged 74, seemed, to young fans of the 1950s and 60s, the very model of a British modern-jazz enthusiast.
Casual listeners could find him an off-putting summation of what an impenetrable jazz coolness could sound like. Yet he could also be a forceful and crisply eloquent player, when the situation propelled him out of the effortless jazz professionalism for which he was so much in demand.
And like many jazz musicians of that era - the late drummer Tony Crombie and Le Sage's contemporary, Stan Tracey, are among the most striking examples - the economics of the business made him a skilful all-rounder, adept at the vibraphone and a highly effective arranger and composer.
Albert Harris guitarist
Albert Harris (born in London on 13th February 1916, died in Auckland NZ 14th February 2005)
Albert Harris was a Freelance Guitarist in London but he soon became one of the leading lights of the Lew Stone Orchestra
He studied Piano from age 6 and was also an Accordionist and a self-taught Guitarist; his knowledge of this Instrument enabled him in later years to compose pieces specifically for Guitar. He came to New York in 1938 at which time he started playing Piano in Big Bands across the USA.
Albert Harris worked most of his life in Hollywood as an Orchestrator, Arranger & Composer for several of the big Film Studios and for such pop icons as Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack & Cher. He came to New York in 1938. He earned a Doctor of Music Degree from New York College of Music and moved to Los Angeles in 1942

Ronnie Price Drummer
Lennie Hastings and Stan Butcher (Piano) from Freddy Randall and His Band

Freddy Randall - Trumpeter
His trumpet played a creative part in the postwar jazz revival
While British jazz revivalists like George Webb strove to recreate the classic New Orleans sound of King Oliver, the trumpeter and bandleader Freddy Randall, who has died aged 78, pursued the freewheeling Chicago jazz style favoured by white Dixie-landers like Muggsy Spanier and Wild Bill Davison.
In the immediate postwar period, jazz fans were divided into those who danced to Webb's music at the Red Barn, Barnehurst, Kent, and those who preferred to stay north of the river Thames and catch Randall at his Sunday night residency at Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmonton. While Webb and company favoured an ensemble style, Randall was keener on individual creativity - according to saxophonist Bruce Turner, he "didn't merely attack a 32-bar chorus, he positively violated it."
Bernard Stanton- clarinet Freddy Randalls Band
Vocalist Jo Searle, trombonist Harry Brown, pianist Stan Butcher and clarinettist Bernie Stanton
Franklyn Boyd vocalist
Franklyn Boyd abandoned his career as a singer to channel his energy behind the scenes as a publisher and manager, most notably shepherding the early career of British pop icon Cliff Richard. Born William George Price in Bedfordshire on November 27, 1925, he claimed the All-Britain Crooning Championship at the age of just 15, and two years later made his professional debut with bandleader Harry Leader. World War II preempted his fledgling career, and after a stint in the RAF he signed on with the Teddy Foster Orchestra. At Foster's behest, he dropped the name Willy Price in favor of Franklyn Boyd, an alias selected after myriad comparisons to Frank Sinatra. Boyd's career hit its stride in 1950, when he joined Eric Winstone & His Orchestra for a series of hit singles, including "Weaver of Dreams" and "Only Fools." In time, he signed a solo deal with Columbia and cut a string of cover tunes like "I'll Walk Alone," "Take My Heart," and "Pretend," moonlighting as a fixture of children's television and making regular appearances on the BBC Light Programme's Sunday afternoon series Sing It Again

Len Harrison Bass
Len Harrison was a bottom end man, performing with vigor on both bass and bass saxophone and even picking up the odd credit, and it is an odd one at that, for playing contrabass trombone with Django Reinhardt. Not that it would be any harder to keep up with the gypsy guitarist on contrabass trombone than any other instrument. Harrison was also utilized as both a baritone and tenor saxoponist by bandleaders such as Benny Carter, an adept arranger who made good use of multi-instrumentalists.
Active on the British jazz scene from the mid '30s, this player was eventually catagorized simply as a bassist. By this time the makings of a hefty discography already existed as the result of the aforementioned Reinhardt and Carter projects, the latter artist having organized a special large ensemble for one of his earlier European tours. Harrison was often the choice for such international mixtures, including Fats Waller And His Continental Rhythm. Also featuring guitarist Alan Ferguson, this group recorded a series of tracks in London in 1938.
Kathleen Stobart Sax
Jazz saxophonist praised for her 'huge, booming sound' and commanding presence
Widely admired by her peers and respected by her American counterparts, the saxophonist Kathy Stobart, who has died aged 89, was one of the finest jazz soloists of her generation. "Always possessed of a robust tone and forthright style," in the words of the critic Brian Priestley, she was best known for extended periods with the Humphrey Lyttelton band, but was as likely to turn up in touring big bands as she was to play in tightly organised modern jazz combos or freewheeling mainstream groups. Whatever the situation, it was her musicianship and co-operative disposition that carried her through, these qualities also enabling her to develop a successful parallel career as a teacher of the saxophone.
Daughter of Jessie and Matthew, she was from South Shields, Co Durham, born into a musical family. Both her brothers, Ralph and Billy, were saxophonists and her mother an experienced pianist. This doubtless prompted Kathy to study the piano and to tackle the alto saxophone. As a teenager, she spotted an advertisement calling for a tenor saxophonist/vocalist for Don Rico's Ladies Swing Band. Borrowing her brother's instrument, she survived a month's trial, wearing her "pretty pink dungarees", and toured wartime Britain for a year, supporting entertainers such as the comedian Nat Jackley while singing, dancing and doing impressions, including of the hugely popular Gracie Fields.

Rory Blackwell and the Blackjacks including Cuddly Duddly (Piano), Billy Woody (Tenor Sax), Toni Reavey (Guitar), Barney Smith (Bass), Mike Rigby (Drums)
Rory Blackwell (22 June 1933 19 December 2019) was an English rock and roll musician, bandleader of The Blackjacks, singer, drummer and songwriter.
Blackwell was born in Battersea, London. He founded the first British rock and roll band, and put on rock and roll at Studio 51 in September 1956. At The 2i's Coffee Bar on 24 January 1957, he gave Terry Dene, then known as Terry Williams, his first job. Blackwell fronted him at the Razzle Dazzle Club, in which Dene was billed as "the new singing sensation Terry Williams". Blackwell and his Blackjacks starred in the 1957 film Rock You Sinners.[1]
In 1959, Blackwell spotted the 16-year-old pianist Clive Powell (Georgie Fame) in a summer holiday camp in Wales, where he offered him a job as a piano player with The Blackjacks.[2] After the season ended, Powell left, as new opportunities arose.
His group recorded "Bye Bye Love", later covered by The Everly Brothers. Blackwell also performed "Bony Moronie", "Red Roses", "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast", "Great Balls of Fire", and "Rory's Rock", then toured Europe and the UK with stars from the US.
In 1968, Rory Blackwell's 1968 Rock'n'roll Show Live (EMI/Parlophone) was released, with the tracks "Let's Have a Party", "Rock Around the Clock", "Great Balls of Fire", "Be Bop a Lula", "Shake Rattle and Roll", "Hound Dog", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", "Bony Moronie", "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Rory's Rock". After the launching of the Apollo 11 in 1969, Blackwell wrote and released the orchestral piece Apollo 11 : Sea of Tranquility (EMI/Parlophone).

Jimmy Simmons and Dave Ubden played with Ronnie Scott
Marion Williams (August 29, 1927 July 2, 1994) was an American gospel singer.
Marion Williams was born in Miami, Florida, to a religiously devout mother and musically inclined father. She left school when she was nine years old to help support the family, and worked as a maid, a nurse, and in factories and laundries. She began singing in front of audiences while young. As was common in the area, Williams learned African American blues and jazz, alongside Caribbean calypso.
Poverty caused Williams to leave school at fourteen to work with her mother at a laundry,[1] although she eventually graduated from Pacific Union College in 1987. She sang at church and on street corners, inspired by a wide range of musicians, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Smith Jubilee Singers.
She stayed with gospel in spite of pressure to switch to popular blues tunes or the opera.

Ronnie Chamberlain sax
Ronnie Chamberlain was born in London in May, 1924 and became an accomplished clarinet, alto, soprano and tenor sax player who although he is remembered now for his long stay with the Ted Heath Orchestra his roots were as a genuine jazz musician. In the mid 1940s he played in the The Jive Bombers who were the group reckoned by some to have made the first be-bop style records in Britain. They began life as Ilford Rhythm Club Jam Group, with Ronnie on alto and soprano saxes. Ronnie did not, unfortunately, appear on the records as he was by then working with the innovative band leader Vic Lewis.
With Lewis he played and recorded many styles of jazz from chicago style to jam sessions and was a featured soloist on Lewis' large Kenton style band of the late 1940s. He remained with Vic Lewis until 1955.
In the early 1950s he attracted a jazz following and success in the Melody Maker readers polls led to him being recorded in the mid 1950s with the Melody Maker All-Stars, groups made up from the poll winners.
In late 1957 or early 1958 Ronnie returned to the big band world when he joined the Ted Heath Orchestra for a stay that lasted almost twenty years until the band finally broke up around 1977. He died in September, 1999.

Johnny Keating musician composer
Keating was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.[1] After studying piano and trombone, he taught himself how to arrange and compose in his teens. From 1952, he worked with British big band leader Ted Heath as a trombonist, but within two years Heath asked him to become his primary arranger. In the early 1960s, he and songwriter Johnny Worth (writing as Les Vandyke) masterminded the career of a minor British pop star, Eden Kane. The team wrote and produced a string of British top 10 hits for Kane in 196163. In addition he wrote, produced or arranged hits by Adam Faith, Petula Clark, Anthony Newley, Shani Wallis, Caterina Valente, and Sammy Davis Jr. among others.
Keating arranged and conducted a series of albums for London Records' Phase 4 series, notable for its use of synthesiser technology such as the Moog synthesizer and the EMS VCS 3. The records were often used as demonstration discs in the 1970s in Hi-Fi stores because of their quality. Much of his work was rereleased following the Lounge music revival of the mid 1990s and its use as breakbeats.
His "Theme from Z-Cars", a #8 hit in the 1962 UK Singles Chart,[2] was adopted by Everton as their theme song. Additionally he composed the scores for the films Hotel (1967), Robbery (1967), and Innocent Bystanders (1972). His song "Bunny Hop" was also featured in the Tim Burton film, Ed Wood (1994).

Ralph Sharon musician and accompanist to Tony Bennett etc

Ralph Sharon was born in London, England, to a British mother and Latvian-born father. He emigrated to the United States in early 1954,[2] becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States five years later.
By 1958, Ralph Sharon was recording with Tony Bennett as accompanist. That was the start of a more than 50 year working relationship as Bennett's "man behind the music" on many Grammy Award-winning studio recordings, and touring with Bennett for many years. Sharon found the song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" for Bennett, a year after placing the sheet music in a bureau and forgetting about it. Sharon discovered the manuscript while packing for a tour that included San Francisco. While Bennett and Sharon liked the song, they were convinced it would only be a local hit. Instead, the tune became Bennett's signature song.

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