The lady with
the birthday this week, a star of her day is now 101. Looking back at her career it is something
that not many today might understand, a long gone and different world. Vera
Lynn's first hit was back in 1936, does anyone remember it?
You may know
vaguely of the title, it was "Up The Wooden Hill To Bedfordshire", in
that this saying has been used by parents down the generations to urge the kids
upstairs to first get a bit of peace and then second to get control of the TV
remote and now to go on the net.
Why did she
make it to the top and so soon? Because she recorded songs with a very good
backing band and when the BBC was being told to be less stuffy and more popular
because in the time of 1930's financial stringency The People were mindful of
where the tax money was going and why.
A key reason
lay in the actual quality of her voice. The timbre, resonance and balance
fitted the technology of the period both on the records being sold and in the
radio of the time. She sounded well and what is more held the audiences in live
performance.
Also, she was
an East End girl made good with an open manner and way of putting things over
without being too serious. It worked well in the theatre and even better
standing near the front line in North Africa or Burma with a thousand and more
troops marveling that she was there and ready to take the same risks as they
did.
In recent
decades she has been retired. To put it simply her market segment is now too
small for the numbers needed to gain the advertising revenue that are the stuff
of modern TV and radio, or in the case of the BBC to justify its programming to
committees.
In performance
she sang a range of songs for the wider audience, and these included Ivor
Novello songs from her parent's generation as well as those from her own.
"Keep The Home Fires Burning" would have been one with a special
meaning. Her father was listed in 1939 as a central heating stoker.
Perhaps that
is her talent, an ordinary girl who became extraordinary in a world in crisis.
"...a long gone and different world."
ReplyDeleteIt is. Although kids today are taught about the war, one of Vera's songs is not likely to strike a chord with them.
“Vera Lynn's first hit was back in 1936, does anyone remember it?”
ReplyDeleteJust trying to recall the year - nah, it’s gone. Must be Alzheimers.