Al Bowlly

Albert Alick " Al " Bowlly ( January 7, 1899 in Lourenço Marques, † April 17, 1941 in London) was a South African pop and jazz singer. In the 1930s he was the most popular vocalist in Britain.

Life and work

Bowlly, whose parents came from Greece and Lebanon, was in the capital of the former Portuguese colony of Portuguese East Africa, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo ( Mozambique) ) was born. But soon his parents emigrated to South Africa Johannesburg, where Bowlly worked as a singer and guitarist of the dance orchestras of Edgar Adeler in Africa and Southeast Asia and Jimmy Liquime in India and Singapore. First boards as a singer, he took in 1927 in Germany with Arthur Briggs, Fred Bird as well as under his own name ( " Blue Skies " ) on. With the orchestra of Fred Elizalde he joined in 1928 in England. His song " If I Had You " was one of the first hits an English jazz band that was popular in North America. In the early 1930s he made ​​numerous songs especially with the orchestras of Ray Noble and Lew Stone.

In New York he joined in 1934 with a put together by Glenn Miller Orchestra, which included Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak and Bud Freeman. In the next few years, his renditions of " Blue Moon", "Easy to Love," " I've Got You Under My Skin " and " My Melancholy Baby" were so successful that Bowlly received a radio show on NBC and in 1936 in Hollywood ( together with Bing Crosby ) the Big Broadcast played in the movie. In the same year he returned to England, where he appeared with his Radio City Rhythm Makers, but also with the orchestras of Sydney Lipton, Geraldo, and Ken Johnson. He died by a land mine during a German air raid on London.

His life is depicted in the musical Melancholy Baby.