Frank Chacksfield
Frank Chacksfield ( born May 9, 1914 in Battle, England, † June 9, 1995 in Kent ) was a British pianist, organist, composer and conductor in the field of popular music. With Mantovani he was an advocate of easy listening and so had great success in Britain and internationally in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Life
Frank Chacksfield grew up in Battle, East Sussex, on and learned piano as a child and organ. 14 - year old, he first came to public at Hastings Music Festival.
After a brief employment at a law firm, he chose to enter the music profession, became deputy organist at the Church of Salehurst and led in the 1930s a small band at Tonbridge in Kent. At the beginning of World War II he joined the Royal Corps of Signals, worked as a pianist with the radio and at the ENSA in Salisbury.
After the war he worked as an arranger and conductor at the BBC, among others, Henry Hall and Geraldo. In 1951, he founded the band " Frank Chacksfield 's tunesmiths ". He had with Parlophone his first Top Ten hit "Little Red Monkey", a Clavioline, a forerunner of the synthesizer, came as a novelty in the devices used in the beginning of 1953.
There was a recording contract with Decca Records and the establishment of a 40 -strong orchestra with a large string section. His first recording for Decca, Charlie Chaplin's theme song for his film Limelight, won a gold record in the U.S. and in the UK, reaching number 2 in the UK Top 40 and earned him the NME Award for " Record of the Year ".
" Frank Chacksfield and his Orchestra " was one of the most famous orchestra of Great Britain and sold more than 20 million albums worldwide. It played mainly light music, ballads, waltzes and movie themes. 1954 founded Chacksfield also a BBC series which was continued until the early 1960s. In 1957, he was responsible for the musical arrangement of the first British participation in the Euro Vision Song Contest with "All" by Patricia Bredin.
Until the 1990s he recorded with his orchestra for the BBC, released records and drove his recordings commercially as background music for warehouses and elevators. His last album, Thanks for the Memories ( Academy Award Winners 1934-1955 ) was published in 1991.
Chacksfield died in 1995 in Kent, after he had suffered for several years from Parkinson 's disease.
Discography
Albums
- Ebb Tide, London LL 1408
- Velvet, London LL 1443
- Evening in Paris, Decca LK 4081
- Evening in Rome, Decca LK 4095
- The Music of George Gershwin, Decca LK 4113
- If I Had a Talking Picture of You, Decca LK 4135
- Iceland South Sea Magic, Decca LK 4174
- Opera's Golden Moments, London Phase 4 21092
- The New Ebb Tide, London Phase 4 44053
- Globe - Trotting, London Phase 4 SP 44059
- The New Limelight, London Phase 4 SP 44066
- Hawaii, London Phase 4 SP 44087
- Foreign Film Festival, London Phase 4 SP 44112
- New York, London Phase 4 SP 44141
- Beatles songbook, London Phase 4 44142
- Simon & Garfunkel & Jimmy Webb, London Phase 4 44151
- Plays Bacharach, London Phase 4 44158
- Plays Ebb Tide And Other Million Sellers, London Phase 4 44168
- Chacksfield Plays Rodgers & Hart, London Phase 4 SP 44223
- The Glory That Was Gershwin, London Phase 4 44254
- TV's Golden Hits, Compleat Records 671020-1
Singles
- Little Red Monkey, Parlophone R3658, 1953
- Terry's Theme from ' Limelight ' ", Decca F10106, 1953
- Ebb Tide, Decca F10122, 1954
- In Old Lisbon, Decca F19689, 1956
- Port Au Prince (with Winifred Atwell ), Decca F10727, 1956
- Donkey Cart, Decca F10743, 1956
- On The Beach (U.S.) London 1901, 1960