Brown's Around - April 06 Some Sunny Day.....

It was an old-fashioned variety show of the kind you’ll search for in vain on television, yet there’s an unprecedented boom in the musical nostalgia market. There are two reasons for this:

• firstly, people are living longer these days, and while the grey squirrel is now the villain of the piece, the Grey Pound (the £ variety) has taken a trick with retailers and become both fashionable and lucrative.;

• secondly - and I’ll put it gently - there is a general disappointment with the music of today. In a nutshell, we’re not talking hip-hop, we’re talking hip replacement.

The works of the poets of the First World War such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are usually presented as the literature of wartime, but popular songs were vital in keeping up morale.

Those from World War II have become especially well known, especially We’ll Meet Again, The White Cliffs of Dover (incidentally, there never were any bluebirds there but global warming may have the last laugh) and the most celebrated of all, Lili Marlene, based on a poem written by a German soldier in 1915 and set to music in 1938. The immense popularity of the German version led to a hurried English language version done by Tommie Connor and broadcast by the BBC for the Allied troops.

As a post-war baby, I came late to this music and, if you’d like to explore this wartime world, may I suggest you get hold of a double CD called “The Songs & Music of World War II” released on the Past Perfect label.

It features over fifty original hits of the wartime years from individual artists such as Gracie Fields, Vera Lynn, the marvellously witty Noel Coward, Flanagan & Allen, George Formby and Max Miller, plus the big bands of Ambrose, Billy Cotton, Geraldo and Carroll Gibbons. Arriving later (appropriately!) on the second CD you’ll find an American contingent including Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, Fats Waller and Dinah Shore.

Contact Past Perfect for its catalogue on line at www.pastperfect.com or e-mail clarity@pastperfect.com or drop them a note at Lower Farm Barns, Bainton Road, Bucknell, Oxfordshire OX27 7LT.

And if you’d like to read about the music, I can recommend two magazines which you won’t find on general display in W H Smith’s.

In Tune International describes itself as “the only monthly magazine in the world for lovers of the Golden Age of popular music from the Thirties to the end of the Fifties.” Its regular features include a comprehensive CD review section and exclusive news of forthcoming releases in this country, plus original articles on the artists, musicians and composers of the period. It’s available by subscription only, so contact Gerry Stonestreet at Flat 9, Milchester House, 12 Staveley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7JX or by e-mail it’s gerry@stonestreet13.freeserve.co.uk or check the website at www.GnuDawn.co.uk/intune.

Also worth searching out is Memory Lane, an excellent quarterly magazine which specialises in the music of the 1920s through to the 1950s, with the emphasis on the British Dance Bands and vocalists of the 30s and 40s.

It’s published four times a year and you can send a £1 coin for a sample copy to Memory Lane, PO Box 1939, Leigh-on-Sea, SS9 3UH or e-mail editor@memorylane.org.uk or have a look at the website on www.memorylane.org.uk.

Finally, don’t think you’ve to be an old fogey to enjoy this style of music. Growing up in post-war Scotland, I was never able to hear the big dance bands. To say that my ears were opened is an understatement. The versatility of the musicians is staggering and the remastered sound quality means that we’re hearing - for the first time - just how the music should have sounded.

Happy listening and reading.