Tag: Music

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Cherry Wainer

Cherry Wainer #2

I’m researching the career of musician Cherry Wainer and the 1950s-1960s music scene.

In 1954, after four years spent developing her career in South Africa, Cherry returned to Britain, along with her Hammond organ, sheet music and eight suitcases of clothes – she appeared to have a penchant for the latest fashions. A hard slog on the entertainment circuit beckoned as she strove to break into the “big time”.

Even though Cherry Wainer was born in South Africa, in May 1955 the press were describing her as “Britain’s Greatest Rhythm Organist”. She was sharing bills with the likes of Alma Cogan and playing tunes like Mr Sandman and Waters of Minnetonka. She was also billed above Reg Varney who went on to become a regular on British television. It was taking Cherry a while to become an “overnight sensation”, but her career kept moving in the right direction.

In August 1955, while performing in Manchester, Cherry told a reporter about her problem with nylons. Cherry refused to wear nylons with seams, and reinforced toes and heels. Consequently, she laddered a pair at every performance. “I’ve been going on-stage bare-legged all this week,” Cherry said. “I’ve run right out of stockings and I can’t buy the sort of nylons I like in this country. I’m waiting for my mother to get me some in America.”

In August 1955 the press reported that Cherry’s organ was insured for £1,250 (around £40,000 now). The organ always travelled in the guard’s van while Cherry sat in the nearest compartment.

At the time, Cherry had a residency at the Winter Garden’s, Morecambe, but the management did grant her time to be a judge in a National Bathing Beauty Contest, which was won by Patricia Nunns (pictured).

In August and September 1955, Cherry was sharing the bill with the likes of Des O’Conner, who became a regular on British television. She was also appearing in Paris. The Stage reported: “Most attractively gowned, and using trick lighting to make her lovely dress even lovelier, Cherry Wainer is an atomic ball of a personality at the keys of her electric organ. She plays with the confidence of one who knows she has mastered her numbers and so can put that little extra into them. Full marks for this South African blossom. Her Sabre Dance is a real sizzler.”

In October 1955, The Stage announced that “vivacious South African organist Cherry Wainer would be appearing on TV”.

Cherry featured on ABC Television – Associated British Cinemas (Television) Ltd. ABC was a commercial television company established in the 1950s by cinema chains in an attempt to compete with television, which was attracting cinema audiences.

Cherry played the Hammond organ “with a dexterity unmarred by four-inch heels”.

On 22 December 1955, at Chelsea Barracks, Cherry joined Vera Lynn, the Coldstream Guards and Scots Guards to entertain the troops. The event was broadcast on television as part of the Christmas Season programming.

Along with her variety show appearances, Cherry was now becoming a regular on television.

The ABC Studios in Didsbury, Manchester (Wikipedia)

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Cherry Wainer

Cherry Wainer


When Cherry Wainer died on November 14, 2014 that evening, at a concert, Elton John dedicated Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me to her. Who was Cherry Wainer, and how did she and other musicians, achieve success in the late 1950s, early 1960s? I intend to follow Cherry’s career in an effort to find out.


Cherry Wainer was born on March 2, in East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The year of her birth is in dispute. Most sources list Cherry’s birth year as 1935. However, the documents I’ve seen list her birth year as 1932.

At the age of eight, already a talented pianist, Cherry performed a concert with an orchestra. Her father was a music promoter, and undoubtedly he helped to open doors early in Cherry’s career.

Cherry’s plans to become a classical pianist changed direction when she was introduced to the Hammond organ, and the music of jazz organist Jimmy Smith. To develop her career, as a teenager Cherry set out for London, England with her mother and sixty-three outfits that she was “determined to wear.”

Some of the outfits Cherry was determined to wear

Early in 1948, Cherry, a teenager, and her mother Zelda boarded the Athlone Castle (pictured). The ship left Durban and docked at East London (where Cherry boarded), Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Cape Town and Madeira before arriving at Southampton on 6 February 1948.

Cherry and Zelda took lodgings at 24 Burgoyne Road, Harringay, London and from there Cherry embarked on her studies – singing, drama and dancing.

In May and June 1948, chaperoned by her mother, Zelda (pictured), Cherry Wainer was in London studying singing, drama and dancing. Billed as Cherry Wayne and playing a mini-organ, she also found time to appear in variety shows at the Coventry Hippodrome, the Croydon Empire and the Windsor Theatre. The critics noted that Cherry “stood out” from the other acts. Although only a student, Cherry was already making a name for herself.

I’m researching the career of musician Cherry Wainer and the 1950s-1960s music scene.

From August 1948 through to February 1949 Cherry appeared in variety shows at the Windmill Theatre in London. In April 1948 the press reported that Miss Cherry Wainer was seen “puffing away contentedly on a briar pipe between dances at the White Hart Hotel”. 

Below, a quote from Cherry’s friend, Doreen Brebner.

Cherry told the reporter that she “smoked cigars too – anything!” And that she found British tobacco milder than her native South African brands. Clearly, Cherry was something of a character.

Throughout 1949, Cherry developed her career in variety shows playing solo pianoforte and a Hammond solovox organ. The variety shows featured singers, dancers and comedians. Some of those listed on the bills became regulars on British television and radio. Most drifted into obscurity. 

Cherry’s career was on the rise, however, and her music and drama studies faded into the background as theatrical agents clamoured for her signature.

In February 1950, up and coming theatrical agent Cliff Martell announced that he was signing a number of new acts including singer Jimmy Young (who later became a BBC disc jockey), and Cherry Wainer. However, a month later, this forthright notice was placed in The Stage.

Clearly, Cherry was in demand, and career opportunities beckoned.

* * *

Throughout 1950 Cherry continued to perform on the entertainment circuit, singing and playing her Hammond solovox organ. She was only eighteen (possibly younger – her mother might have altered Cherry’s age to secure her gigs). At that point, she decided to return to South Africa, where she developed her career. She would return to Britain, but it would be a four year wait.

More next time…

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1920s

The 1920s #2

1920s Flapper Slang

Fire alarm – a divorced woman

Fire bell – a married woman 

Fire extinguisher – a chaperone 

Forty-niner – a man looking for a rich wife

Handcuff – an engagement ring 

Hush money – a young woman’s allowance 

Munitions – a woman’s make-up

Clara Bow, the superstar of the era, made her debut in Beyond the Rainbow. Filmed in New York in 1921, when Clara was sixteen, the movie went on public release on February 19, 1922. A 16mm print of the film still survives.

The plot is a decent one: guests arrive at a party and are passed a mysterious note saying, ‘Consult your conscience. Your secret is common gossip.’ All the guests have something to hide, so panic and murder ensue.

The note was written by Clara’s character, Virginia Gardener, as a mischievous joke. It’s ironic that in her first movie Clara was the instigator of chaos because, in her own iconic way, that set the tone for her career.

Clara appeared in five scenes in Beyond the Rainbow, but strangely those scenes were cut from the final print, only to be restored when she became a star. Her billing also moved up from ninth to third when she achieved stardom.

Alvin ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly, 1893 – 1952, achieved fame in the 1920s and 1930s as a pole sitter. He calculated that he spent 20,613 hours sitting on flagpoles, including 210 hours in sub-freezing weather and 1,400 hours in the rain. 

Kelly married Frances Vivian Steele, an elevator operator, a match clearly made in heaven, or at least close to it.

📸 Getty Images

The #1 song in 1920, Dardanella, recorded by Ben Selvin and his Novelty Orchestra. Released in December 1919, the song reached number one the following month and remained there for thirteen weeks. Selvin’s recording broke records by becoming the first record to sell more than three million copies. It eventually sold five million and became the second-highest single of the 1920s.

Many artists covered the song, including Acker Bilk, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, plus Geoff and Maria Muldaur.

Football

A talented Wales team featuring Willie Davies, Ted Vizard and Fred Keenor (pictured) won the 1923-24 British Home Championship thanks to victories over Scotland, 2 – 0 at home, 2 – 1 against England (away) and 1 – 0 against Ireland (away). The game against Ireland was a tumultuous affair decided by a Moses Russell penalty.

Scotland finished second, Ireland third, and England fourth.

Television

In 1921, Charles Francis Jenkins (pictured) incorporated Jenkins Laboratories in Washington D.C. with the purpose of “developing radio movies to be broadcast for entertainment in the home”.

In 1922, Jenkins demonstrated his television principles by transmitting a set of static pictures from Washington D.C. to a navy station in Anacastia by telephone wire.

In 1923, Jenkins demonstrated “true” television, transmitting 48-line moving silhouette images at 16 frames per second from Washington to Anacostia Navy station.

A year later, enter John Logie Baird who demonstrated a semi-mechanical television system, transmission moving silhouette images in Britain.

Literature 

Published in 1922, The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in New York City, the plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become “wrecked on the shoals of dissipation” while excessively partying at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age. 

Fitzgerald modelled the main characters on himself and his wife Zelda, detailing their tempestuous marriage. Three years later, the author covered similar themes of self-absorption and hedonism in his novel The Great Gatsby.

Tula, my novel set in the 1920s

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1920s

The 1920s #1

In the new year, I hope to research 1925 in detail. Meanwhile, here’s some general information about the 1920s, starting with some flapper slang.

Airedale – an unfashionable, not with-it man
Alarm clock – a chaperone
Apple sauce – flattery
Banks closed – no petting or kissing
Barneymugging – the opposite of banks closed
The bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas, the elephant’s instep – the best

In 1925 Clarence Birdseye, pictured, invented a process for frozen food. Later, he invented the double belt freezer. His initial product line featured 26 items, including 18 cuts of frozen meat, spinach, peas, a variety of fruits and berries, blue point oysters, and fish fillets.

More flapper slang from the 1920s

Billboard – flashy man or woman
Biscuit – a cute, possibly promiscuous, woman
Cake basket – a limousine
Clothesline – local gossip
Corn shredder – a dancer who treads on your feet
Dropping the pilot – getting a divorce
Edisoned – being asked a lot of questions
Eye-opener – marriage
Father Time – a man over thirty

🖼️ The Flapper, 1922

In 1925, a number of record companies improved on an electrical recording process originally developed by Western Electric and produced a more lifelike sound.

Jazz dominated the music scene. The word jazz arose out of West Coast slang, c1912. At that time it did not refer to music. Jazz was used in an article about baseball in 1913 and appeared in reference to music in a Chicago Daily Tribune article of 1915.

The King and Carter Jazzing Orchestra, 1921

On 5 August 1926 Warner Brothers produced the first Vitaphone movie, Don Juan (the third highest grossing film of the year). The Vitaphone system used multiple 33 1⁄3 rpm gramophone records to play back music and sound effects synchronised with film.

The Jazz Singer, the first part-talkie, followed in 1927, then the first all-talkie Lights of New York, in 1928, then the first all-colour all-talkie On With The Show, in 1929. The silent movie era arguably ended with Modern Times in 1936.

The 2020s

At the moment, we are promoting Sins of the Father, book eight in my nineteen book Sam Smith mystery series (book twenty is scheduled for next year). I’m delighted to say that Sins of the Father is #1 on Amazon’s private investigator chart 🙂

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Music Notes

Music Notes #2

Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Lyttelton aka “Humph” (23 May 1921 – 25 April 2008) was a talented broadcaster, humorist, cartoonist, trumpeter and jazz band leader. Musically, he is remembered for Bad Penny Blues, a hit in 1956, while as a broadcaster he presented The Best of Jazz for forty years, and hosted the hilarious comedy panel game I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Louis Armstrong was so impressed with Humphrey Lyttelton’s playing that he referred to him as “that cat in England who swings his ass off.”

📸 Wikipedia

Born at Eton College and related to the nobility, Humphrey Lyttelton turned his back on titles and honours. A turning point in his life arrived upon leaving school when he worked at Port Talbot Steel Works. His experiences there forged his political beliefs, which he termed as “romantic socialism”.

A second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, Humphrey Lyttelton saw Second World War action at Salerno, Italy during Operation Avalanche. When he came ashore, he held a pistol in one hand and a trumpet in the other.

On VE Day, 8 May 1945, Humphrey Lyttelton joined the celebrations in London by playing his trumpet from a wheelbarrow. Inadvertently, the BBC broadcast his performance in a recording that still survives.

My latest article for the Seaside News

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