THE AL BOWLLY STORY - PART 1

Albert Alick Bowlly was born on 7th January 1899 in Lourenco Marques, Portugese East Africa. In 1903 he and his family moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1913, Al left school at 14, and became a barber in Johannesburg, where he started to gig around on his banjo and uke. In 1923-24 He joined Edgar Adeler's Band on tour of Rhodesia, East Africa, India, Malaya, and Java, where he split with Adeler after a fight. In 1925 Al giged around and exercised race horses in Calcutta. In 1926, he joined the Jimmy Lequime Orchestra in Calcutta and Singapore, where he made two sides ''The House Where The Shutters Are Green'' and ''Soho Blues.'' The vocal was by Pete Harmon, Al only appeared instrumentally on this recording, playing uke.
In 1927, Al arrived in Berlin to play with, once again, Edgar Adeler and his Band, plus Arthur Briggs, George Carhart, Billy Bartholomew, Fred Bird and John Abriani. He made his first vocal recording in July with Arthur Briggs Savoy Syncopators, Here it is! "Song of the Wanderer".
In part 2, I will play Al's very first solo recording.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• AL
• BOWLLY
• ARTHUR
• BRIGGS
• 78
• RPM

[up2itru]

I remember Biba ... and I remember KMPX in San Francisco, during the 70's which played all these tunes ... such heaven, you'd think we wore tails and tap-danced our way through the streets of the City ... LOL

[diantdian]

If you like this music, go for the living experience of Gregory Page ...

[arabianzeppelin]

Great guitar solo.

[Plattensammler88]

Eine unglaubliche Rarität! Haben Sie die Platte in der Sammlung?

[Recordhistorian]

Pardon, Sir! Obviously you are not well informed - but the so called KZ-subject is full of "problematic" sources! Herr Felix Lehmann run a l"music-scholl" after WW II in Berlin-Steglitz. Also he was leader of various dancebands up after 1933. An old friend of mine played saxophon with one of the "Fred-Bird"-outfits in 1936. So you can prove it: Bird/Lehman, who was busy as studiobandleader at "Homocord", wasn't of jewish origin. The man with the name you mentioned - seems to be ANOTHER! Sorry!

[guggle86]

Al Bowlly recorded Ain't She Sweet with Fred Bird & his Symphonic Band on Homophon in 1927. Fred Bird (pseudonym of Felix Lehmann) was the recording manager of the Homocord (Homophon) label between 1924 and 1932 and recorded with the studio band under many different names.Felix Lehmann who was born in Weiterstadt, 19 January 1889, was murdered along with his wife and two young daughters in Auschwitz in 1942. You can hear the recording on Internet Archive (archive.org)

[Mousepie999]

What a great banjo player he was as well!

[DOOWOPLOVE]

j'aime tros Al Bowlly, dommage quon entend presque plus parler de lui...

[opticon12000]

The 17th April is the date Al died in London from the German mine bomb aged 41 it will be 67 years this year. Who would have thought we would be hearing things on a TV screen !

I was no where naer being thought of and discovered Al from Youtube

Richard

[paulostroff99]

Wonderful sentiment! TY