Sid Colin

I 'discovered' Al Bowlly via The Caretaker's 2019 album 'Everywhere at the End of Time', which is supposed to be a representation of dementia and features samples of dance band music, including Al Bowlly. This biography from 1979 isn't that much longer than the Wikipedia entry for Bowlly, to be honest, but I had to know more about the crooner with the dark eyes and lovely smile who was killed in the Blitz! I probably fall into the following category of Bowlly fans, as described by Denis Norden in the introduction: 'the way nostalgia really works best is if you weren't there first time round.'

The singer himself, who was born in present day Mozambique and brought up in South Africa by a Lebanese mother and Greek father, is described as an affable, 'straight up' type of man. Trumpeter Nat Gonella is the 'damn with faint praise' contributor who seems to like to put Al's memory down at every turn, but the book is far more positive than the documentary by co-author Tony Staveacre, which I watched on YouTube. I love the two sisters who were fans of Al and got invited round to his flat - with his girlfriend at the time - to listen to the radio when their own was broken. When Al had to go out, he left them there and told them to lock up!

Norden mentions that a film about Al Bowlly was being planned in the late 1960s but was dropped because 'It's a story about a loser. There's no Third Act'. Well, I would watch a film about Al, third act or no - look at Bohemian Rhapsody, about Freddie Mercury!… (meer)