Francis Craig (1900 – 1966)^[1] was a songwriter and leader of a Nashville dance band. His works included "Dynamite" and "Near You".

"Dynamite!" now the official fight song of Vanderbilt University, was written by Craig in 1922, when Craig was an undergraduate student at the University.^[2] It is played mainly at football games, basketball games, and at other Commodore sports events.

His own recording of "Near You" was released by Bullet Records as catalog number 1001. It first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on August 30, 1947, and lasted 21 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1. It held the number one spot for 17 straight weeks, which makes it the "Chart Champ", having been number one for the longest period of time. (Beating "White Christmas" which was number one for 11 weeks in a row, and then 4 more weeks for a total of 15 weeks.)^[3] Various recordings by other persons have followed.

Other works included "Beg Your Pardon" with Beasley Smith.

References[link]

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Orrin Tucker
Born	(1911-02-17)February 17, 1911 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 9, 2011(2011-04-09) (aged 100) South Pasadena, California, U.S.
Occupations	Bandleader
Instruments	Saxophone
Years active	1939–1990s

Robert Orrin Tucker (February 17, 1911 – April 9, 2011) was an American bandleader born in St. Louis, Missouri, whose theme song was "Drifting and Dreaming". His biggest hit was "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!" (1939), sung by vocalist "Wee" Bonnie Baker.

Tucker and his orchestra remained active until the 1990s, when health problems forced him to retire. In 2003, Tucker was interviewed about his passion for music and his long career as a bandleader by the NAMM oral history program [1]. He died on April 9, 2011, aged 100.^[1]

References[link]

• Orrin Tucker at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography from Yahoo Music
• Biography from Solid!
• Photos of Orrin Tucker from the George Sontag collection
• Orrin Tucker's NAMM Oral History Interview

Frank Weir (30 January 1911 - 12 May 1981)^[1] was a British orchestra leader and jazz musician. He reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart in 1954 with Vera Lynn and the song "My Son, My Son",^[2] and with positive reviews in Variety, Cash Box and Billboard.^[3]

His version of "The Happy Wanderer" became one of the most popular recordings of 1954, in both the UK and the US. It featured Weir's soprano saxophone solos between verses. He released one more single, six years later in 1960, "Caribbean Honeymoon", which reached a peak position of #42 on the UK Singles Chart.^[1]

Other recordings[link]

• "Mister Cuckoo" / "If Ever You Go To Paree" - Parlophone R4157
• "What a Difference a Day Makes" / "Together" - Decca F8501
• "The Never Never Land" / "The Little Shoemaker" - Decca F 10324 (1954)

References[link]

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Stanley Black OBE (14 June 1913 – 27 November 2002) was an English Bandleader, Composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He wrote and arranged many film scores and recorded prolifically for the Decca label (including London and Phase 4). Beginning with jazz collaborations with American musicians such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter during the 1930s, he moved into arranging and recording in the Latin American style and also won awards for his classical conducting.

Life[link]

Stanley Black (Solomon Schwartz) was born in 1913 in Whitechapel, England. His parents were Polish and Romanian Jews.^[1] He began piano lessons at the age of seven. He was aged only 12 when his first composition was broadcast on BBC Radio and continued his early success by winning a Melody Maker arranging competition aged 15.^[2]

In the early 1930s he was employed as a jazz player and composer and had worked with Howard Jacobs, Joe Orlando, Lew Stone, Maurice Winnick and Teddy Joyce by the time he joined Harry Roy in 1936. He had also broadcast and recorded with several American musicians, including jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who had first heard Black on late night radio shows with Lew Stone’s band. When the two eventually met in London, the reviewer Edgar Jackson suggested they record together, and a notable collaboration is a duet version of Honeysuckle Rose.

During World War II, Black joined the Royal Air Force, and became involved in managing the entertainment of servicemen based at Wolverhampton. In 1944 he was appointed conductor of the BBC Dance Orchestra, and remained in the job for almost nine years, broadcasting as many as six nights a week.

By this time he had also begun recording under his own name for Decca. Now well involved with the film industry, he went on to compose, arrange and direct music for about 200 more films, notably after being appointed music director at Elstree Studios in 1958. He was also principal conductor of the Associated British Picture Corporation Orchestra and musical director composer of that organisation from 1958-1963.

Stanley Black’s radio work kept him in contact with a large listening audience through his incidental music for shows such as Much Binding in the Marsh and the first two series of The Goon Show. He later presented his own programmes on radio and television, including Black Magic and The Marvellous World of Stanley Black.

In the early 1950s he regularly topped the Melody Maker lists of the most-heard musicians on radio. He was chosen to be included on Decca’s first release of long-playing records in the UK in June 1950. This enabled him to continue his conducting, arranging and performing and resulted in a large number of albums. He was particularly popular in America, as evidenced by his inclusion in the Billboard best-sellers lists.

He wrote the music for the 1951 film Laughter in Paradise.

During his life, he conducted many of Britain’s major orchestras, and until the 1990s he was still directing regular broadcast sessions at the BBC studios, despite the onset of deafness in later life.

Stanley Black received numerous awards, including the OBE. He was made a life fellow of the Institute of Arts and Letters, and life president of the Celebrities Guild of Great Britain. He died in London in 2002, aged 89.

In 2003, Decca Music Group Ltd released a 2-CD set "A tribute to Stanley Black" (473-940-2) including recordings from 1951 to 1979.

Works[link]

Stanley Black is remembered for writing numerous scores for radio, television and cinema, including the theme-tune for The Goon Show.

Other films he composed scores for include It Always Rains on Sunday (1948), Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957), Too Many Crooks (1958), The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961), and the Cliff Richard musicals The Young Ones (1961) and his orchestral backing for Richard's follow up, Summer Holiday (1962), which won him an Ivor Novello Award. His work also became familiar to millions of cinema audiences as a consequence of his theme tune and music library for Pathé News, written in 1960.^[3]

He also recorded many classical works, including collections of Tchaikovsky and George Gershwin. In 1965 he won a Gramophone Award for his version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. In addition, he arranged and conducted many commercially successful albums on LP and later CD like Tropical Moonlight, Cuban Moonlight, Black Magic, and series of Film Spectacular and Broadway Spectacular for Decca Records.

Selected discography[link]

• The Cash Box Instrumental Hits, London LL158
• Plays for Latin Lovers, London LL248
• Jerome Kern's Symphonic Suite, London LL579
• Berlin Suite, London LL811
• Some Enchanted Evening, London LL1098
• Dancing in the Dark, London LL1099
• Carnival in the Sun, London LL1100
• Festival in Costa Rica, London LL1101
• Music for Romance, London LL1149
• Cuban Moonlight, London LL1166
• Music of Richard Rodgers, London LL1209
• Plays for Latin Lovers, London LL1248
• The Night Was Made for Love, London LL1307
• Summer Evening Serenade, London LL1332
• The Music of Lecuona, London LL1438
• Music of Cole Porter, London LL1565
• Red Velvet, London LL1592
• Tropical Moonlight, London LL1615
• Moonlight Cocktail, London LL1709 (Dec 1957)
• Place Pigalle, London LL1742
• Sophisticate in Cuba, London LL 1781
• The All Time Top Tangos, London PS 176
• More Top Tangos, Decca SKL 4812
• Gershwin Goes Latin, London PS 206
• Ravel - Bolero, London Phase 4 SPC 21003
• Rhapsody in Blue, London Phase 4 21009
• Spectacular Dances for Orchestra, London Phase 4 SP 21020
• Overture!, London Phase 4 21028
• Great Rhapsodies, London Phase 4 21030
• Exotic Percussion, London Phase 4 SP 44004
• Spain, London Phase 4 SP 44016
• Film Spectacular, London Phase 4 SP 44025
• Film Spectacular Vol.2, London Phase 4 SP 44031
• Music of a People, London Phase 4 SP 44060
• Broadway Spectacular, London Phase 4 SP 44071
• Russia, London Phase 4 SP 44075
• Film Spectacular Vol.3, London Phase 4 SP 44078
• Broadway Blockbusters, London Phase 4 44088
• Dimensions in Sound, London Phase 4 SP 44105
• Fiddler on the Roof, London Phase 4 44121
• Film Spectacular Vol. 4, London Phase 4 44173
• Rhapsody in Blue, London Phase 4 21009
• Digital Spectacular!, London LDP 30001
• Film Spectacular Vol. 5, London Phase 4 SP 44225

Selected filmography[link]

• Laughter in Paradise (1951)
• Behind the Headlines (1956)
• Make Mine a Million (1959)
• Rattle of a Simple Man (1964)

References[link]

• David Ades' biography at the Robert Farnon Society

External links[link]

• Stanley Black at the Internet Movie Database
• Detailed biography at the Robert Farnon Society
• Stanley Black at Allmusic
• http://www.spaceagepop.com/black.htm

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011)

Stewart Francis is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor and writer. In addition to his work in Canada and the USA, he frequently tours in the UK and appears on British television. Both of Francis' parents are British.^[1]

Career[link]

Stand-up[link]

Francis delivers a deadpan performance with many one-liners.^[2][3]

Francis has headlined all over North America and the United Kingdom, and performed in numerous venues worldwide, including Hong Kong, South Africa, and throughout Europe.^[4]

On 6 June 2009 he performed on the Edinburgh section of Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.

Francis was the support act for Ricky Gervais on his Science tour,^[5] performing in such places as Portsmouth Guildhall, New Theatre, Oxford, Brighton Centre and the O2 Arena in Dublin in late 2009 and early 2010.

He has also made 9 appearances on popular British panel show Mock The Week.

He appeared on Live at the Apollo on 9 December 2010.

Acting[link]

Stewart starred as a series regular on An American in Canada and also acted in Kevin Hill. In 2007, he appeared in an episode of the BBC sitcom Not Going Out as Hillary Allison (The producers said in an interview that he had been considered for the part of recurring character Guy, but rejected because he was too young and given this role instead). He also made a brief appearance in The Omid Djalili Show.

Writing[link]

Stewart has written for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Gemini Awards and Puppets Who Kill, as well as having his work published in The Hockey News.

Television work[link]

In the US he's a regular guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and he was the host of trivia game show You Bet Your Ass. In the UK, his TV appearances include The Comedy Store, Mock the Week, 8 out of 10 Cats, The Big Stage, For One Night Only, and Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. After his first appearance on Mock the Week as an almost unknown, he was so successful he was asked back three more times in the series that followed, making him a website favourite to replace Frankie Boyle. In 2010 Stewart appeared in a special Children in Need episode of Mastermind (TV series) where his specialist subject was the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Stand-Up DVDs[link]

• Live - Tour de Francis (22 November 2010)
• Live: Outstanding in His Field (26 November 2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Stewart Francis at the Internet Movie Database