George Formby, OBE (26 May 1904 – 6 March 1961), born George Hoy Booth, was a British comedy actor, singer-songwriter, and comedian. He sang light, comical songs, accompanying himself on the banjo ukulele or banjolele. He was a major star of stage and screen in the 1930s and 1940s.
Formby was born at 3 Westminster Street, Wigan, Lancashire, as George Hoy Booth. The eldest of seven surviving children, Formby was born blind because of an obstructive caul. His sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old.His father James Booth used the stage name George Formby, adopted from the town of Formby, Lancashire. He was one of the great music hall comedians of his day, fully the equal of his son's later success. His father, not wishing him to watch his performances, moved the family to Atherton Road in Hindley. It was from there that the younger Formby was apprenticed as a jockey when he was seven. He rode his first professional race at 10, when he weighed under 4 stone (56 lb; 25 kg).
Andy Clyde (March 25, 1892 — May 18, 1967) was a Scottish movie and TV actor whose career spanned more than four decades. He broke into silent films in 1925 as a Mack Sennett comic. Born Andrew Allan Clyde, he was the fifth of six children of Scottish theatrical actor, producer and manager John Clyde. Both his brother David and sister Jean also became screen actors.
Andy Clyde first went to America in 1912 on tour in a company performing a play called The Concealed Bed. At the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, he went back to the United States in the early 1920s to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians.
Clyde's mastery of makeup allowed him tremendous versatility; he could play everything from grubby young guttersnipes to old crackpot scientists. He hit upon an "old man" characterization in his short comedies, which were immediately successful. Adopting a gray wig and mustache, he used this makeup for the rest of his short-subject career, and the character was so durable that he literally grew into it. He starred in short comedies longer than any other actor: 27 years.
Alexander Minto Hughes (2 May 1945 - 13 March 1998), better known as Judge Dread, was an English reggae and ska musician. He was the first white recording artist to have a reggae hit in Jamaica, and the BBC has banned more of his songs than any other recording artist due to his frequent use of sexual innuendo and double entendres.
Hughes was introduced to Jamaican music when he lodged as a teenager in a West Indian household in Brixton, South West London. He met Jamaican artists Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster through his job as a bouncer at London nightclubs such as the Ram Jam in Brixton, and through another job as a bodyguard. After a brief spell as a professional wrestler (performing under the name "The Masked Executioner"), and as a debt collector for Trojan Records, he worked as a DJ on local radio and ran his own sound system.
When Prince Buster had a big underground hit in 1969 with "Big 5", Hughes capitalized on it with the recording of his own "Big Six", based on Verne & Son's "Little Boy Blue", which was picked up by Trojan boss Lee Gopthal, and released on Trojan's 'Big Shot' record label under the stage name Judge Dread, the name taken from another of Prince Buster's songs. "Big Six" reached #11 in the UK Singles Chart in 1972, selling over 300,000 copies and spending six months on the chart, despite getting no radio airplay due to its lyrics. Further hit singles followed with "Big Seven" (co-written by Rupie Edwards) and "Big Eight" — both following the pattern of lewd versions of nursery rhymes over a reggae backing — as well as "Y Viva Suspenders" and "Up With The Cock".
Andy Eastwood (born 1981 in Blackburn, Lancashire) is a vaudeville entertainer and ukulele player.
His interest in the ukulele and banjolele began when his grandfather gave him his first instrument as a child, and after reading music at the University of Oxford, where he also studied violin and piano, he graduated as the historic university's first musician ever to give a degree recital on the ukulele.
After cutting his teeth as a cabaret performer, Eastwood broke into theatre and developed a reputation as a multi-instrumental variety act, combining his instrumental and vocal prowess with comic delivery, notably reminiscent of British film comedian George Formby, to whom (amongst others) Eastwood pays tribute in his act. Recent years have seen him touring as an opening act and supporting act for Ken Dodd, Danny La Rue, Ronnie Ronalde and also starring in a wartime revue called We'll Meet Again.
His first CD album in 1999, was Ukulele Serenade; it featured the comic songs of George Formby and various ukulele arrangements of well known standards. It was championed by BBC Radio 2 presenter Desmond Carrington. Subsequent releases have included Ukulele Mania (2004),We'll Meet Again (2005),Bring Me Sunshine (2007), and Ukulele Mania Bonus Edition (2009). In addition to the ukulele and banjolele, he plays violin, guitar, banjo, piano, keyboards, drums, bass, washboard, and of course, vocals, on his recordings.