Vera Lynn
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| Vera Lynn | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Vera Margaret Welch |
| Born | 20 March 1917  East Ham, London, England |
| Genre(s) | Traditional Pop |
| Years active | 1935-1995 |
| Label(s) | UK Decca, EMI |
Dame Vera Lynn DBE (born 20 March 1917) is a popular British vocalist whose career flourished during World War II, when she was nicknamed "The Forces' Sweetheart". Among her numerous popular songs are "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs of Dover". She was considered one of the major entertainers during World War II.
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[edit] Early life
Lynn was born Vera Margaret Welch on 20 March 1917 in East Ham, London. Later she adopted her grandmother's maiden name Lynn as her stage name. She began singing at the age of seven in a working men's club. Her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra, was in 1935. At this point she was being featured on records released by dance bands including Loss's and Charlie Kunz's. In 1936 she made her first solo record, on the Crown label, "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire". This label was soon swallowed up by Decca. After a short stint with Loss she stayed with Kunz for a few years during which she recorded several standards. She later moved to the aristocrat of British dance bands, Bert Ambrose.
[edit] War years
Lynn married clarinetist and saxophonist Harry Lewis in 1939, the year World War II broke out. In 1940 she began her own radio series, "Sincerely Yours", sending messages to British troops stationed abroad. In this show she and a quartet performed the songs most requested of her by soldiers abroad. She also went into hospitals to interview new mothers and send messages to their husbands overseas. She toured Egypt, India, Burma and gave outdoor concerts for soldiers.
In 1942 she recorded the Ross Parker/Hughie Charles song "We'll Meet Again" while making the film of the same name. The nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day") had a great appeal to the many people separated from loved ones during the war, and it became one of the emblematic songs of the wartime period.
[edit] Post-war career
After the war, her "Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart" became the first record by a British artist to top the US charts, doing so for nine weeks, and she appeared regularly on Tallulah Bankhead's US radio programme "The Big Show". "Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart", along with "The Homing Waltz" and "Forget-Me-Not" gave Lynn a remarkable three entries on the first UK Singles Chart, a top 12 (which contained 15 songs owing to tied positions).
Lynn's career flourished in the 1950s, peaking with "My Son, My Son", a number-one hit in 1954. Lynn (who had one daughter) co-wrote the song with Eddie Calvert. In early 1960, Lynn left Decca Records, with whom she had been for nearly 25 years, and joined EMI. There, she recorded for EMI's Columbia, MGM and HMV labels.
Lynn was appointed an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1969 and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1975. In 1976 a charity dedicated to funding breast cancer research was founded, Lynn being its chair and later its president [1].
She sang outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony marking the golden jubilee of VE Day. Lynn, then 78, decided to go out on a high as this is her last known public performance.
However, while in Hawaii around 1988, she was spotted in the Tahitian Lanai having dinner. She was asked if she would sing a song. Never wanting to displease an audience, she sang a medley of her hits for around 30 minutes.
In 2002, at the age of 85 she became the president of the cerebral palsy charity SOS and hosted a celebrity concert on its behalf at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
[edit] Recent years
The United Kingdom's VE Day Diamond Jubilee Ceremonies in 2005 included a concert in Trafalgar Square in which Vera Lynn made a surprise appearance. She made a speech praising the veterans and calling upon the younger generation always to remember their sacrifice and joined in with a bar or two of We'll Meet Again. Following that year's Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance Dame Vera encouraged the Welsh mezzo-soprano singer Katherine Jenkins to assume the mantle of "Forces Sweetheart".
In her speech she said, "These boys gave their lives and some came home badly injured and for some families, life would never be the same. We should always remember, we should never forget and we should teach the children to remember."
[edit] Recordings by Vera Lynn
- 1935
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- "The General's Fast Asleep"; "No Regrets"; "When the Poppies Bloom Again"; "I'm in the Mood for Love" (Rex Records); "Sailing Home With The Tide" (Rex Records); "Thanks A Million" (Rex Records)
- 1936
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- "Heart Of Gold" (Rex Records); "A Star Fell Out Of Heaven" (Rex Records); "Crying My Heart Out For You" (Rex Records); "It's Love Again" (Rex Records); "Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?" (Rex Records): "Have You Forgotten So Soon?" (Rex Records); "Everything Is Rhythm" (Rex Records)
- 1937
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- "When My Dream Boat Comes Home" (Rex Records); "Goodnight, My Love" (Rex Records); "All Alone In Vienna" (Rex Records)
- 1939
- 1940
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- "Careless"; *"Until You Fall in Love"; "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow"; "When You Wish upon a Star"; "Memories Live Longer Than Dreams"; "There'll Come Another Day"; "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover".
- 1941
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- "Smilin' Through"; "When They Sound the Last All Clear"; "Yours"; "My Sister and I"; "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire".
- 1942
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- "You're in my Arms".
- 1948
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- "You Can't Be True, Dear" (1948); "Again".
- 1952
- 1954 onwards
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- "My Son, My Son" (UK number 1, 1954); "The Homing Waltz"; "Forget Me Not"; "Windsor Waltz"; "Who Are We"; "A House With Love In It"; "The Faithful Hussar (Don't Cry My Love)"; "Travellin' Home"; Hits Of The Sixties (album); "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"; "Everybody's Talking"; "The Fool On The Hill".
- 1982
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- "I Love This Land" (Falklands War song)".
- Albums recorded for EMI from 1960 onwards
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- "Yours" 1961
- "As Time Goes By" 1961
- "Hits From The Blitz" 1962
- "Among My Souvenirs" 1964
- "More Hits Of The Blitz" 1966
- "Hits Of The 60's - My Way" 1970
- "Favourite Sacred Songs" 1972
- "Christmas With Vera Lynn" 1976
- "Vera Lynn In Nashville" 1977
In March 2007 EMI issued a 2CD set of all Vera Lynn's single only recordings from her EMI contract 1960-1977.
[edit] Films
- We'll Meet Again (1942)
- Rhythm Serenade (1943)
- One Exciting Night (1944)
[edit] Trivia
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- Vera released the Lynsey De Paul/Barry Blue penned song Don't You Remember When in 1976 as a single. The song showcased her vocal talents as well as had a nostalgic feel and featured backing vocals from Lynsey as well as tamborine by her boyfriend Ringo Starr.
- Pink Floyd wrote a song called "Vera" for their 1979 album The Wall as a reference to her and her song "We'll Meet Again" ; in the film based on the album, a Christmas song "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" by Vera Lynn is played over the opening credits ; the band also used her song "We'll Meet Again" as an introduction on their shows of the tour of this album. As well Roger Waters used the song during the introductions on his 2006-2008 world tour "Dark Side of The Moon Live". The song Vera was played during the show.
- She has written two autobiographies. "Vocal Refrain" in 1970, and "We'll Meet Again" in the early 1990s.
- Vera Lynn went to what is now called Brampton Primary School in Masterman Road, East Ham.
- Vera made a guest appearance on the 1972 Christmas Edition of The Morecambe & Wise Show
- Gary Numan recorded "War Songs" with lyrics "Old Men Love War Songs / Love Vera Lynn" on his 1982 album "I, Assassin".
- Vera Lynns or "Veras" is cockney rhyming slang for "skins", the name given to a particular brand of rolling papers.
- "Vera" is also rhyming slang for gin, since gin rhymes with Lynn.
- Vera Lynn is mentioned in the Call of Duty 3 game by Treyarch. Her namesake is provided to two jeeps. "Vera" and "Lynn".
- Mike Myers sang The White Cliffs of Dover on an episode of Saturday Night Live.
- Dr Strangelove directed by Stanley Kubrick's concludes with a rendition of Vera singing "We'll Meet Again".
- Jon Hare from Sensible Software is presented as "Vera Lynn" in the intro from Cannon Fodder.
- In the alternative-history novel "SS-GB" by Len Deighton, Vera Lynn is mentioned as helping keep up the spirits of people in a fictional Nazi-occupied Britain.
- A 5 piece metal band from Rancho Cucamonga, California also uses the band name Vera Lynn.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Vera Lynn, Vocal Refrain, 1975, W.H. Allen, London.
- R. Cross, We'll Meet Again
