Amazing story about Ruby.

[Bernie Burgess]

Hello Friends

An amazing story has come to light recently which I think will fascinate readers. It started to evolve when a song/piano copy came to light carrying Ruby's photograph on the cover. Questions were being asked as to who could come up with the answer to this mystery concerning a copy of 'Never, Never Land'. The general feeling was that it was possibly a song that Ruby could have sung on the BBC2 TV series of 'Quite Contrary' in the early 50s. During the debate David Frankish, the ex fan club secretary, remembering that he had tape recorded most of Ruby's T.V. and radio performances by holding a microphone to the T.V. or Radio speakers, decided to search his memorabilia AND a stored a box of audio tapes in his home. Some years ago, he was burgled and the 'offenders' caused a fire in his home and consequently a sudstantial amount of damage was done. Fortunately, although smoke damaged, the box of audio tapes were not too badly damaged. He decided to send the box of audio tapes to Gerald to see what was on them and whether they could be salvaged.

I need now to join another story to this one to complete the mystery.

As long ago as 1954, the group that I was with - The Jones Boys, were doing a tour of variety theatres, one of the venues was in Doncaster, where all three of the other members of the group lived. It was the Gaumont Cinema, a venue that ocasionally stage variety bills. Apart from ourselves, the bill included,- The Ray Ellington Quartet, Marion Ryan, and Spike Milligan.(yes, he did a few variety dates in those days but it was not his medium).

After a fantastic Monday night opening, I called at the theatre the following morning to see what mail there was and took the mail to the little cafe next door to read over a cup of coffee. Juke boxes were all the rage at that time and I discovered a record by The McGuire Sisters singing 'Do You Remember When?' The song struck me as being and ideal song and dance number, i.e, straw hat and cane. However we didn't ever use the number in our act, so I shelved the song.

Years later I met and married Ruby in Blackpool in 1957. We frequently discussed songs that suited Ruby and I assisted her with choosing new songs and helping her to stage them. It took a great deal of persuasion to get Ruby to change her songs and to include new ones, simply because she was terrified to do so. Quite often a new song was chosen and ideas were rehearsed regarding how to stage it. When the moment came to include the song Ruby's nerves prevented it from being included. At the very last moment she would pass a message to the musical director to take the song out of the programme. Out of the blue, Ruby suggested that we rehearsed a duet together and with me on stage with her she would find it easier to include the new song. I was reluctant to do a duet because I didn't want the fans to think that I was muscling in on her act. It would have also been extremely difficult for Ruby's family to accept my inclusion in Ruby's performance and it would have fanned the already existing flames. Ruby persisted with her idea and eventualy I decided that it might be helpful to her and agreed to do a duet.

The shelved song - 'Do You Remember When?' came to mind and I played the song to Ruby and she too thought that it would make a great straw hat and cane routine. Ruby purchased a very beautiful parasol (which to this day stands proudly on my hallstand, inside a tube for protection) and I worked out a routine for us to perform. Including the song in her act proved to be a simple matter and the audiences loved it. I made a cocktail bar, which extended to twice it's size by means of foldable flaps, and it would be positioned upstage behind curtains. During Ruby's rendition of 'Mr. Wonderful' the curtains opened to reveal me sitting at the bar with my back to the audience. Using a trailing microphone, Ruby made he way upstage and around the bar to face me for the end of the song. She would then introduce me as "My Mr. Wonderful' and we made our way downstage to go into the routine - 'Do You Remember When?' - it was always received very well.

In around 1960, Ruby was asked to deputize for Shirley Bassey, (who had fallen sick), on the hugely successful T.V. series of 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium' which was ocasionally staged at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Ruby agreed to stand in but she wanted us to perform the duet together on the show. I was delighted that she thought so much of the routine that she wanted to include it on television. Paul Burnett, who was originally the Jones Boys musical director, was Ruby's M.D, at that time. He was the proud owner of a new 8mm cine camera and, despite the fact that photography was forbidden in the theatre, he sneaked into the auditorium and took a small snippet of movie film of the routine, which is amongst my memorabilia to this day. The routine stayed in Ruby's act for quite some time afterwards.

Returning now to the earlier story regarding Gerald receiving the audio tapes from David Frankish. Gerald's brother had an old reel to reel tape recorder which needed repairing, Gerald obliged. He duly opened the first box of audio tapes and started playing them back on the repaired tape machine. I then received an email from Gerald telling me that he was sending me an 'attachment' of a 'Surprise Song'. I was all agog in anticipation of what he had sent to me. At first I had great difficulting in finding ways to play back the - 'Surprise Song,' but when I managed to achieve playback - WOW! what a teriffic surprise, - it was the duet that Ruby and I did on television 47 years earlier - in 1960.

I am hopeful that when you have read this story Gerald will have arranged for me.. or himself. to upload this unique duet, the one and only, so that everyone can listen to it. On reflection, I know that Gerald is currently away from home for a while but perhaps when he returns he will be able to make the song available to listen to and for it to link up with this story - Fingers crossed.

Adios Amigos. Bernie.

[Jk]

Hi, Bernie, what a lovely story. Of course both Kathleen and myself remember the song very well having seen you and Ruby perform it on a few occasions, especially at Margate. Has you know I have the said song, and would be pleased to upload it for you, if you wish, it is entirely up to you, just let me know.

[Bernie Burgess]

Hello John.

I have established that Gerald is away for a week, so if you can upload the song to link up with the story I would be very pleased. So too might other fans who may wish to hear the song, as I know our friend in Canada - Ralph is quite eager to listen to it.

Please oblige John.

Adios Amigo. Bernie.

[rbl.ca]

Hi John, and Bernie.

Yes, I would very much like to hear this duet, and have already suggested to Bernie that many viewers might like the opportunity.

Please, John, do it soon.

Best regards to both of you.
Ralph

[Jk]

Hi Friends, on behalf of Bernie and Gerald, I have just uploaded "Do You Remember" sung by Ruby & Bernie. I am sorry I did not put the title of the song, but the name of the singers, but I was in a rush to get it on for you all, and I clanged. The whole of the song is on, so please enjoy. I must say Gerald has done a wonderful job with the quality of the recording, it is almost CD quality, so don't for get friends all the praise must go to Gerald, and Bernie, I only uploaded it, and messed that up.

Yesterday was the first time out of bed for a few week, I have been quite ill, so when I saw the post Bernie had put on the site I was really pleased, and excited, so I will put the small mistake I made down to that.

[Don Wearmouth]

Just downloaded "Do you remember" - congratulations to all concerned for bringing this recording to light after all those years. What memories it brings back.

[rbl.ca]

Hello Bernie, Gerald & John.

I have just played "Do You Remember" and am very pleased with the quality of the recording.
It's a very 'cute' song, with nice changes of tempo.

Bernie, I wish I'd seen it 'live'.

Well done to you all.
Ralph

[MARTIN FOSTER]

Hi guys,

John, thank you very much for taking the time to upload this track to the website for all of us to enjoy.

Bernie and Gerald, well done on unearthing yet another great recording. The sound quality is very good and Ruby sounds excellent and of course Bernie accompanying. What a shame those early progrmames were never recorded. Can we hope for any more exciting recordings turning up?

Best regards.

Martin.

[Bernie Burgess]

Hello Martin, Hello Friends,

The person who really deserves our praise for this new find is David Frankish, if he hadn't placed his microphone in front of his television set in 1960 we would never have had this treasured memory. (Isn't science a wonderful thing?). Gerald told me, before he departed for his trip, that he had only played back the first couple of tapes out of the box so perhaps we might be in for even more surprises. Having said that we must not bank on it.

I consider myself extremely lucky that I have such an abundance of friends who are such staunch fans of Ruby's and that I can still converse with them about her after all these years. - 'What Could Be More Beautiful?'


Adios Amigos. Bernie.

[Graham Bunn]

First of all thanks very much John for uploading the song for us all to hear and I'm sure all Ruby Murray fans will be sorry to hear that you have been unwell of late and we wish you a speedy recovery.

What a wonderful find this has turned out to be and I'm sure many happy memories came flooding back for you Bernie.

I can remember so well the duets you and Ruby did together as part of your act (I think I saw you singing together at the Palace Theatre in Blackpool).

Lets hope Gerald can find some more material upon these tapes and I thank David for making it all possible.

Best Wishes

[Gerald Lawrence]

I am glad everyone is enjoying the Ruby/Bernie duet, which was the first one on the first tape. The second one on the tape is another of their duets, a version of "Pretty Irish Girl", but I haven't yet processed it for cleaning.

I also haven't had a chance yet to capture and listen in detail to many more of the tapes, but the ones I have tried so far generally fall into 5 categories:

• 1. Interviews with Ruby, but no songs, or just excerpts from her records
  2. Copies of her records
  3. Studio versions of Ruby singing a song that was released on record
  4. Studio versions of Ruby singing an un-released song
  5. Ruby, recorded during her cabaret act

Category 1 will give us more examples of Ruby's lovely talking voice, even though I suspect the questions and answers will tend to repeat themselves to a certain extent.
Category 2 is not really worth doing, because we have all of Ruby's released songs in better quality than can be obtained from these old reel to reel tapes.
Category 3 are worth listening to, since they offer an alternative version to the ones with which we are all familiar, even though the studio arrangement will probably follow closely that on the record.
Category 4 are perhaps the most exciting, and include the duets mentioned above, but I expect there to be very few of these, so you should not get your hopes up too high.
Category 5 is also potentially very exciting, since it is known that Ruby started including in her cabaret act a number of songs which she never recorded. However, I know from experience that generally the quality of recording is very poor (since it depends on where the person was sitting, and was usually made on a portable cassette recorder). The other problem may be the quality of the accompaniment, which will certainly not be a full Ray Martin orchestra. Nevertheless, I will certainly check all of these out, in the hope that something can be made of them.

There is no doubt that what David Frankish has kindly given me is very valuable, but in these days of super high quality from CDs, I just don't want anyone to expect too much. We should also bear in mind the story of these tapes, and their being subjected to smoke and fire damage. The outside of each box shows quite a bit of dirt (which fortunately does not seem to have got through to the playing surface of the tape). However, the heat has in some places distorted the plastic reel and the actual tape itself, and caused some of the oxide layer to become detached. Other tapes have windings sticking to each other, and have to be gently prised apart before they will pass through the playback head. In many cases the blank leader tape has come off, presumably because the heat has destroyed the adhesive that held it to the tape.

So it seems that I have a big challenge ahead of me, and I plan to take my time and do it all very carefully. I am conscious of the fact that we probably have only one opportunity to safely capture this material before the tapes start degenerating even further, so I do want to take my time. Also, I am sure you will agree that the two people who should get priority in hearing any results are Bernie and David, and I have already promised David that I will copy everything onto some CDs for him to listen to. Once this has been done, I can then set about making the results available to my Friends of Ruby Murray.

In another posting, Bernie was wondering what challenge we would have ahead of us for 2007, after all the great achievements of 2006 - well, it looks as if we have found it.

[Jk]

Gerald, thank you so much for all the information you have provided, it really is exciting,and something to look forward too. It does not matter how long it takes, we now know at the end of the day we will have some more unseen memorabilia, If it is anything like the quality of the duet, that would be marvellous.
anyhow keep up the good work,keep us informed on the progress.

And I must say a special thank you to David for making all this possible.

[MARTIN FOSTER]

Hi guys,

I hope you are all well.

John, I am sorry you have been ill. I hope that at this stage you are feeling much better.

This is just a quick note to say how excited I am about all these old recordings that have turned up thanks to David Frankish. David, you have been sitting on a goldmine all of these years. Thank you for entrusting your treasured memorabilia to Gerald. I am especially looking forward to (hopefully) hearing the alternative version of "Pretty Irish Girl", alternative versions of songs already recorded and live cabaret performances. I do hope the tapes are not beyond repair and that they can be processed by Gerald's expert hands.

So much has happened over the past year or so it is quite remarkable. We have had Bernie's biography, the CD anthology, the plaque unveiling in Belfast and the "Songbirds" DVD. Then we had the discovery of the recording of "Lucky Star", the Pathe video Clip of Ruby recording "Bambino"and now the recording of "Do you remember". The amazing thing is that all of this is happening 50 years after Ruby had her hits in the chart. I wonder if Kylie will be able to boast the same?

Bye for now.

Martin.

[Bernie Burgess]

Hello Friends

In addition to the comments that Gerald has made about the quality of the sound that might come from the audio tapes that he is so carefully retrieving. I should point out that both of the duets, 'Do You Remember When?. and 'Pretty Irish Girl' were filmed or recorded from a stage presentation of the songs. In other words, Ruby and I were not stationary at a microphone during the television appearance but actually working a routine. Consequently, balance and quality of the duets will undoubtedly effect the outcome.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it is to listen to Ruby and I singing together. it has brought back floods of memories.

Whatever the outcome of Gerald's hard work I hope very much that everyone will enjoy it, I certainly will.

Happy Listening. Adios Amigos. Bernie

[Gerald Lawrence]

"Pretty Irish Girl" is now available for downloading from the Library!

This is the one recorded in 1960 or 1963 we think, when Ruby and Bernie were duetting in a programme from the Prince of Wales theatre and broadcast on ITV. Sorry about the fast fade-out at the end, but this is how it is on the tape, but it won't spoil your enjoyment of this song.