Thank you - there was talk about a movie chronicling Al Bowlly's life - it never happened - it was believed there lacked a third act - but, there is a third act and this is it - a legion of fans born long years after Al died young in that dreadful conflict - the story of a man - who now is recognized as one of the great voices - taken for granted in his own time and now listed up there with Sinatra, Crosby, Bennett, Nat King Cole and what is more - he did it first - he is one of the great voices
@@flannerymonaghan-morris4825Biopic of Al Bowlly might be a little difficult if they were going to do an honest job of it. We all loved him and his performances but off the stage was a different matter. He was a major womanizer, routinely telling women he loved them, getting what he wanted, then promptly ditching them & moving on. He was a classic histrionic personality type with a pathological need to be at the center of attention. He either hated you or loved you, no in between, and if he loved you it was all superficial and meant nothing. He was also known to be a violent drunk with a hair trigger temper. So maybe better to just remember his performances and not his private life.
when you think about it we got off lightly in ww2 in losing famous people. Easy to recall a cricketer, Hedley Verity, the Duke of Kent, Leslie Howard and that's it. The most famous name to die was Glenn Miller and he was American. And of course now Al who posthumously has crept up to No 1.
Mr. Bowly was from my Grandparents era. I discovered his music not long ago and have become a fan. He was multitalented with his singing and guitar playing. His personality reflected in his beautiful music he left behind for all generations. He will always remain forever young. ❤🎤🎶 Thank you for sharing this lovely video in honor of Mr. Bowly.
Glad you like it. My guess is that he was an OK guitarist. In the 'band leader' it was customary to allocate an instrument to a singer so that he had something to do with his hands during the intrumental choruses that usually occupied far more time that the vocals. There a stories of singers being given violas with rubber strings. The only film of him playing guitar (a Selmer Maccaferri 'Grande Bouche') has him doing so with a rather glazed expression, I think with the Ray Noble band. He did do some busking with guitar. The publicity pics for 'Radio Stars With Two Guitars' show him with a 4-string tenor guitar.
I’m happy that you made this. It’s always sad when I read about Al Bowlly’s death and how his life was cut so short. Its nice to see an alternate reality where he survived and lived on until he was old. Please don’t ever delete this. ❤
@@thegamingboyrblx8631 The real singer in the 'Michael Parkinson' sequence was Fred Astaire, with Al''s head rather implausibly superimposed. Fred was of a similar vintage
Al deserves a lasting memorial -- to the loss of life and genuine talent. Glenn Miller has a headstone in his honor at Arlington Cemetery, I've been told. So, why not a tribute marker of some sort for Bowlly and Leslie Howard in London as well?
Yes, there's a headstone in Arlington. [IIRC it has a historical error, identfying Maj. Miller as a member of the Army Air Corps rather than the Army Air Forces.]
It’s really haunting to think of the what ifs-what if he hadn’t taken the last train home and stayed overnight? What if he had not come back to the UK? He very well had the chance to become the male equivalent of Vera Lynn. He was well on his way to becoming a global megastar, up there with Bing Crosby, in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Thing was, he had some voice problems in 1937 after he had a wart found in his throat, causing him to temporarily lose his voice, and due to being away quite often from the UK, his rise to potential mega stardom never happened. He never really recovered from that, as he continued to have problems with his voice even after he had surgery for the wart in his throat, which affected the frequency of his recordings (this is hard to tell for modern ears, because of the fact that he . His star looked to be on the rise again in 1940, but he never really did get his chance to make a comeback. This dude really did deserve to become a global mega star, up there with Bing Crosby. I bet he would have been delighted that he was featured in The Shining prominently.!
I believe - all be it after his passing - he has become a great star - When he died many believed his best years were already behind him - we shall never know - but, time has proven what a fantastic talent he had - even Grosby was rumored to have said -He had a great talent - he recorded more songs in 13 years than many artists recorded in 40 and for that, we should be greatful
In the Melody Maker report of his death they were very positive about how well he and Jimmy Mesene were doing. That could well have been out of respect for him. Jimmy's drink problem made him unreliable, a fact I slyly alluded to in the scene of their last parting. I think he could well have become a successful singer of lush ballads if his voice held up. When I was considering his fictitious repertoire, Lerner and Loewe's "On the Street Where You Live" jumped out at me as a song he could have been all over like a cheap suit.
❤ want to say goodbye but instead will be hello from the year now 2023 of Sept 10th beautiful autumn in the ☀️ state your music have riched my ears and is wonderful to have the pleasure tyvm
If I may add, it is with a certain sadness, that I look upon the maturing face of Al, knowing that this is a face he never was destined to have - I have thought to myself - had he lived for - shall we say 50 more years - he could have turned up on Parkinson and had his picture taken with Sir Micheal - as it is - if I was asked to sum up the 1930's in a few words - I would, Laurel and Hardy, Gangster movies, the depression, and Al Bowlly
Isn't it sad - Memories are made of this, love me tender, strangers in the night, my way, You belong to me, under the bridges of Paris - so many @@alternateunreleasedshellac505
The part of him retiring to the Greek island, Hydra, gave me a warm feeling, like in an alternate universe he actually did do that, and I feel like a Greek island would even be his choice! That part fit as perfectly as a puzzle piece. Brilliant!
As a fairly young fan of Al’s music (and the british dance bands in general), this made me really happy! I do wish that this biopic about him would’ve been made, but this short, alternate timeline is pretty sweet, too! I send you congrats from Yankee-land (if you are British). If not, congrats still!
Thank you, so much for such a creative video-tribute to a great artist. My only request is that the images go by more slowly so that I can take it all in.
It's intentional. Obviously all the images are fake; they are there to give an impression of a busy celebrity life. If the images were slower you'd start to notice the flaky way they were constructed. They're telling a story.
Thanks, it was interesting putting it together. I found an image of a heinkel crew where they looked like nerdy kids, the pilot even has glasses. Putting them on a collision course with Al seemed appropriate.
It's so annoying that AL looks like AI. Speaking of which, the only teensy bit I used was to age his face, and all the face-swapping was a manual process.
What a wonderful creation this is- an alternate universe, where Al perhaps didn't make it back into town, that night of the 16th. A bomb on the lines into Marylebone was all that would be required to change musical history. Your snapshots of a life which might have been, are so well imagined.
That could work. Certainly there was a mutual admiration with Noble. I felt that he and Nat Gonella would have found themselves in a very similar position, rather bewildered through the 50's by bebop on one side and the rough teenage enthusiasms of skiffle, rock and roll and trad on the other.
Interesting concept. What might have been. Perhaps Glenn Miller would have given his old pal Al a break to perform with his AFF band in 1944. (His great rival Sam Browne did the odd performance with them). However, Sam had his last big hit 'Heartbreaker' in 1948 and also the likes of Denny Denis ran out of steam by the late 40's. I suspect Al's career would have been over by the early 50's with changing popular music tastes by then. Perhaps Al would have retired back to South Africa then
That's a VERY interesting idea! About 20 years ago I got involved in an alt-timeline group where a bunch of us contributed chapters to Miller's life, had his pilot not flown into the Channel*. However all of us missed the idea that Al Bowlly might also have survived in that universe. (*) OK, to pre-answer the next questions ... we had him following many of the plans he had for his post-war career, including movies and TV shows as well as founding a chain of music stores. We split the timeline in the 1950s: one led to his continuing as a composer and conductor in a world where swing and jazz continued to evolve; in the other he re-connected with Eugene Ormandy and, like Ormandy, switched from popular music to the classical world where he eventually took over the NBC Symphony in 1959. But like Al Bowlly, we'll never know 😩😫😢
Certainly in 1941, things didn't look great for him. I ran with the idea of building on the guitar sound and latterly re-connecting with Nat Gonella. I tried thinking about what songs of the 50's would have actually suited him and the one that stood out for me was 'on the street where you live'. As regards retirement, I sent him to Greece because he likely spoke some greek, which he could have got from his father. I also wanted to slyly engineer a meeting with Leonard Cohen
Incidentally I've done an extended version of this vid that has an introduction to who he was and what his real fate was ruclips.net/video/emSA-fuWq0E/видео.html
It's fantastic, you can also use AI to do these kinds of videos as well. This is really , really good, it would have been marvellous if Al had continued. Well done !
At 0:39 I remember this railway shot, it came from "Brief Encounter" (1945). And at 0:41 I'm afraid that photo of this steam engine was taken around the 1950s.
Sharp eyes. You'd also find I stole Celia Johnson's back for the 'looking at the poster' scene. TBH, this was aimed more at the music fans than the rail fans ;-)
@@Poisson4147 It was just one of those phone apps, can't remember which one. I fed it a lot of images and only a few really worked. The 'abbey road' sequence was the most laborious as I had to take a snippet of video (probably from 'the very thought of you) and run each frame through the app. I then had to trace him out of each frame so I could place him in front of the orchestra
Thank you - there was talk about a movie chronicling Al Bowlly's life - it never happened - it was believed there lacked a third act - but, there is a third act and this is it - a legion of fans born long years after Al died young in that dreadful conflict - the story of a man - who now is recognized as one of the great voices - taken for granted in his own time and now listed up there with Sinatra, Crosby, Bennett, Nat King Cole and what is more - he did it first - he is one of the great voices
I agree.
It’s about time this dude received a biopic.
@@flannerymonaghan-morris4825Biopic of Al Bowlly might be a little difficult if they were going to do an honest job of it. We all loved him and his performances but off the stage was a different matter.
He was a major womanizer, routinely telling women he loved them, getting what he wanted, then promptly ditching them & moving on.
He was a classic histrionic personality type with a pathological need to be at the center of attention. He either hated you or loved you, no in between, and if he loved you it was all superficial and meant nothing.
He was also known to be a violent drunk with a hair trigger temper. So maybe better to just remember his performances and not his private life.
when you think about it we got off lightly in ww2 in losing famous people. Easy to recall a cricketer, Hedley Verity, the Duke of Kent, Leslie Howard and that's it. The most famous name to die was Glenn Miller and he was American. And of course now Al who posthumously has crept up to No 1.
@@RayJazz1 And wasn't Glenn's death an accident?
Mr. Bowly was from my Grandparents era. I discovered his music not long ago and have become a fan. He was multitalented with his singing and guitar playing. His personality reflected in his beautiful music he left behind for all generations. He will always remain forever young. ❤🎤🎶
Thank you for sharing this lovely video in honor of Mr. Bowly.
Glad you like it. My guess is that he was an OK guitarist. In the 'band leader' it was customary to allocate an instrument to a singer so that he had something to do with his hands during the intrumental choruses that usually occupied far more time that the vocals. There a stories of singers being given violas with rubber strings. The only film of him playing guitar (a Selmer Maccaferri 'Grande Bouche') has him doing so with a rather glazed expression, I think with the Ray Noble band. He did do some busking with guitar. The publicity pics for 'Radio Stars With Two Guitars' show him with a 4-string tenor guitar.
That's a lovely idea! If only he'd had the chance. What a beautiful voice.
I’m happy that you made this. It’s always sad when I read about Al Bowlly’s death and how his life was cut so short. Its nice to see an alternate reality where he survived and lived on until he was old. Please don’t ever delete this. ❤
It was a real challenge trying to think of a plausible extended life for him. Glad you liked it
@@hollingum I'd imagine he'd end up a veteran singer similar to how Bing Crosby was in his later years of the 70s, or Sinatra by the 80s and 90s.
Somehow his death and how he died helps his iconic image - do not misunderstand me -I wish he lived to be 100 @@thegamingboyrblx8631
@@thegamingboyrblx8631 The real singer in the 'Michael Parkinson' sequence was Fred Astaire, with Al''s head rather implausibly superimposed. Fred was of a similar vintage
If only! This made me cry. All the same thank you for doing this. RIP AL. You are still loved.
His voice had such conviction. His song choices eerie but hopeful. What a guy.😢❤😊
Ray Noble was in awe of Bowlly's emotionality. He said something like he doesn't just make me cry, he makes himself cry.
This made me tear up in a way. A great man with a great voice.
Al Bowlly actually met Louis Armstrong in the 1930s.
Indeed, so I thought he had to meet him again in the 50s
Al deserves a lasting memorial -- to the loss of life and genuine talent. Glenn Miller has a headstone in his honor at Arlington Cemetery, I've been told. So, why not a tribute marker of some sort for Bowlly and Leslie Howard in London as well?
... and snakehips Johnson
Well there's a plaque outside one of the addresses Al lived in, and his name is in the cemetery.
Yes, there's a headstone in Arlington.
[IIRC it has a historical error, identfying Maj. Miller as a member of the Army Air Corps rather than the Army Air Forces.]
This is so well edited and a wonderful concept! I love this so much, keep up the amazing work!
It’s really haunting to think of the what ifs-what if he hadn’t taken the last train home and stayed overnight? What if he had not come back to the UK? He very well had the chance to become the male equivalent of Vera Lynn.
He was well on his way to becoming a global megastar, up there with Bing Crosby, in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Thing was, he had some voice problems in 1937 after he had a wart found in his throat, causing him to temporarily lose his voice, and due to being away quite often from the UK, his rise to potential mega stardom never happened. He never really recovered from that, as he continued to have problems with his voice even after he had surgery for the wart in his throat, which affected the frequency of his recordings (this is hard to tell for modern ears, because of the fact that he .
His star looked to be on the rise again in 1940, but he never really did get his chance to make a comeback.
This dude really did deserve to become a global mega star, up there with Bing Crosby. I bet he would have been delighted that he was featured in The Shining prominently.!
I believe - all be it after his passing - he has become a great star - When he died many believed his best years were already behind him - we shall never know - but, time has proven what a fantastic talent he had - even Grosby was rumored to have said -He had a great talent - he recorded more songs in 13 years than many artists recorded in 40 and for that, we should be greatful
In the Melody Maker report of his death they were very positive about how well he and Jimmy Mesene were doing. That could well have been out of respect for him. Jimmy's drink problem made him unreliable, a fact I slyly alluded to in the scene of their last parting. I think he could well have become a successful singer of lush ballads if his voice held up. When I was considering his fictitious repertoire, Lerner and Loewe's "On the Street Where You Live" jumped out at me as a song he could have been all over like a cheap suit.
Beautiful & so poignantly assembled tribute to one of my favourite vocalists. Oh what might have been indeed! TY John ☺
❤ want to say goodbye but instead will be hello from the year now 2023 of Sept 10th beautiful autumn in the ☀️ state your music have riched my ears and is wonderful to have the pleasure tyvm
Beautiful video, I like the style of it. Al Bowlly is one of my favorites, it's sad to think of the life that never was.
Thanks. I tried to make the video move with the times, from deco to 50's modernist to swinging 60's
If wishing could make it true. Singing with the angels.
If I may add, it is with a certain sadness, that I look upon the maturing face of Al, knowing that this is a face he never was destined to have - I have thought to myself - had he lived for - shall we say 50 more years - he could have turned up on Parkinson and had his picture taken with Sir Micheal - as it is - if I was asked to sum up the 1930's in a few words - I would, Laurel and Hardy, Gangster movies, the depression, and Al Bowlly
Imagine the songs he'd sing in the 1960s.
Isn't it sad - Memories are made of this, love me tender, strangers in the night, my way, You belong to me, under the bridges of Paris - so many @@alternateunreleasedshellac505
@alternateunreleasedshellac505 his 40s song sounded like 50s songs and his 30s sounded like 40s songs, he was always 10 years ahead of everyone
There are still singers influenced by Al @@historynerd8251
what a charming animation!
I really wish this is the way it was.
The part of him retiring to the Greek island, Hydra, gave me a warm feeling, like in an alternate universe he actually did do that, and I feel like a Greek island would even be his choice! That part fit as perfectly as a puzzle piece. Brilliant!
As a fairly young fan of Al’s music (and the british dance bands in general), this made me really happy! I do wish that this biopic about him would’ve been made, but this short, alternate timeline is pretty sweet, too! I send you congrats from Yankee-land (if you are British). If not, congrats still!
I have just heard via RUclips All Be It - low quality - an short unissued version of Al singing - When You Wish Upon a Star
Thank you, so much for such a creative video-tribute to a great artist. My only request is that the images go by more slowly so that I can take it all in.
It's intentional. Obviously all the images are fake; they are there to give an impression of a busy celebrity life. If the images were slower you'd start to notice the flaky way they were constructed. They're telling a story.
Thanks so much. That was really beautiful.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I wish he would have grown old..❤❤🌹🌹
Amazing video. Thank you for the hard work and bringing this to life.
Thanks. It was fun trying to make the most of the fairly sparse set of images and video.
these are super fun and interesting. keep up the good work hollingum.
This is rather touching and nicely done!
Thanks for this John - never heard of him before this - I had of course heard him singing not knowing who - excellent video.
Thanks Woodsie, glad you liked the vid.
Just love it. Thanks, made my day!
Thanks for watching
God, that is a lot of editing work....and strange juxta-positions. And it all makes a great film!
Thanks, it was interesting putting it together. I found an image of a heinkel crew where they looked like nerdy kids, the pilot even has glasses. Putting them on a collision course with Al seemed appropriate.
It's so annoying that AL looks like AI. Speaking of which, the only teensy bit I used was to age his face, and all the face-swapping was a manual process.
You people must search Bowl Lee, you can see al's voice singing random songs he never did before
What a wonderful creation this is- an alternate universe, where Al perhaps didn't make it back into town, that night of the 16th. A bomb on the lines into Marylebone was all that would be required to change musical history. Your snapshots of a life which might have been, are so well imagined.
Excelente trabajo!!!
This man deserves a Oscar for this video
Yeah, but what category?
@@hollingum Best Indie Short Film of 2023
I figure he should've moved to France and played with Arthur Briggs or Django Reinhardt, or back the USA with Ray Noble.
That could work. Certainly there was a mutual admiration with Noble. I felt that he and Nat Gonella would have found themselves in a very similar position, rather bewildered through the 50's by bebop on one side and the rough teenage enthusiasms of skiffle, rock and roll and trad on the other.
Sad Hitler got him in 1941, his song "woman" was used has the march in STAR WARS.
Interesting concept. What might have been. Perhaps Glenn Miller would have given his old pal Al a break to perform with his AFF band in 1944. (His great rival Sam Browne did the odd performance with them). However, Sam had his last big hit 'Heartbreaker' in 1948 and also the likes of Denny Denis ran out of steam by the late 40's. I suspect Al's career would have been over by the early 50's with changing popular music tastes by then. Perhaps Al would have retired back to South Africa then
That's a VERY interesting idea! About 20 years ago I got involved in an alt-timeline group where a bunch of us contributed chapters to Miller's life, had his pilot not flown into the Channel*. However all of us missed the idea that Al Bowlly might also have survived in that universe.
(*) OK, to pre-answer the next questions ... we had him following many of the plans he had for his post-war career, including movies and TV shows as well as founding a chain of music stores. We split the timeline in the 1950s: one led to his continuing as a composer and conductor in a world where swing and jazz continued to evolve; in the other he re-connected with Eugene Ormandy and, like Ormandy, switched from popular music to the classical world where he eventually took over the NBC Symphony in 1959.
But like Al Bowlly, we'll never know 😩😫😢
Certainly in 1941, things didn't look great for him. I ran with the idea of building on the guitar sound and latterly re-connecting with Nat Gonella. I tried thinking about what songs of the 50's would have actually suited him and the one that stood out for me was 'on the street where you live'. As regards retirement, I sent him to Greece because he likely spoke some greek, which he could have got from his father. I also wanted to slyly engineer a meeting with Leonard Cohen
Incidentally I've done an extended version of this vid that has an introduction to who he was and what his real fate was ruclips.net/video/emSA-fuWq0E/видео.html
It's fantastic, you can also use AI to do these kinds of videos as well. This is really , really good, it would have been marvellous if Al had continued. Well done !
Wouldn't it be nice?
At 0:39 I remember this railway shot, it came from "Brief Encounter" (1945).
And at 0:41 I'm afraid that photo of this steam engine was taken around the 1950s.
Sharp eyes. You'd also find I stole Celia Johnson's back for the 'looking at the poster' scene. TBH, this was aimed more at the music fans than the rail fans ;-)
@@hollingum also I like this video, :)
well done - if only!
До слëз, это было бы слишком хорошо.
Соглашусь, мы бы смогли прослушать ещё больше песен с его уникальным голосом
That was a very unusual video.
I was just using any technique I could lay my hands on to tell the story
@@hollingum What software did you use to age his appearance? Fantastic job!
@@Poisson4147 It was just one of those phone apps, can't remember which one. I fed it a lot of images and only a few really worked. The 'abbey road' sequence was the most laborious as I had to take a snippet of video (probably from 'the very thought of you) and run each frame through the app. I then had to trace him out of each frame so I could place him in front of the orchestra
@@hollingum Wow! The result's an absolute triumph of all that hard work.
Perhaps someone can use AI to make new music video's with Al Bowllys voice