[Dixielandjazz] Hugh Hefner interviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Hugh Hefner: Al Bowlly Inspired Playboy
by Charlotte Heathcote
Sunday Express (UK), April 3, 2011
Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner may seem an unlikely champion of Al Bowlly, the crooner
known as the British Bing Crosby. But "Hef" owns one of the biggest collections of
Bowlly recordings in the world. He also credits the jazz age that spawned Bowlly
with inspiring the launch of Playboy in 1953.
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the musician's death, at the age of 41, Hef
insists this overlooked artist deserves far wider recognition.
"The whole era of the late Twenties, the early Thirties, the jazz age, Fitzgerald,
flappers... I grew up in the Depression in the Thirties and I looked back as a young
man on those images and the music as the party that I had missed," explains Hef,
84, on the phone from his Los Angeles Playboy Mansion.
Then in the wake of the Second World War, in which Bowlly was killed during the Blitz,
Hef was disappointed to discover "that everything was very conservative, politically,
socially, sexually. That was the inspiration for me starting Playboy: trying to recreate
that jazz age party. When I listen to Al Bowlly, I feel a sense of nostalgia and
a romantic connection to the past.
"I loved his work to the extent that I've collected almost everything he ever recorded,
mostly on CD, some of it on vinyl. I've never counted them but all told my collection's
in the thousands. I don't think I have any originals in there, but most of the background
music here at the mansion is Al Bowlly. He's part of the ambience."
The most valuable item in Hef's collection is film footage of Bowlly performing The
Very Thought Of You and Melancholy Baby, a prized possession that Hef couldn't put
a price on. He also painstakingly assembled a collection of every film that Bowlly
ever appeared in. "I went out of my way to track down everything that he had ever
done on film, with the co-operation of the BBC," he explains.
And Hef still loves to watch The Chance of a Night Time (1931), A Night Like This
(1932) and The Mayor's Nest (1932).
"There is a purity to Al Bowlly's voice; a combination of sophistication and innocence
and it speaks from the heart. It was certainly better than much of the music we hear
today," he says.
It's clear that Hef would give anything to have lived through that era. "Oh, absolutely.
There's something about the imagery of café society and the music of that time, a
transition between the early Dixieland jazz and the society music.
"Bringing together those two genres created the big band music that I love. It is
also the sense of a time of sophistication and awakening. The later Twenties were
coming out of the conservative Victorian era into modern times and I find all that
fascinating."
Born in Mozambique in 1898 and raised in South Africa, Bowlly's singing career took
off in the mid-Twenties when he started touring the world with a miscellany of bands.
He arrived in London in 1928 where he performed as a member of Blue Boys and sang
for bands led by Roy Fox, Ray Noble and Lew Stone. In 1934, he spent two years in
the States with limited success, although Blue Moon and I've Got You Under My Skin
were among his handful of hits.
In comparison with Hef, said to have bedded tens of thousands of women and currently
engaged to a 24-year-old Playmate, Bowlly's love life was rather poignant, despite
his dark good looks that came from his Greek and Lebanese heritage. He found his
first wife Freda Roberts in bed with another man on their wedding night. He remarried
in 1934, but that marriage had also fallen apart by 1937.
In the late Thirties, Bowlly's career started to founder as a wart in his throat
damaged his voice and, by the time he returned to Britain, he was forced to rebuild
his once flourishing fanbase by playing regional theatres.
On April 17, 1941, Bowlly performed at the Rex Cinema in High Wycombe. He turned
down the offer of a room in the town, choosing to travel home to his flat in London's
Jermyn Street. That night a Luftwaffe parachute mine exploded outside his flat, blowing
his bedroom door off its hinges. The impact killed him. He was buried in a mass grave
in London's Hanwell Cemetery, along with other victims of one of the worst nights
of the Blitz.
"I feel a sense of sadness because, as great as Al Bowlly was, I don't think he ever
really found his full audience," concludes Hef. "I think he should be remembered
as a much greater artist than he is to most people. He was one of the really iconic
voices from that era and it was a magic time."


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

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