Leslie Sarony's Page
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"Ain't it grand to be on a bloomin' CD?"
1 - Rhymes - Part 1
2 - Rhymes - Part 2
3 - Prairie flower
4 - Oh! Maggie, what have you been up to?
5 - The adventures of Percy and Harold - Part 1 (with Arty Ash)
6 - The adventures of Percy and Harold - Part 2 (with Arty Ash)
7 - Ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead? - Part 1
8 - Ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead? - Part 2
9 - When the light shines brightly in the lighthouse
10 - Yodle odle
11 - The great big saw came nearer and nearer
12 - What are we going to do about Mary?
13 - There's a song that they sing at a sing song in Sing Sing
14 - Misery farm
15 - More Rhymes - Part 3
16 - More Rhymes - part 4
mcps licence no. 14059281A
These tracks are taken direct from 78 rpm records and in order to maintain the authentic sound, have not been engineered
in any way.
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"He Played His Ukulele"
It goes like this
Audrey just laughed and laughed (w Leslie Holmes)
Bunky-doodle-I-doh
Constantinople
Don't be surprised
Get up nice and early
Have you any M-O-N-E-Y
He played his ukulele as the ship went down - Part 1
He played his ukulele as the ship went down - Part 2
Ice cream
Jollity farm
Leslie Sarony memories - Part 1
Leslie Sarony memories - Part 2
Let's all be fairies
Rhymes
I lift up my finger and I say tweet tweet
Total Playing Time: 47 minutes 57 seconds
mcps licence no. 14058916A
These tracks are taken direct from 78 rpm records and in order to maintain the authentic sound,
have not been engineered in any way.
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Not Available
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Please send your cheque or postal order to:
Chris Gavin, PO Box 368, Aboyne, Aberdeenshire AB34 5LZ |
An additional charge may be required to send overseas, please email Chris
Gavin for information. |
A prolific writer, performer and recorder of comic songs with many other strings to his powerful
bow. He was also a dancer and actor and appeared in many stage and television productions. The songs are probably
what gave Sarony the greatest fame and he twice enjoyed million sellers including "Ain't it grand to be bloomin'
well dead". In addition to his own recordings Leslie had a very productive partnership with Leslie Holmes
as "The Two Leslies". Many of his recordings were with Jack Hylton & His Orchestra and he was frequently
known to write songs at the drop of a hat.
Stephen Dixon writes:
I knew Leslie quite well in the 1970s. He was still working hard - singing his famous songs,
joking and dancing in summer shows, panto and old-time music hall productions, with the occasional TV spot or straight
theatre role. He even appeared in plays by Samuel Beckett. "I didn't understand a bloody word of it,"
he confided to me afterwords.
The wave of affectionate nostalgia that swept over anything to do with bygone entertainment in the 1970s somehow
left Leslie mostly untouched, perhaps because he remained a working pro and defied anyone to see him as a museum
piece. He did, however, have many forcefully-expressed grievances about the way he considered TV ignored him.
Leslie lived in a smallish flat in Streatham, London, crammed with knick-knacks, records and showbiz ephemera.
On the rare occasions he wasn't working, he liked to go around the local pubs and clubs on talent nights, trying
to spot stars of the future. That would have been very typical of him - he didn't dwell on past glories but always
looked ahead. The first time we met I asked him about his old partner, Leslie Holmes. "He's a landowner now,"
said Sarony. "He owns a plot 6ft by 2ft in the local cemetery."
Remarkably, that high, nasal, precise singing voice remained completely unaffected by the years, even when he was
over 80. And, until he was injured by a motorbike crossing the road, he was still a magnificent tap-dancer.
As a person, he tended to be humorously argumentative and highly opinionated. His views would nowadays be regarded
as pretty right-wing, but were not unusual for a man of his generation who had lived through two world wars - and
fought in the first.
He was, of course, a wonderful storyteller who would perform at the drop of a hat. In the early 1970s he was on
a dream bill in Swindon: Leslie, Fred Emney, Sandy Powell and Hetty King. I was staying at the same hotel, and
even after a hard day's work (Leslie was also appearing as Smee in Peter Pan in the afternoons) he would be singing
at the piano in the hotel bar until the early hours. He had extraordinary energy for an elderly man.
Leslie told me that in his heyday as a composer he wrote most of his greatest hits at the piano. A newspaper headline
or a comment he had heard would give him an idea, then he would doodle at the piano until he found a tune.
We kept in regular touch through meetings and letters until I moved to Ireland in 1980, and after that it was just
Christmas cards (his was also a kind of business card, with a little cartoon of himself and the legend Leslie Sarony,
Entertainist: 'Clean As A Whistle or Broad As A Bean.').
Leslie was great company: a funny, outrageous, provocative, gutsy little man. He was also probably the most versatile
and multi-talented performer I have ever encountered.