Search - Joe Loss :: Pennies From Heaven

King of the Ballrooms

04/25/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Pennies from Heaven" is a CD with a lot of good tracks which give us a glimpse of what Joe Loss has given us over a long career. There are 24 classic tracks on this album, including of course the title track and other big favourites such as "South of the Border"; "Goodnight, Sweet Dreams, Goodnight" and lots more.Joe Loss had a long and distinguished career as one of Britain's foremost ballroom maestros. He began his career in 1926 and made his broadcasting debut in 1933. Two years later a young
woman called Vera Lynn made her broadcasting debut with Loss's orchestra. However, Loss's forte was playing to a ballroom audience rather than a listening audience. He played to dancing audiences of up to 10,000 people a week in the 1940's.He continued his success into the 1960's with a number of popular tunes that were hits "Wheels Cha Cha" (HMV,1961);
Must be Madison (1962) and "March of the Mods" in 1964.There is still a lot of fine material that hasn't been released on CD and hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later as the interest in this fine old music continues to gather momentum."

HE STARTED AS HE MEANT TO GO ON

Barry McCanna | Normandy, France | 11/11/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's apparent from the opening bars of the first track that this a great band, yet it was Joe Loss' first record, from the rare gold label Edison Bell Winner. He played violin, and had gained a wealth of experience before leading his first band in 1930. He began recording in August 1933, at first for a variety of labels, some quite obscure, before landing a contract with HMV in late 1935.



This is a superb compilation of his recordings from the thirties, with Chick Henderson predominant as vocalist, but other contributions from Jimmy Messini, Harry Case, Harry Bentley, Clem Stevens, Monte Rey and Anne Lenner. The stand-out track for me is "Over My Shoulder" which was arranged by Sid Phillips, who also soloed on baritone sax.

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