Dancing Down Broadway - Cyril Stapleton

 

If I Loved You

Dancing Down Broadway

Cyril Stapleton and His Orchestra

London Records PS 134

1958

From the back cover: Few can be more aware of the magic power of music than Cyril Stapleton. He is himself an accomplished artist of the most romantic of instruments and is as much at home in the repertoire of the classics as he is in the field of light music. He made his first broadcast at the age of 12 playing as a solo violinist on the old 5NG radio station in Nottingham, and town where he was born. He must indeed be one of the youngest veterans of radio for he broadcast regularly from B.B.C. Birmingham studios in the years in-between 1928 and 1932. By this time, having reached the age of eighteen, he went to Czechoslovakia to study briefly under Sevcik, the famous teacher of the violin. On his return to England his early study and outstanding talent were rewarded by a scholarship to the Trinity College of Music in London. 

At the same time as he entered college, Cyril Stapleton joined up with Henry Hall and his newly formed B.B.C. Dance Orchestra and under his baton took part in the first transmission ever to go out from Broadcasting House. In 1935 he transferred to Jack Payne's Orchestra and took part with it in an extensive tour of South Africa. It was in 1937 at the age of only 23, that he first set out on his own, forming a small orchestra which played regularly at a West End restaurant. His first broadcast with his own band took place in March 1939.

The outbreak of war caused Cyril Stapleton temporarily to set aside his musical career and he insisted in the R.A.F. where he remained for the next five years. The end of this period, however, found him as a member of the R.A.F. Symphony Orchestra and following demobilization he chose to free-lance for a while, playing with nearly every broadcasting orchestra and appearing regularly with the Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestras.

The rest of the story is well known to radio listeners, for Cyril Stapleton's new orchestra formed in 1947 was soon to occupy the key spots of the B.B.C. programs. As conductor of the B.B.C. Show Band he became famous not only as the creator of all that is best in light music, but also as a popular and quick witted broadcasting personality.

From Billboard - November 24, 1958: Lighthearted, imaginative instrumental arrangements by the British maestro of a variety of Broadway tunes – such well known show tunes as "If I Love You," and "Getting To Know You," along with lesser played but equally listenable legit items – "Tonight from "West Side Story," etc. Pleasant programming for jocks.

Mutual Admiration Society from "Happy Hunting"

Tonight from "West Side Story"

Lida Rose from "The Music Man"

Sunshine Girl from "New Girl In Town"

Standing On The Corner from "The Most Happy Fella"

Wouldn't It Be Lovely from "My Fair Lady"

The Girl That I Marry from "Annie Get Your Gun"

Long Before I Knew You from "Bells Are Ringing"

On The Street Where You Live from "My Fair Lady"

Oh! What A Beautiful Mornin' from "Oklahoma"

If I Loved You from "Carousel"

Getting To Known You from "The King And I"