George Formby Jr. (1904–61)

 

(Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection, with permission)

One of the most popular entertainers in Britain during the 1930s and ’40s, and for several years Britain’s biggest box office film star, George Formby Jr. was the son of the great tubercular Music Hall artiste of the same name. The life and career of Wigan-born Formby have been exhaustively researched,1 and there has recently been a great outpouring of compact disc and DVD reissues of his recordings and films. For those who are unfamiliar with “The Lad from Wigan,” a great place to start is the website of the George Formby Society: http://www.georgeformby.co.uk.

The first Fred Godfrey song that Formby recorded was A Lad From Lancashire, in October 1939 (Regal Zonophone MR-3206). Formby went on to record the following additional Godfrey songs:

 

The Lancashire Romeo
Listen to
 George Formby singing
The Lancashire
Romeo (1939).

The Lancashire Romeo (Regal Zonophone MR-3233, 1939)

Bless ’Em All (Regal Zonophone MR-3394, 1940)

Bless ’Em All No. 2 (Regal Zonophone MR-3441, 1941)
(for other Formby recordings of this song, see under the song title)

Homeguard Blues (Regal Zonophone MR-3689, 1942)

Oh! You Have No Idea (Regal Zonophone MR-3694, 1942)

Out In The Middle East (Regal Zonophone MR-3624, 1942)

You Can’t Love Two Girls At The Same Time (Regal Zonophone
      MR-3663, 1942)

Several other Godfrey and Formby songs are known to exist. Formby may have performed them on stage or on the radio, but did not record them: Let’s Have A Little Bit Of Peace (1944); The Little Back Room Upstairs (1944); Mister Wu (Is In The Chinese Navy Now) (1944); Only A Poor Little Private (1944); We Haven’t Quite Decided Yet (1944); Hello Canada! (1947, written for Formby’s tour of that country); and On The Other Side Of The World (1947, written for Formby’s tour of Australia and New Zealand). Private recordings exist of the latter two songs. Of uncertain date are: Keep Your Flashlight In Your Hand (with Geoffrey? Parsons, 1938?); Those Were The Days (1944?); Rolling Into France (1944?); and Things Were Different Years And Years Ago (late 1940s?).

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Note

1  For a useful summary of Formby’s life and career, see Peter Gammond, The Oxford
    Companion to Popular Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 203. For
    a fuller account, see Alan Randall and Ray Seaton, George Formby: A Biography
   (London: W.H. Allen). For diehards, there is Brendan Ryan, George Formby, A
   Catalogue of His Work (Dublin: The George Formby Society, [1986]), though even
   Ryan does not list the many songs Formby sang on radio and in concerts but never
   officially recorded, among them several Godfrey songs, as noted.