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Billy Bennett: Almost a Gentleman

Billy Bennett: Almost a Gentleman (Topic 12T387)

Almost a Gentleman
Songs and Recitations by the Great Music Hall Comedian
Billy Bennett (1887-1942)

Topic Records 12T387 (LP, UK, 1978)
Topic Records TSCD780 (CD, UK, 1997)

 Billy Bennett: Almost a Gentleman (Topic TSCD780)

Years before Monty Python, a red-nosed comedian in disreputable tails and an improbable moustache created a world all his own. With his spoofs of well-loved poems, raucous street-corner singing and surreal narratives of life in the saveloy-and-gin class, Billy Bennett, billed as almost a gentleman, brought a spirit of daring and rebellion to English music hall and variety stages in the 1920s and '30s.

Production for CD by Tony Engle;
Remastered from original 78s by John R.T. Davies;
Original 78s from Roger Thorne;
Notes by Tony Barker, editor of Music Hall Magazine;
Digital design by John Haxby, Art Surgery

Musical Traditions CD review by Dan Quinn

Tracks

LP Side 1

  1. Nell (2.58)
  2. My Mother Doesn't Know I'm on the Stage (2.45)
  3. Mandalay (3.34)
  4. I'll Be Thinking of You (2.54)
  5. Ogul Mogul–A Kanakanese Love Lyric (3.49)
  6. No Power on Earth (3.48)
  7. She Was Poor But She Was Honest (2.26)

CD Bonus Tracks

  1. She Was Happier When She Was Poor (2.57)
  2. The Miser (2.57)
  3. The Only Girl I Ever Loved (3.26)
  4. The Charge of the Tight Brigade (3.53)
  5. Don't Send My Boy to Prison (2.43)

LP Side 2

  1. Family Secrets (2.47)
  2. Please Let Me Sleep on Your Doorstep Tonight (2.21)
  3. Christmas Day in the Cookhouse (2.55)
  4. The Club Raid (3.04)
  5. She's Mine (2.59)
  6. Mottoes (3.24)
  7. The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog (3.01)

All tracks by Billy Bennett except
Tracks 7, 14 Bob Weston, Bert Lee;
Track 12 Cook, Hall