CD BROADCAST 014

1899 7th January, Born Albert Alick Bowlly in Lourenco Marques, Portuguese East Africa (modern Maputo in Mozambique)
1903 Family move to South Africa, Al grows up in Johannesburg
1913 Al leaves school at 14, becomes a barber in Johannesburg, starts to gig around on banjo and uke.
1923-24 Joins band of Edgar Adler on tour of Rhodesia, East Africa, India, Malaya, and Java, where he splits with Adeler after an on stage
punch-up.
1925 Al gigs around and exercises race horses in Calcutta to earn a living.
1926 With the Jimmy Lequime Orchestra in Calcutta and Singapore
1927 Arrives in Berlin to play with Edgar Adler Band and others. Makes first vocal recording in July with Arthur Briggs Savoy Syncopators
" Song of the Wanderer". Makes first solo recording "Blue Skies" on 18th August.
1928 July - Arrives in London to join Fred Elizalde
1929 Elizalde disbands - Al reduced to busking
1930 June - commences solo recordings - in Afrikaans! First recording with Ray Noble's New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, "I'm Telling The World She's Mine," 20th November.
1931 January - commences regular recording and then night-club work with Roy Fox and his Band. 18th December, Al marries Freda Roberts,
they break up two weeks later
1932 24th October - Al Bowlly, and all but one of the Roy Fox Band, defect to form Lew Stone's new band.
1934 August - leaves with Ray Noble and drummer Bill Harty to form Noble's new orchestra in New York. He marries long time girlfriend Margaret "Marjie" Fairless in New Jersey 18th December
1937 Al and Marjie return from the States. Al forms the short lived "Radio City Rhythm Makers", but splits up when he has to return to the States for major throat surgery.
1938-39 Al gigs around with bands such as Lew Stone, Geraldo, Maurice Winnick, until the outbreak of war curtails most band work.
1940 January - Al forms a duo, "The Radio Stars with Two Guitars," with ex-Nat Gonella singer/guitarist Jimmy Mesene
1941 8th March, bandleader Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, whom Al has been sitting in with, killed by a direct hit on the Cafe de Paris.
2nd April, Al and Jimmy record their last ever record together "When That Man Is Dead and Gone".
In the early hours of Thursday 17th April 1941, Al Bowlly died in the London Blitz.

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