JOYCE, ARCHIBALD  

Archibald Joyce was known as ‘the English Waltz King’ and ran a very successful society band playing for the very best balls and parties throughout the country in the years before and after the First World War. He also composed many waltzes and other pieces that were extensively played and recorded. Of the waltzes, Dreaming was the most popular, and a work like Songe d’Automne was even recorded by jazz legend, Sidney Bechet. Unlike his contemporaries Ketèlbey, Haydn Wood and Eric Coates, however, he found it hard to adapt to the changing times and never wrote the suites and characteristic pieces that would have enhanced his career. The waltz, A Thousand Kisses, was so entitled following a remark by a friend at the sight of a beautiful woman coming into the room - “she’s worth a thousand kisses!” The piece was obviously a known favourite of Charlie Chaplin who included it in the music soundtrack he later added to his silent classic, The Gold Rush.

© 2006 Philip Lane