AL BOWLLY Albert Alick Bowlly
Singer
(1899-1941)
Al Bowlly was born in Mozambique and raised in South Africa where he began his career singing and playing ukulele
for Edgar Adeler and His Orchestra. Bowlly wanted to settle in Britain so he worked his way there via Rhodesia and then
Germany, arriving in London by the time he was 30 where he joined Fred Elizalde and his Orchestra.
Within a couple of years, Bowlly’s recording career took off and he soon became Britain’s equivalent
of Bing Crosby, recording hundreds of records and appearing with Ray Noble and his Orchestra. In 1934, Bowlly and
Noble relocated to the United States where they successfully toured and recorded such hits as “Blue Moon,”
“Easy to Love,” and “My Melancholy Baby.”
In 1936 Bowlly returned to Britain where he sang with various orchestras until his death in 1941, a casualty of an early
morning German bombing raid.
-- Sandra Burlingame
Courtesy of JazzStandards.com
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