Vera Lynn

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Vera Lynn
Background information
Birth name	Vera Margaret Welch
Born	20 March 1917 (1917-03-20) (age 92) East Ham, Essex, England
Genre(s)	Traditional Pop
Years active	1935–1995
Label(s)	UK Decca/London, HMV

Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born 20 March 1917) is a British vocalist whose career flourished during World War II, when she was nicknamed "The Forces' Sweetheart". Among her popular songs are "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs of Dover". She is considered one of the major Allied entertainers of World War II.

Contents 1 Early life 2 War years 3 Post-war career 4 Honours 5 Recent years 6 Personal life 7 Recordings by Vera Lynn 8 Films 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Early life

Lynn was born Vera Margaret Welch on 20 March 1917 in East Ham, then in Essex, now part of Greater London. Her father was a plumber and Vera Welch grew up with her parents' Cockney accent, which she has never abandoned. She began singing at the age of seven in a working men's club, and later adopted her grandmother's maiden name for her stage name. Lynn's first radio broadcast was in 1935 with the Joe Loss Orchestra. She was already being featured on records released by dance bands, including Loss's and Charlie Kunz's. She made her first solo record on the Crown label in 1936, "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire". (The label was soon bought out by Decca.) After a short time with Loss, she sang with Kunz, during which time she made several recordings. Lynn then moved to the dance band of Bert Ambrose.^[1]

[edit] War years

Lynn met clarinetist and saxophonist Harry Lewis, the man she would later marry, in 1939, the year World War II began. The following year, she began her own radio programme, "Sincerely Yours", sending messages to British troops serving abroad. She and a quartet would perform songs most requested by the soldiers. Lynn also visited hospitals to interview new mothers and send personal messages to their husbands overseas. During the war years she would tour Egypt, India, Burma - giving outdoor concerts for the troops.

In 1942 Lynn recorded the Ross Parker / Hughie Charles song "We'll Meet Again", also appearing the film of that name. The nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day") were very popular during the war and became one of the emblematic songs of the war. Contrary to later reports, she neither sang nor recorded the Rose of England during this time and it was only in 1966 when her producer, David Gooch, selected it for her album 'More Hits of the Blitz' that she became familiar with it. The album itself was a follow up to 'Hits of the Blitz' produced by Norman Newell.

[edit] Post-war career

Lynn's "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart" became the first record by a British performer to top the charts in the United States, doing so for nine weeks. She also appeared regularly for a time on Tallulah Bankhead's US radio programme "The Big Show". "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart", along with "The Homing Waltz" and "Forget-Me-Not", gave Lynn a remarkable three entries on the first UK Singles Chart, a top 12 (which actually contained 15 songs owing to tied positions).

Lynn's career flourished in the 1950s, peaking with "My Son, My Son", a number-one hit in 1954. Lynn co-wrote the song with Eddie Calvert. In early 1960, she left Decca Records after nearly 25 years, and joined EMI. She recorded for EMI's Columbia, MGM and HMV labels. She hit the top 10 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart in 1967 with "It Hurts To Say Goodbye".

[edit] Honours

Vera Lynn was appointed an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1959, and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1975. In 2000, she received a special "Spirit of the 20th Century" Award.^[2] In 1976 a charity dedicated to funding breast cancer research was founded, with Lynn its chairperson and later its president [1].

[edit] Recent years

Both Vera Lynn and 'We'll Meet Again' feature in Pink Floyd's 1979 album 'The Wall'. They are directly cited in the track 'Vera'. In the live version of 'The Wall', 'Is There Anybody Out There: The Wall Live 1980-1981', 'We'll Meet Again' opens the concert before the show starts. It serves as a link between band member Roger Waters and his absent father, who was killed during World War II.

Lynn sang outside of Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony that marked the golden jubilee of VE Day. This is her last known public performance.

In 2002, at age of 85, Lynn became the president of the cerebral palsy charity SOS and hosted a celebrity concert on its behalf at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.^[3]

The United Kingdom's VE Day Diamond Jubilee Ceremonies in 2005 included a concert in Trafalgar Square in which Vera Lynn made a surprise appearance. She made a speech praising the veterans and calling upon the younger generation always to remember their sacrifice and joined in with a few bars of "We'll Meet Again". Following that year's Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance, Dame Vera encouraged the Welsh mezzo-soprano singer Katherine Jenkins to assume the mantle of "Forces Sweetheart".

In her speech Lynn said, "These boys gave their lives and some came home badly injured and for some families, life would never be the same. We should always remember, we should never forget and we should teach the children to remember."

In September 2008, Vera Lynn helped launch a new social history recording website called "The Times of My Life at the Cabinet War Rooms in London" [2]

According to a 15 February 2009 report in The Guardian newspaper, Vera Lynn will publish her memoirs, "Some Sunny Day", at the age of ninety-two. She has already written two autobiographies : "Vocal Refrain" in 1970, and "We'll Meet Again" in the early 1990s.^[4]

On 18 February 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Vera Lynn was suing the British National Party (BNP) for using White Cliffs of Dover on an anti-immigration album without her permission. Dame Vera's lawyer claimed sales of the song would help boost the BNP's coffers and seemed to link Vera Lynn to the party's right-wing views by association.^[5]

[edit] Personal life

Vera Lynn married Harry Lewis, a clarinetist and saxophonist she'd first met in 1939, in 1941. They had one daughter, Virginia Penelope Anne Lewis. After 58 years of marriage, Lynn's husband died in 1999.^[6]

[edit] Recordings by Vera Lynn

• 1935

• "The General's Fast Asleep"; "No Regrets"; "When the Poppies Bloom Again"; "I'm in the Mood for Love" (Rex Records); "Sailing Home With The Tide" (Rex Records); "Thanks A Million" (Rex Records)

• 1936

• "Heart Of Gold" (Rex Records); "A Star Fell Out Of Heaven" (Rex Records); "Crying My Heart Out For You" (Rex Records); "It's Love Again" (Rex Records); "Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?" (Rex Records): "Have You Forgotten So Soon?" (Rex Records); "Everything Is Rhythm" (Rex Records)

• 1937

• "So Many Memories"; "Roses in December"; "When My Dream Boat Comes Home" (Rex Records); "Goodnight, My Love" (Rex Records); "All Alone In Vienna" (Rex Records)

• 1939

• "We'll Meet Again"

• 1940

• "Careless"; *"Until You Fall in Love"; "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow"; "When You Wish upon a Star"; "Memories Live Longer Than Dreams"; "There'll Come Another Day"; "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover".

• 1941

• "Smilin' Through"; "When They Sound the Last All Clear"; "Yours"; "My Sister and I"; "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire".

• 1942

• "You're in my Arms".

• 1948

• "You Can't Be True, Dear" (1948); "Again".

• 1952

• "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart"; "If You Love Me (Really Love Me)".

• 1954 onwards

• "My Son, My Son" (UK number 1, 1954); "The Homing Waltz"; "Forget Me Not"; "Windsor Waltz"; "Who Are We"; "A House With Love In It"; "The Faithful Hussar (Don't Cry My Love)"; "Travellin' Home"; Hits Of The Sixties (album); "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"; "Everybody's Talking";

"The Fool On The Hill".

• 1967

"It Hurts To Say Goodbye" (1967, US Easy Listening survey, her last US chart record)

• 1982

• "I Love This Land" (Falklands War song).

• Albums recorded for EMI from 1960 onwards

• "Yours" 1961
• "As Time Goes By" 1961
• "Hits From The Blitz" 1962
• "Among My Souvenirs" 1964
• "More Hits Of The Blitz" 1966
• "Hits Of The 60's - My Way" 1970
• "Favourite Sacred Songs" 1972
• "Christmas With Vera Lynn" 1976
• "Vera Lynn In Nashville" 1977

In March 2007 EMI issued a 2CD set of all Vera Lynn's single only recordings from her EMI contract 1960-1977.

[edit] Films

• We'll Meet Again (1942)
• Rhythm Serenade (1943)
• One Exciting Night (1944)
• Venus fra Vestø (1962)

[edit] See also

• List of British Females who reached number one on the Hot 100 (United States)

[edit] References

• Vera Lynn, Vocal Refrain, 1975, W.H. Allen, London.
• R. Cross, We'll Meet Again

[edit] External links

• Vera Lynn at the Internet Movie Database
• 2002 BBC article
• 2009 article in The Guardian (1)
• Dame Vera Lynn Trust for Children with Cerebral Palsy
• One-hour radio programme on France Culture in June 2007 Listen here

Persondata
NAME	Lynn, Vera
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Welch, Vera Margaret
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Singer
DATE OF BIRTH	1917-3-20 East Ham, London, England
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH