Actually, he was on the scene about
the same time as Leybourne and Vance. Like the latter,
he was
trained as a legitimate actor. His
father was a Scotch comedian of some local importance,
and Arthur Lloyd's first professional experience was
gained in the stock company in Edinburgh
of which his father was a member.
His success in songs
performed between the dramatic pieces and a marked
facility for writing tunes and lyrics suggested a
transfer to concert-room work, and he accordingly
made a beginning by appearing at the "Whitebait,"
a musical tavern in Glasgow.
His arrival in
London in 1862 or
1863 -'According to
Macdonald Rendle, Lloyd was for a time apprenticed
to a hatter in the Strand-
where he secured an engagement at the Islington Philharmonic
Hall, was quickly followed by his first great song
success, and the consequent appearance at the London Pavilion (quite recently
reconstituted under this title by two Jewish restaurateurs,
Loibl and Sonnen-hammer) was the turning-point both
in his own career and that of the new music hall.
Under the influence of his personal
triumph the house rapidly achieved a reputation, and
its status was further raised by the adoption of a
policy, instigated by Lloyd, under which the refreshment
ticket method of admission was abandoned for a system
of priced seats.
The song which was in the main responsible
for occurrences was called "Not for Joseph", it was written
and -composed by Lloyd himself and, on publication,
achieved an unprecedented sale. It was based on a
study of an individual character, that of a 'bus driver
named Baxter (the full name is given in the first
line of the song), a man who was in the habit of referring
genially to himself in the third person. The idea
was one in complete harmony with the music
hall of the time, based as it was on a piece of
familiar observation. The raciness of the subject
and the richness of Lloyd's power of character impersonation
render its success understandable.
He excelled in this quality of in-timacy
allied with close observation. To choose an instance
at random, the opening couplet of a forgotten song
"Just by the Angel at Islington, Close by the clock
that always is wrong," gives an indication of the
personal style which resulted from his alertness to
detail. - I cannot resist another couplet. A song,
written round the phrase "just to Show there's no
Ill Feeling," gives rise to: "Yesterday she gave me
twins, just to show there's no ill feeling."
At the same time, the shrewdness which
enabled him to coin a hundred quotable phrases was
not accompanied by the warmth of personality which
is the pervading quality of a great artist. A number
of his early songs were elaborate character studies,
often of musicians and instrumentalists.
He developed, also, a lyrical vein,
as in the celebrated Pretty Lips Sweeter than Cherry
or Plum. Then there were cockney studies, such as
Immensikoff,
and nonsense songs, of a type popular in his day,
such as Chillingo-Wullabadorie.
Lloyd's face, which launched a thousand
song-covers, was expressive-heavy, yet lit by
a smile with a charming dimple in the cheeks. Concannon's
portrait of him singing his German
Band song is full of suggestion of the
character of the man.
Little of Lloyd's private life has
become the subject of comment. Off the stage he was
apparently not an entertaining person. One hardly
looks for a private life from a man who appeared to
divide his entire time between writing and singing
such an overwhelming, number of songs. He was essentially
Scotch, a family man who brought up a large number
of children.
His work was not limited to the music
halls. As in the case of other leading comedians,
he gave a recital entertainment, and toured
with it. This bore the innocuous name of "Two Hours of Genuine Fun."
Like his successor, Macdermott,
Lloyd was more-over a playwright, a four-act drama
by him called
Bally Voyan was performed at Newcastle-on-Tyne
in 1887.
Lloyd's successor at the Pavilion
(though Lloyd survived him) was the "Great " Macdermott...
The Early Doors" by Harold Scott(1946).
This text kindly supplied by
Frederick Denny.
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