ARTHUR LLOYD INTERVIEWED.
Mr
Arthur Lloyd, while at Birmingham
last week, (At the Gaiety, shown Right, M.L.) had the rule
run over him by the irrepressible interviewer, and the following was
the result: - Mr Lloyd would hardly convey to an observer the ideal
type of a lion comique in ordinary
life.
Right - Holders Grand Concert Rooms - Later The Gaiety
Theatre - From the book ' Birmingham Theatres Concert & Music
Halls' Victor J. Price.
He has rather a
clerical air about him, which, taken with the cut of his features
and the trim of his moustache, reminds you rather forcibly of another
" Arthur " who not many years ago was a famous pulpit orator
in Birmingham. Perhaps this is because he is a middle aged man with
a wife and responsibilities; and because he did not affect the Air
of juvenility with which some comic singers contrive to maintain their
reputation for jeu d'esprit. And yet when he tells you he has drawn
£60 a-week-which he believes to have been the highest salary
ever paid to a comic singer in the provinces; and when you find over
what a sea of time and experience his memory navigates him, you begin
to reflect on the danger of putting a trust in appearances. When a
Mail representative found a respectable looking, rather portly gentleman
with an eyeglass, a frock coat, a tall hat, and a walking stick, occupied
in the dingy daylight of a mid-day rehearsal, and tra-la-la-ing a
tune over to the leader of the orchestra, the figure turned out to
be no other than that of the composer of a hundred comic
songs which have been whistled, sung, played on barrel organs,
yelled at free-and-easies, and otherwise tuned to the world. "
I'm always careful to get as pretty a melody as I can to my Songs,''
he said ; "whatever the audience can whistle or hum over to themselves
is bound to become popular. George Leybourne and I used to run each
other closely in that respect.
In the course of conversation it transpires that Arthur Lloyd is a
Scotchman, whose father was a comedian
in the stock companies that interpreted the drama to Edinburgh
and Glasgow. He played for some time in
the drama himself, and assisted his father
in some Sketches given in the Old Gallery of Illustration near the
Theatre royal in New-street. "Put it down that I was quite a
boy then," he adds "or they will reckon me up to be as old
as Methuselah." His father looked very serious when he proposed
to go on the music hall stage, for
be possessed all the actor's prejudice against music balls. "Mind,"
he warned the aspirant , "If you take to the music halls you
will become a drunkard." I remembered that" says his son,
"and profited by it. I have never missed an engagement, except
by unavoidable accident, and never went on the stage the worse for
liquor.''
His London experience carries him
back to the days when Evans's, the Coal Cellar,
and such places filled to a large extent the days of the present magnificent
London music halls. He remembers when admission to the Pavilion
was free, and the management recouped themselves by charging sixpence
for every glass of liquor sold. At that time it was not always crowded,
but gradually the attendance got larger, then sixpence an a shilling
were imposed as the prices. In the process of years two rows of the
pit ware set apart as stalls, and two shillings charged, and so, little
by little, the present elaborate and costly palaces of amusement were
formed. The places known as Evans's and other cellars were hidden
away up narrow passages, ill ventilated, and with no comforts, the
seats hard, the tables bare and sawdust on the floors. Only men were
admitted. They might get eating as well as drinking at the tables,
and at the far end was a platform on which the singers stood. During
the evening the place would be comparatively deserted, but about eleven
o'clock it would begin to fill. The Punch staff of the day were regular
frequenters. "I have seen Mark Lemon there, and Dickens and Thackeray,"
says Mr Lloyd ; "and noblemen by the score, sitting quite contentedly
at the singing. There used to be about a dozen boys from the choirs
of the churches and chapels about looking half asleep, and standing
with their hands behind them, winging such glees as 'The Men of Harleob.'
One of the celebrated singers of that day was G. W. Ross, a Scotchman
and his famous song was 'Sam Hall.' It could not be sung at the music
halls, but he used to give it at the cellars. He sang it wonderfully,
putting on a hang-dog, Bill Sikes sort of expression, and sitting
with his arms and chin over the back of a chair. Whenever it became
known that he was going to give it the place would always be packed.
"I only sang at Evans's once myself,"
pursues the speaker. " On the eve of the boat-race. I had gone
in, and the waiter had just brought me a chop and a large potato baked
in its skin, which was one of the treats of Evans's when Paddy Green,
the proprietor, came up and asked me to sing there on the following
night. He would have given me about five guineas, but I refused. The
year before the undergraduates had come to the cellars in a crowd,
and had demolished half the chairs and tables in the room, so that
the prospect was no pleasant one. On the boat-race night I turned
in to see what was going on. All the pictures had been removed, all
the chairs and tables, the place was in uproar, the undergraduates
had taken possession. About twenty of them were upon the stage, and
the poor pianist was vainly endeavouring to make himself heard above
the din. All at once, as I stood there, one of them pointed straight
at me, and exclaimed 'Arthur Lloyd.' Before I knew where I was I was
hustled up to the stage, where they demanded a song. I had no music,
no stage dress or anything, but. I gave the pianist the time to vamp
to, and sang them three. Then one of the undergraduates shouted, 'Boys,
we're not going to let Mr Lloyd do this for nothing.' I remonstrated,
but the hat was whirled round, shillings and half-crowns, and even
half sovereigns were thrown in, and by the time it returned the hat
contained about £12. That was my only appearance at Evans's."
Arthur Lloyd says he has written " hundreds " of songs.
He used to sell them outright to the publishers. Certainly his most
famous was" Not for Joe, " which
was sold in scores of thousands. That, he remarks, he sold for £20.
Occasionally G. W. Hunt would write
songs for him and for George Leybourne without charge, because when
they undertook to sing his compositions the publishers would always
give a good price for them.
" Leybourne told me one night, " he says, as we were driving
in a coach together, that I prompted him to become a comic singer.
He was a North of England man, and he was so overjoyed at my singing
one night that he took out his watch and in an ecstasy thumped it
upon a table. He went home and told his father he was going to be
a comic singer. 'I'd like to know,' said his father, 'where thee gets
thy comicality froom? It's not froom thy mother, and it's not froom
me.' But Leybourne was not to be denied, and after a few preliminary
trials in the South of England he got a London engagement where 'Champagne
Charlie ' and ' Up in a Balloon' brought him eminence and wealth.
Mr Lloyd tells an interesting story of his first appearance before
the Prince of Wales, just at the time when
the fashion was springing up of inviting professionals to eke out
aristocratic entertainments. Lord Carrington sent to the Royal
in Holborn, and Lloyd and
Jolly John Nash went in response.
They were not required until two o'clock in the morning, and when
they were, a screen formed by curtains made a sort of sanctum between
them and the audience. The Prince was seated with a blue sash round
him in a lounge chair, whilst the rest were all
ranged
round him with their chairs turned behind-before, and the occupants
leaning over the back. " Nash was very nervous," continued
Mr Lloyd, and persuaded me to go first. I went and sang a song, of
which the chorus ran 'It's the sort of thing you read about but very
seldom see.' After two or three verses I sang the following:
I must now award a word of praise to a gent who's sitting there,
I mean that worthy party who so ably fills the chair,
See how sweetly now he smiles, as pleasant as can be,
It's a sort of smile I read about but very seldom see.
As I sang it the Prince leant forward to listen, and all those round
him turned and clapped their hands towards him. He seemed immensely
amused, and when I had finished the last verse he applauded very good
humouredly "And so that's how," Mr Lloyd concludes with
proud satisfaction, "I came to be the first comic singer who
sang before the Prince of Wales."
An
Arthur Lloyd Recording?
