Prenostalgia

My sister sent me a surprise package containing a CD of the songs of Al Bowlly. Some of you will not have heard of Al Bowlly, he was the British "Bing Crosby" during the late 1920's and early 1930's. To me his voice is heavenly. He reminds me of my father trying to sound like him when I was a kid. I hear my father in the music and see him as if there was a diaphanous membrane between us. With the tinny syncopated rhythms and the muted trumpets, Al's voice evokes that period for me, before I was born, a period of prenostalgia. It was before the reality of the late 1930's dawned on the world and the curtain was ripped from our eyes, before tragedy befell us and innocence could no longer be truly articulated.

His voice is not as deep and relaxed as Bing's, more plaintive and edgy. Frank Sinatra's voice is more powerful and his orchestra is more sophisticated, but Al for me represents something lost and irretrievable. I wrote about him once before (Sept. 26, 2007). Al was born in Mozambique to a Greek mother and a Lebanese father. He was brought up in South Africa and after he became a singer he took jobs on liners and then ended up in Berlin. He was a success there and his name was heard about in England and he moved there in 1929. But he had no contract and sometimes ended up singing for theater queues. He sang with several bands and at the Savoy Hotel and eventually he became incredibly popular and recorded about 1,000 songs. He did a stint in Hollywood, but could not compete with Bing Crosby on his own ground. However, his recording of "Buddy, can you spare a dime" was a success. During the war he was killed by a direct hit of a German bomb on his apartment in 1941.

Now I sit listening to his voice, transported over time and space and as if from another universe. He sings of love, fulfilled and unrequited, and his every note takes me to a place that we all treasure deep within ourselves.