5. Picture Cards
this page first published by John Wright, 23 March 1998
last update 14 March 2004
vintage@jabw.demon.co.uk
For many years now I have collected jazz and dance band records from the 1920's and 30's. During the searches through junk shops I often came across picture cards and became particularly interested in those depicting British dance band leaders.
 | | I had found only a few from the cigarette card series 'Radio Celebrities' when I was fortunate to find two complete albums, each
containing 50 cards but with only seven or eight band leaders each. Some of them I have scanned and can be seen on my webpages featuring Ambrose, Jack Hylton and Jack Jackson.
Thanks to an article by Gordon Howsden in the magazine 'Memory Lane' I have learned more about cigarette cards issued in Britain. Cigarette cards first appeared in USA around 1878 and were first imported to Britain about 1893. The first British set was issued in 1893 and the first set
of 50 Musical Celebrities appeared in Britain in 1912,
but there was no place for the popular musicians or composers of the time.
Then in 1934 WD&HO Wills issued their first series of 50 'Radio Celebrities'. There are several BBC announcers and broadcasters featured, some famous names like Henry Wood and Adrian Boult, Peter Dawson and Paul Robeson and a few comedians and female artistes, but of most interest to me are
several British dance band leaders. British bands yes, but of course some
of the leaders were Americans like Carroll Gibbons, Charlie Kunz and Roy Fox. Others featured include Bert Ambrose, Lew Stone, Jack Payne, Henry Hall. |
The second set of 50 'Radio Celebrities' contains a lot of now unknown musicians and conductors, but there are dance band leaders including Geraldo, Billy Merrin, Debroy Somers, Sydney Kyte, Jack Jackson, Harry Roy and Jack Hylton.
Several artistes who recorded or performed with dance bands appear in the 'Radio Celebrities' series, including Billy Mayerl, Anona Winn, Leonard Henry, The Two Leslies (Holmes and Sarony), Vivien Lambelet, Eve Becke, Elsie Carlisle, and the Carlyle Cousins.
 | | Other recording artistes include Gracie Fields, Tommy Handley, Cicely Courtneidge, Jack and Claude Hulbert.
Another card set issued in 1936 was 25 cards of 'Dance Band Leaders', which featured both British and American bandleaders. All the most important British band leaders were there as well as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee and Paul Whiteman. I can't show you any examples of that later set
because I have never seen one ! But Gordon Howsden did reproduce 12 of them in 'Memory Lane'.
There were further sets of cigarettes cards, again I haven't seen any of those, and these included the likes of Bertini, Howard Jacobs, Dawn Davis, Phyllis Robins, Harry Bentley and Bill Currie.
Cards were also issued with magazines and other commodities like biscuits. Those series included Al Bowlly, Les Allen, Dan Donovan, Evelyn Dall, Brian Lawrance, Lou Preager, Rudy Starita and many others. |