Ella Shields - Burlington Bertie from Bow (Hargreaves) (1929)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ธ.ค. 2019
- Here, we have 'famous comedienne' Ella Shields singing her most famous song, recorded in around November 1929.
From Wikipedia: Ella Shields (September 27, 1879 - August 5, 1952) was a music hall singer and male-impersonator. Her famous signature song, 'Burlington Bertie from Bow,' a parody of Vesta Tilley's 'Burlington Bertie,' written by her manager and first husband, William Hargreaves, was an immediate hit. Though American-born, Shields achieved her greatest success in England.
Ella Shields was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1879. Her true surname appears to have been Buscher (sometimes spelled Busher). She was educated at South Bend, Indiana. It is not certain when she adopted the stage name Shields. 'Ella' might also have been a stage name.
She began her career in 1898 doing a vaudeville song-and-dance act with her sisters. In 1904 a talent scout lured Shields to London, where she was billed as the 'Southern Nightingale.' In 1906 she married the songwriter William Joseph Hargreaves in Lambeth, London. In 1910 she appeared at the opening night of the London Palladium. It was at this time that she became a male impersonator. The story goes that one night in 1910 Shields was attending a party at which music-hall performers did their acts for one another. Half of a two-man musical act was out sick, and Shields put on trousers to fill in for him. This impromptu turn in trousers proved to be the turning point of her career and she rarely wore dresses on stage again.
‘With wavy auburn hair and dressed as a young man in evening dress, nervously fingering his white tie, she made a very charming and gay figure...and though she adopted the tattered clothes and worn top hat of the traditional 'broken down swell' act she did so with a difference, making of what might have been ordinary broad comedy something delicate and, in its way, almost moving.’
In 1915 her song-writing husband, William Hargreaves, wrote 'Burlington Bertie from Bow,' a comic ditty about a penniless Londoner who affects the manner of a well-heeled gentleman. It was a parody of an earlier song, simply called Burlington Bertie, written by Harry B. Norris and made famous by Vesta Tilley. Shields sang the song, dressed up in slightly battered top hat and tails, in the role of Burlington Bertie 'himself'. She toured the world in this role, including appearances at Baltimore's now-demolished Maryland Theatre in 1924 and '26. The persona of Bertie haunted the rest of her life and she was known as Bertie as much as Ella. She and Hargreaves had separated in 1916 and they divorced in 1923.
The Depression brought difficult times for many entertainers, and Shields announced her retirement in 1929. She spent time working at a Macy's jewellery counter in New York. After a period of performing in obscurity, a music-hall reunion show called Thanks for the Memory put 'Bertie' back in the spotlight. This show ran throughout England for over three years from 1947-51.
Ella worked with many stars over the years, including a very young Julie Andrews in the late 1940s with whom she shared the same bill of a Royal Command Performance. Julie Andrews pays tribute to Ella Shields in her own one woman show and has recorded Shields' famous song 'Burlington Bertie from Bow.' It is possible that Julie Andrews used Ella Shields as her role model for 'Victor' in the film and stage musical Victor/Victoria.
In August 1952, a septuagenarian Shields performed in northern England. Her death was dramatic. Singing her trademark song, in what would be her final show, instead of the traditional opening lines 'I'm Burlington Bertie', she began with 'I was Burlington Bertie'. After finishing the song she collapsed on stage and died three days later, without regaining consciousness, at Lancaster in Lancashire, on August 5, 1952. Her body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London. In the cemetery courtyard she shares a memorial plaque with music hall star Nellie Wallace. - เพลง
Thanks for posting this version! Despite being shortened, I think this is probably my favorite version of this song. Ella Shields' vocals are much clearer on this one, probably because the orchestra is toned down. Also, her timing is perfect and her delivery is especially convincing.
I also have a copy of this record, and it has the same high-pitched noise at the end of the song. I guess it's because they were trying to pack as much as they could into the eight inches and probably cut the grooves too tight.
The electric recording helps greatly. I know two earlier versions, both recorded by the acoustic process and not as clear. The whistling sound at the end was a particular problem with Vocalion discs of the time. It apparently arose from the cooling of the wax blanks. I'm not sure what other companies did, but I know the blanks were kept in warning ovens before use. I suspect that most also used heated cutters.
My Nanna Lou loved this and sang it with top hat and cane.❤
Ella Shields became as well know as Burt as Ella. In what would become her last performance she sang this song but said "I was Burt." At the end of the song she collapsed on stage and died three days later. The song was written by her husband. A parody of the original 'Burlington Burtie' sung by a fellow Male-impersinator Vesta Tilly.
Thanks for the comment, which I missed because of no YT notification. An interesting anecdote. William Hargreaves certainly wrote some good songs, of which this was one!
I was curious to see the original after hearing Julie Andrews singing it on her favourite songs concert. Apparently Ella Shields was the role model she used for her performance in Victor/Victoria
Hope you enjoyed it!
Interesting. A more recent recording than the one usually heard, and with one of the verses omitted.
Nice to hear the electric recording, albeit shortened. (This is an 8 inch disc).
Strangely enough Ella Shields and Vesta Tilley died about six weeks apart.
Your version may be from 1929, but I think this may have been recorded much earlier. I have a four and a half minute version on a single sided 12 inch - much earlier than 29 I'm sure...
There were, as I recall, at least two acoustic versions for Columbia, one in the teens and one in the early 1920s. Yours would no doubt be the former.
@@vintagesounds3878thanks for the info. 👍
Burlington Bertie was originally recorded around September 1915 and it was released on a 10-inch record (Regal 7037) backed with Baa-lambs.
It was recorded again in 1916 and released on a 12-inch record (Columbia 629) backed with Every Little While by Florence Howard.
The 12-inch version of Burlington Bertie was actually re-recorded two more times and released under the same catalog number. The only way to tell which version you have is to read the take number in the run-out of the grooves:
6934-2 (second take) was recorded in 1916
6934-3 (third take) was recorded in September 1919
6934-5 (fifth take) was recorded November 2, 1923
The next recording was December 1929 and was released on an 8-inch record (Broadcast 472) backed with Nelly Grey. This is version playing in this video.
Burlington Bertie was recorded again in late 1934 and was released on a 10-inch record (Decca F.5228) backed with The Army.
I think these are all the commercial releases of Burlington Bertie from Bow. However, several live recordings were made of Ella Shields' music hall preformances around 1950, including a live performance of Burlington Bertie from November 19, 1950.