The Alexander Brothers – 50 Golden Years
by Norman Christie
B&F October 2008
The Golden Anniversary of such great entertainers as The Alexander Brothers could not possibly go unrecognized by the B&F. We received two articles, one from our own Bill Brown and another from Norman Christie. We have taken the unprecedented step of printing them both. All the black and white photographs are courtesy of Bill Brown, copyright unknown, and the colour ones are from both Bill and Norman.
Norman Christie looks back on The Alexander Brothers’ half century in show-business.
When The Alexander Brothers appeared at Arbroath’s Webster Theatre on 29th July this year, it was 50 years, almost to the day, since they began their professional career at the same venue. In the intervening half century, brothers Tom and Jack have taken their act to most points on the globe. To learn more about their years in show-business, I visited the home of accordionist Tom. In his studio there’s a range of memorabilia, including a photograph of the wedding of Arthur Spink with a young Tom as best man. On the walls, gold, silver and platinum discs vie with numerous awards – one commemorating his appearance in a special ‘Night of Stars’ in the presence of HRH The Princess Margaret at Jimmy Logan’s Metropole Theatre on 14th February 1966.
These mean a lot to him, but right now he’s keen to demonstrate the recording equipment he has used to produce two compilation CDs dedicated purely to his accordion music – a mixture of Scottish and Continental numbers. “Prior to learning Scottish strathspeys, reels and jigs I was drawn to Continental music,” he reveals. “I was influenced by the legendary Toralf Tollefsen, the great Norwegian 5-row player, long before I became interested in Will Starr.” Then he surprised me by saying he considers himself better at playing Continental or classical pieces than he does playing Scottish music. “Gordon Pattullo and John Carmichael, for example, are better than me at the Scots stuff,” he says candidly.
Brother Jack does not feature on these albums. I tease him by asking if this is the beginning of The Alexander Brother – singular, but he is emphatic, “No. These solo albums are something I did for my own entertainment and to allow me to use different instrumewnts.”
“When I accompany Jack on stage, I use a 96 bass Vignoni because it’s less bulky and it’s lighter and that makes a difference when you’re standing for about 2 hours in total. But on these CDs, I used my 120 bass Hohner Gola, which I enjoy. Jack relaxes by playing golf. For me, making these albums was relaxing.”
The boys, as they are affectionately known in showbiz circles, were brought up in Cambusnethan Street in Wishaw, where their dad worked in the local steelworks. “Our family never had much money, but my mother coaxed my dad to pay for lessons for Jack, myself and our sister Betty. Betty’s lessons were for dancing; Jack’s were for piano and I concentrated on the box and in 1952 I entered the medal competition in the Scottish Open Accordion Championship. At the time of examination, I had an old Hohner but my teacher (Bill Brown) suggested I use his Frattelli Crosio, which I did, and won the silver medal. I still remember the piece I had to play; it was Bats at Sunset, written by the American composer Pietro Frosini.”
“After that, and with my dad’s encouragement, we formed The Alexander Trio in which Betty danced to classical music played by Jack and me and we performed together at church concerts and dancing displays.”
After a while, sister Betty left and the boys continued as a duo, taking the name The Alexander Brothers. They performed at weekends in talent competitions in which their dad had entered them. “These were similar to the X-Factor, run over a number of heats, with winners going forward to a grand final. First prize in the heats was £3, plus half-a-crown for expenses, and in one of the competitions we progressed to the final at Dumfries. Glasgow comedian Dave Willis was the judge and he awarded us first prize, which came with £75 cash. This was at the time when my dad’s wages at the steelworks were a fiver a week!” says Tom adding, “As you can imagine, that gave us a taste for the business.”
At that time their repertoire was mostly classical; Tom playing the likes of Carnival of Venice and Jack performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto on the piano. Then gradually Jack introduced popular ballads such as I’m Walking Behind You and Eternally.
Both of them became painters and decorators when they left school, but continued to play in concerts in the evenings and at weekends. Then, in the summer holidays of 1956, during the Trades’ Holidays, they traveled to Stonehaven, Leven and Dunbar performing in a series of summer shows at beach pavilions entertaining holiday audiences. These shows whet their appetite for more and, just as they were becoming established, Jack was called up for National Service. He joined the Cameron Highlanders and played in the military band. “Of course, you can’t march with a piano,” adds Tom, “so Jack’s marching was done with the tuba and on occasion, a trombone.” Tom, who had a mastoid ear since birth, was graded out the army and, in Jack’s absence, formed a band playing at weddings and social functions, continuing till Jack came out. I wondered if he ever sang in the band. “No. I never sang. It was always just the box for me.”
In 1958, with National Service completed, they were booked for their first professional engagement – a ten week summer season at Arbroath’s Webster Theatre. “We were so naïve that we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for. First of all, we didn’t know there were two shows a night with a complete change of programme twice a week. Nor did we know that the Arbroath audiences liked all thing Scottish. And here we were with bouffant hair, wearing full drape jackets, tight drainpipe trousers, string ties and Jack playing his piano concertos and me playing the likes of The Poet and Peasant Overture. They must have wondered what was going on.”
“Then one day a member of the audience came backstage and suggested that we do reels and jigs. This was at the time when Andy Stewart and Joe Gordon and his Folk Four were big, so we decided to try The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre and The Road and the Miles to Dundee. The transformation was unbelievable. Before that, when I was in the middle of The Carnival of Venice, or something like that, there was a fellow in the audience who kept shouting out ‘Gie us the High Level Hornpipe’ and I used to glare doon at him thinking, ‘I wish that bugger would shut up’. But you know, he was right, because after we switched to Scottish material and later swapped our draped suits for tartan, we never looked back.”
From the Webster, they went straight into a review at The Queens Hall in Dunoon and when that finished, they sailed to Ireland. They had been told there was plenty of work across the Irish Sea but their time in Dublin was spent going from agent to agent. Then their agent, Ross Bowie, invited them to play the winter season at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen if they could get back to Scotland immediately. By this time, they had spent most of their earnings but had enough money for the boat fare home. “But once on the ship, we realised we couldn’t even afford a beer. So sitting in the ship’s lounge, Jack suggested that if I got the box out and played somebody might offer us a drink. I was so embarrassed, I played facing into a corner with my back to the crowd, then Jack got up and began singing. Sure enough, after a couple of numbers, the waiter came over and told us that folks at a table wanted to buy us some drinks and soon we ended up with three or four pints each. We’d also run oot o’ cigarettes. So the next time the waiter asked what we’d like, I said ‘Listen, can we have a packet o’ fags?’ I laugh at it now, but that was my most embarrassing moment!”
“In 1960 we recorded our first album, Highland Fling, on Pye’s Golden Guinea label. It sold for a guinea at the time when records by the big Scottish stars such as Kenneth MacKellar, Moira Anderson and Jimmy Shand were selling for about a fiver and here was us, singing popular party songs, at a budget price. It just took off.”
Following their success in theatres, records and on television, they joined Andy Stewart on one of his North American tours, which initially traveled under the banner of ‘The White Heather Club’. “Andy was good for us,” adds Tom. “He allowed us to close the first half in venues such as Massey Hall in Toronto and in New York’s Carnegie Hall and that led to us taking our own shows overseas.”
“We went all over Canada, the USA, Hong Kong and Australia, taking supporting artistes like Ronnie Dale and Bobby Harvey and his band and in 1974 Jack Milroy and Mary Lee were in the show we took to Australia and New Zealand. Jack was some fellow, I never laughed so much in all my life,” says Tom, laughing at some distant memory. “But for a boxplayer, my highlight was Jimmy Shand agreeing to come out of retirement to join us in what was to be his farewell tour of Australia. Every venue we went to was packed, with many people coming purely to see the Laird of Auchtermuchty. To hear the great man playing every night was just incredible,” says Tom reflecting. “On the final night at The Sydney Opera House, we all went out for a meal, and my old pal Arthur Spink, who now lives in the Campbeltown district of Sydney, joined us. Afterwards, when I returned to the hotel, my accordion was gone – stolen! I never saw it again. It was an Excelsior Concert Grand and I dinnae carry a spare, so it was just as well that this was the last night of the tour.”
The Alexander Brothers continue touring overseas. In October, they’ll be in Canada for a month, playing in Coburg, Ottawa, Thunder Bay and Edmonton, then on to Vancouver and Victoria Island. And that’s after Scottish appearances at Ayr’s Gaiety Theatre and numerous private functions. Much of their time is also spent in cabaret aboard luxury cruise liners. “The onboard theatres are very glitzy and audiences are mostly North Americans who are great fans of our Scot’s music wit the piano and accordion and, of course, they just love tartan.”
Then, after a reflective pause, “…A far cry from what we were doing when we started off all those years ago in The Webster.”
Norman Christie looks back on The Alexander Brothers’ half century in show-business.
When The Alexander Brothers appeared at Arbroath’s Webster Theatre on 29th July this year, it was 50 years, almost to the day, since they began their professional career at the same venue. In the intervening half century, brothers Tom and Jack have taken their act to most points on the globe. To learn more about their years in show-business, I visited the home of accordionist Tom. In his studio there’s a range of memorabilia, including a photograph of the wedding of Arthur Spink with a young Tom as best man. On the walls, gold, silver and platinum discs vie with numerous awards – one commemorating his appearance in a special ‘Night of Stars’ in the presence of HRH The Princess Margaret at Jimmy Logan’s Metropole Theatre on 14th February 1966.
These mean a lot to him, but right now he’s keen to demonstrate the recording equipment he has used to produce two compilation CDs dedicated purely to his accordion music – a mixture of Scottish and Continental numbers. “Prior to learning Scottish strathspeys, reels and jigs I was drawn to Continental music,” he reveals. “I was influenced by the legendary Toralf Tollefsen, the great Norwegian 5-row player, long before I became interested in Will Starr.” Then he surprised me by saying he considers himself better at playing Continental or classical pieces than he does playing Scottish music. “Gordon Pattullo and John Carmichael, for example, are better than me at the Scots stuff,” he says candidly.
Brother Jack does not feature on these albums. I tease him by asking if this is the beginning of The Alexander Brother – singular, but he is emphatic, “No. These solo albums are something I did for my own entertainment and to allow me to use different instrumewnts.”
“When I accompany Jack on stage, I use a 96 bass Vignoni because it’s less bulky and it’s lighter and that makes a difference when you’re standing for about 2 hours in total. But on these CDs, I used my 120 bass Hohner Gola, which I enjoy. Jack relaxes by playing golf. For me, making these albums was relaxing.”
The boys, as they are affectionately known in showbiz circles, were brought up in Cambusnethan Street in Wishaw, where their dad worked in the local steelworks. “Our family never had much money, but my mother coaxed my dad to pay for lessons for Jack, myself and our sister Betty. Betty’s lessons were for dancing; Jack’s were for piano and I concentrated on the box and in 1952 I entered the medal competition in the Scottish Open Accordion Championship. At the time of examination, I had an old Hohner but my teacher (Bill Brown) suggested I use his Frattelli Crosio, which I did, and won the silver medal. I still remember the piece I had to play; it was Bats at Sunset, written by the American composer Pietro Frosini.”
“After that, and with my dad’s encouragement, we formed The Alexander Trio in which Betty danced to classical music played by Jack and me and we performed together at church concerts and dancing displays.”
After a while, sister Betty left and the boys continued as a duo, taking the name The Alexander Brothers. They performed at weekends in talent competitions in which their dad had entered them. “These were similar to the X-Factor, run over a number of heats, with winners going forward to a grand final. First prize in the heats was £3, plus half-a-crown for expenses, and in one of the competitions we progressed to the final at Dumfries. Glasgow comedian Dave Willis was the judge and he awarded us first prize, which came with £75 cash. This was at the time when my dad’s wages at the steelworks were a fiver a week!” says Tom adding, “As you can imagine, that gave us a taste for the business.”
At that time their repertoire was mostly classical; Tom playing the likes of Carnival of Venice and Jack performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto on the piano. Then gradually Jack introduced popular ballads such as I’m Walking Behind You and Eternally.
Both of them became painters and decorators when they left school, but continued to play in concerts in the evenings and at weekends. Then, in the summer holidays of 1956, during the Trades’ Holidays, they traveled to Stonehaven, Leven and Dunbar performing in a series of summer shows at beach pavilions entertaining holiday audiences. These shows whet their appetite for more and, just as they were becoming established, Jack was called up for National Service. He joined the Cameron Highlanders and played in the military band. “Of course, you can’t march with a piano,” adds Tom, “so Jack’s marching was done with the tuba and on occasion, a trombone.” Tom, who had a mastoid ear since birth, was graded out the army and, in Jack’s absence, formed a band playing at weddings and social functions, continuing till Jack came out. I wondered if he ever sang in the band. “No. I never sang. It was always just the box for me.”
In 1958, with National Service completed, they were booked for their first professional engagement – a ten week summer season at Arbroath’s Webster Theatre. “We were so naïve that we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for. First of all, we didn’t know there were two shows a night with a complete change of programme twice a week. Nor did we know that the Arbroath audiences liked all thing Scottish. And here we were with bouffant hair, wearing full drape jackets, tight drainpipe trousers, string ties and Jack playing his piano concertos and me playing the likes of The Poet and Peasant Overture. They must have wondered what was going on.”
“Then one day a member of the audience came backstage and suggested that we do reels and jigs. This was at the time when Andy Stewart and Joe Gordon and his Folk Four were big, so we decided to try The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre and The Road and the Miles to Dundee. The transformation was unbelievable. Before that, when I was in the middle of The Carnival of Venice, or something like that, there was a fellow in the audience who kept shouting out ‘Gie us the High Level Hornpipe’ and I used to glare doon at him thinking, ‘I wish that bugger would shut up’. But you know, he was right, because after we switched to Scottish material and later swapped our draped suits for tartan, we never looked back.”
From the Webster, they went straight into a review at The Queens Hall in Dunoon and when that finished, they sailed to Ireland. They had been told there was plenty of work across the Irish Sea but their time in Dublin was spent going from agent to agent. Then their agent, Ross Bowie, invited them to play the winter season at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen if they could get back to Scotland immediately. By this time, they had spent most of their earnings but had enough money for the boat fare home. “But once on the ship, we realised we couldn’t even afford a beer. So sitting in the ship’s lounge, Jack suggested that if I got the box out and played somebody might offer us a drink. I was so embarrassed, I played facing into a corner with my back to the crowd, then Jack got up and began singing. Sure enough, after a couple of numbers, the waiter came over and told us that folks at a table wanted to buy us some drinks and soon we ended up with three or four pints each. We’d also run oot o’ cigarettes. So the next time the waiter asked what we’d like, I said ‘Listen, can we have a packet o’ fags?’ I laugh at it now, but that was my most embarrassing moment!”
“In 1960 we recorded our first album, Highland Fling, on Pye’s Golden Guinea label. It sold for a guinea at the time when records by the big Scottish stars such as Kenneth MacKellar, Moira Anderson and Jimmy Shand were selling for about a fiver and here was us, singing popular party songs, at a budget price. It just took off.”
Following their success in theatres, records and on television, they joined Andy Stewart on one of his North American tours, which initially traveled under the banner of ‘The White Heather Club’. “Andy was good for us,” adds Tom. “He allowed us to close the first half in venues such as Massey Hall in Toronto and in New York’s Carnegie Hall and that led to us taking our own shows overseas.”
“We went all over Canada, the USA, Hong Kong and Australia, taking supporting artistes like Ronnie Dale and Bobby Harvey and his band and in 1974 Jack Milroy and Mary Lee were in the show we took to Australia and New Zealand. Jack was some fellow, I never laughed so much in all my life,” says Tom, laughing at some distant memory. “But for a boxplayer, my highlight was Jimmy Shand agreeing to come out of retirement to join us in what was to be his farewell tour of Australia. Every venue we went to was packed, with many people coming purely to see the Laird of Auchtermuchty. To hear the great man playing every night was just incredible,” says Tom reflecting. “On the final night at The Sydney Opera House, we all went out for a meal, and my old pal Arthur Spink, who now lives in the Campbeltown district of Sydney, joined us. Afterwards, when I returned to the hotel, my accordion was gone – stolen! I never saw it again. It was an Excelsior Concert Grand and I dinnae carry a spare, so it was just as well that this was the last night of the tour.”
The Alexander Brothers continue touring overseas. In October, they’ll be in Canada for a month, playing in Coburg, Ottawa, Thunder Bay and Edmonton, then on to Vancouver and Victoria Island. And that’s after Scottish appearances at Ayr’s Gaiety Theatre and numerous private functions. Much of their time is also spent in cabaret aboard luxury cruise liners. “The onboard theatres are very glitzy and audiences are mostly North Americans who are great fans of our Scot’s music wit the piano and accordion and, of course, they just love tartan.”
Then, after a reflective pause, “…A far cry from what we were doing when we started off all those years ago in The Webster.”