Doreen Chadwick – Manchester Memories

CD Duration: 45.01 / Year: 2012

2012 release of a 1967 concert at the Wurlitzer in The Odeon Cinema, Manchester.

Code: OK25.

Doreen (Signature Tune) / A Swingin’ Safari
A Day in the Life of a Fool
Selection from Fiddler on the Roof: Matchmaker / If I Were a Rich Man / Sunrise, Sunset / To Life
The Bubble Song
To a Wild Rose
Pink Geranium / Georgy Girl / Music to Watch Girls Go By / Misty / There’s a Kind of Hush
Zampa
This Could Be the Start of Something Big
Kangarooga
Silence is Golden / Roses of Picardy / Finchley Central / Sunrise Samba

SLEEVE NOTES:

This performance by Doreen was recorded at an organ club concert in 1967. Some of the headlines from that year are worth recalling in 2012. De Gaulle rebuffed Britain’s application to join the Common Market, the first heart transplant was carried out and the United Kingdom won the Eurovision Song Contest. Doreen’s programme is a reminder of those days when, before the main feature film was screened, a spotlight picked out the organist as the lift brought the organ up to stage level accompanied by the signature tune that identified the artist. Then, as on this particular day, the programme consisted of marches, light classical pieces and popular tunes of the day. In fact one of the tunes featured, Finchley Central, reached number twelve in the charts during June 1967.

Doreen’s career had taken the usual path from playing a straight church organ, leading to taken tuition at a local cinema in South Wales. Moving to London, she joined the Granada circuit and became resident at the Granada, Tooting, a cinema that was noted for it’s ornate styling and long regarded as a cathedral of the ‘talkies’. She then joined ABC Theatres and moved to the Savoy Cinema in Leicester, spending two years there. The next move was to the Ritz at Richmond in Surrey.

A move to the north of England was the start of regular broadcasts from the Gaumont and Odeon cinemas in Manchester, while in nearby Oldham, Doreen and husband, Len, became ‘mine hosts’ at the Magnet Hotel which was to become a regular venue for organ followers after they installed the latest model Hammond organ. From then on, Doreen became busier than ever, for all though cinemas were disposing of their organs, the concert scene was to take up a great deal of her time. Organ clubs, both pipe and electronic, were being formed all over Britain as redundant theatre organs were being reinstalled in a wide range of ‘new homes’ ranging from town halls to humble village and church halls. Not forgetting some very residential settings amongst the more affluent organ followers. Doreen became one of the most popular organists amongst concert goers and it was perhaps fitting that she should announce her retirement while seated at the console of one of her favourite organs. This was the Compton/Christie in the Town Hall, Ossett on 1st June, 2008.

…Ken Mellor.

Recording Engineer: Les Brumpton & Ken Mellor.