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| BILLY
BENNETT was born in 1887, the year that
the great clown Grimaldi died, and some experts
believe he took up the mantle of the famous Victorian
entertainer. Before reaching his star stature,
Billy apparently graduated from being an acrobat
and, for a period, the rear end of an elephant!
He was a Londoner and knew the Cockney scene intimately,
basing a number of his most popular songs and
sketches on the activities of comic villains -
a theme virtually untouched by any other music
hall performer. Billy's slogan was 'Almost a Gentleman'
and he did his best to live up to it by wearing
an ill-fitting dress suit, a waistcoat out of
which his shirt hung, and a large, untrimmed walrus
moustache. His style was raucous, and with his
coarse, non-stop approach would batter any audience
into submission with songs like The Green
Tie of the Little Yellow Dog, with its references
to 'who-flung-dung' and 'Gonga-pooch' which is
the Hindu word for bum! Apart from various songs
with a military slant -for which he would dress
up in a scruffy army uniform - Billy was also
the composer of that famous song of the pretty
country girl who is lured to the bright lights
of the city and there suffers the inevitable fate
at the hands of some wealthy gent, 'It's the same
the whole world over - it's the poor what gets
the blame!' For this piece of inspired vulgarity
alone, Billy Bennett has a special place in the
comedy singer's hall of fame. |
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