Wheww... I love the selection above. I could add a few Kiwi singers, but will restrict myself to my favourest immediate pre-WWII recording star - a Pongolian lass...

   Gracie Fields

I'm looking at one of my most treasured posessions, a snapshot of Gracie with my Dad --- IN BED!

Well, to be honest, my emaciated Dad was in a hospital bed in Auckland NZ, ca1945. Gracie is standing alongside, yapping with him. The look on Dad's face is "total devotion".

My first memory of my father is looking through a window, from a fire escape, to see him, in that same bed. In later years Dad's eyes went moist whenever Gracie's voice came over the wireless.

Yup.. Gracie is a recording star to remember! After all, she had ...

"The Biggest Aspidistra in the World"

Cheers - Sam