Sydney John Lipton (14 December 1905 – 19 July 1995) was a
British dance band
British dance band is a genre of popular jazz and dance music that developed in British dance halls and hotel ballrooms during the 1920s and 1930s, often called a Golden Age of British music, prior to the Second World War.
Thousands of mile ...
leader, popular from the 1930s to the 1960s when he led "one of the most polished of the British Dance Bands".
Life and career
Born in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, he learned the violin as a child before joining cinema orchestras providing the accompaniment to
silent movies
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...
. When living in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
in the early 1920s he began playing in the band led by Murray Hedges, before joining the
Billy Cotton
William Edward Cotton (6 May 1899 – 25 March 1969) as Billy Cotton was an English band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the British dance band era. Cotton is now mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio a ...
Band in 1925 and making his first recordings. He also recorded with Ambrose's orchestra in the mid-1920s. He left Cotton to form his own dance band in 1931, and the following year became the resident bandleader at the
Grosvenor House Hotel
]
JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, originally named the Grosvenor House Hotel, is a luxury hotel that opened in 1929 in the Mayfair area of London, England. The hotel is managed by JW Marriott Hotels, which is a brand of Marriott Internat ...
Decca Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label
* Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...
, and made regular appearances on
BBC radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...
after 1933. The recordings with his band were made from 1932 through 1941, and the band's radio broadcasts were made at
Grosvenor House
Grosvenor House was one of the largest townhouses in London, home of the Grosvenor family (better known as the Dukes of Westminster) for more than a century. Their original London residence was on Millbank, but after the family had developed ...
where the band was in residence. Among his musicians were instrumentalists
Ted Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
, George Evans, Billy Munn, Harry Hayes, Bill McGuffie, Freddy Gardner, and Max Goldberg. His daughter
Celia Lipton
Celia Lipton Farris, DStJ (25 December 1923 – 11 March 2011) was a British actress, singer and philanthropist. The band's first hit song was "I’ll See You In My Dreams". Later successful tunes included "Just Dance And Leave The Music To Me" and "Sweet Harmony".
During World War II, Lipton was a member of the
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
and the
Royal Signals
The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS or R SIGS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communi ...
. After serving in the forces, he returned to the Grosvenor House Hotel, and continued to lead the orchestra there until 1967. He later formed his own entertainment agency, and served as musical director for various venues and cruise ships.
He died, aged 89, in Palm Beach, Florida, where he had retired to be near his daughter Celia. Sydney Lipton ''FindaGrave.com''. Retrieved 25 July 2015