Art and Dotty Todd were an American husband and wife singing duo, who reached the Top Ten in the UK and the US with the hits "Broken Wings" (1953) and "Chanson D'Amour" (1958).
Dotty Todd was born Doris Dabb in Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States, on June 22, 1913. She studied the piano from an early age, giving a piano recital at Carnegie Hall at the age of 13. She was performing at the Providence Biltmore Hotel in Rhode Island when she met Art Todd – born Arthur William Todd in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 11, 1914 – a guitarist/vocalist also playing at the Biltmore; the pair met as a result of the Biltmore accidentally booking them into the same suite.
The couple married in 1941 and – after Art Todd's service in the U.S. Army, where he worked in an entertainment unit – they settled in Sherman Oaks, California, with a job at the Shadow Mountain Club in Palm Desert, California, inaugurating a career on the California lounge circuit; the Todds also eventually sang on their own radio show. The duo cut records including "Heavenly Heavenly" for RCA Victor in 1952: the single flopped, but when the song, which served as its B-side,"Broken Wings" became a hit in the UK Singles Chart for the Stargazers, the Art and Dotty Todd version had a UK release charting at No. 6 (the Stargazers' version reached No. 1, while another version by Dickie Valentine reached No. 12).
Dotty Todd died in Los Angeles on December 12, 2000, at the age of 87, three months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Art Todd died on October 10, 2007, of congestive heart failure in Honolulu at the age of 93.
Links to Peel[]
Peel choose their 'Broken Wings' track as one of his songs for the Peelenium 1953, but according to available playlists on this site, didn't seem to play any of their songs on his shows except for the Peelenium.
Shows Played[]
- 23 September 1999: Broken Wings (Peelenium 1953)
External Links[]