Harry Roy (12 January 1900 – 1 February 1971) was a British dance band leader and clarinet player from the 1920s to the 1960s. He performed several songs with suggestive lyrics including "My Girl's Pussy" (1931), and "She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor" (1939).
Roy was born Harry Lipman in Stamford Hill, London, England, and began to study clarinet and alto saxophone at the age of 16. He and his brother Sidney formed a band which they called the Darnswells, with Harry on saxophone and clarinet and Sidney on piano. During the 1920s, they performed in several prestige venues such as the Alhambra and the London Coliseum, under names such as the Original Lyrical Five and the Original Crichton Lyricals. They spent three years at the Café de Paris, and toured South Africa, Australia and Germany.
By the early 1930s, Harry Roy was fronting the band under his own name, and broadcasting from the Café Anglais and the Mayfair Hotel. In 1931, he wrote (along with Anthony Fanzo) and sang "My Girl's Pussy", which has since been the subject of many cover versions and remakes. In 1935, he married Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of the white Rajah of Sarawak, with whom he appeared in two musical films, Rhythm Racketeer (1937) and Everything Is Rhythm (1940).
During the Second World War, Roy toured with his band, Harry Roy's Tiger Ragamuffins. He was at the Embassy Club in 1942, and a little later, toured the Middle East, entertaining troops with singer Mary Lee.
In 1948, Roy travelled to the United States but was refused a work permit. Returning to Britain, he reformed his band and scored a hit with his recording of "Leicester Square Rag".
By the early 1950s, the big band era had come to an end. Roy's band split up, but he still drifted in and out of the music scene. In the 1950s, he ran his own restaurant, the Diners' Club, but it was destroyed by fire. In 1969 Roy returned to music, leading a quartet in London's Lyric Theatre's show Oh Clarence and his own Dixieland Jazz Band resident during the summer at the newly-refurbished Sherry's Dixieland Showbar in Brighton, but he was by then in failing health. He died in London in February 1971.
Links to Peel[]
Peel played some of Harry Roy's tunes on his programmes and nominated his track, 'Chattanooga Choo Choo', as one of the songs for the Peelenium 1942.
Shows Played[]
- 1982
- 24 July 1982: When Can I Have a Banana Again
- 1988
- 28 September 1988: Troublesome Trumpet
- 1994
- 30 September 1994: Sarawaki (v/a album - Those Dance Band Hits) World
- 25 August 1999: Chattanooga Choo Choo (Peelenium 1942)
- 21 October 1999 (Radio Eins): Doggone I've Done It
- 2000
- 28 March 2000: 'They Can't Black Out The Moon (LP-Songs of Wartime)' (Empress Recording Co) (JP: 'A dance sensation of yesteryear.')
- 06 July 2000 (Radio Eins): Doggone I've Done It
- 2004
- 04 November 2004 (Rob Da Bank): 'What A Diff'rence A Day Makes' - (N/A) (Pig's Big 78)