BILLY TERNENT THE BANDLEADER
Billy Ternent was the most talented Dance Band Leader in Europe. Unlike many of his contemporaries who couldn’t arrange titles for their own Bands—Bill was one of the very best—if not the best in the UK. I’ve seen him playing several different instruments during a dance. This was no mean feat, when one considers that his musicians were amongst the best in the Country.
Lots of rubbish has been written about how he became a Super Star, so let me put the record straight. He was playing with the Selmer Four. Jack Hylton who was Europe’s top Band Leader at that time, was having supper at the club and was so impressed with Bill’s playing he invited him to join his Kit Kat Band, untitil he could fix him up in his own Orchestra. Hylton recognised Bill’s brilliant arranging skills and made him No 1 arranger and deputy leader/conductor of the Band.
They went to America in 1935 but the American Musician’s Union refused to allow a British Band to play, so Bill formed an all American Band to complete the Contract on Jack Hylton’s behalf. He said “ bloody useless as musicians these Yanks, it took nine violinists to get the sound I could get from three in London.
He discovered the Inkspots. He brought them to London long before “Whispering Grass” and “Bless You” When War broke out Hylton disbanded and Bill became head the BBC Dance Orchestra plus Variety Shows.
After the War he was MD for many major London musical show’s including “Can Can—and was the longest running MD at the London Palladium (5 Years) Bill hated ‘pop’ music and gladly became a Vice President of my “British Bandleaders Club”, a movement which I set up to counter the influence of ‘electronic garbage’ Bill loathed pop so much that he even refused to use an electric bass in the orchestra.
To the very end, he presented the best original sounding dance band ever produced in Europe. A 14 piece band, it was saxophone dominated with tricky triple tonguing from the brass and reeds, producing as exciting staccato sound like a mixture of Hal Kemp, Shep Fields Rippling Rhythm and Russ Morgan’s Orchestra. The arrangements were certainly never as simple as they sounded . One of his trumpet players (and he used the best musicians in Britain) told me—”You need a bloody tongue three feet long to play some of his scores”
By 1966 he had perfected the “Unmistakeable Sound” that is Billy Ternent and his Orchestra.
Frank Wappat Founder Billy Ternent Appreciation Society 2007
