Weekend of Love will pay tribute to top bandleader

ATRIBUTE weekend celebrating the centenary of the birth of a music star with strong links to Rochdale is being held later in the summer.

Musician, arranger and bandleader Geoff Love’s star-studded career, which saw him work with some of the world’s leading recording artists including Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland and Rochdale’s own Gracie Fields, is being celebrated in a new biography of his life which will be launched during the Geoff Love Memorial Weekend on Saturday and Sunday, September 2 and 3.

Geoff, who died in 1991 aged 73, began his professional career with Rochdale bandleader Freddie Platt at the town’s famous Carlton Ballroom when he was just 16.

Geoff was musical director on Gracie’s Columbia hit Little Donkey, and years later, with his abilities as a musical director being utilised by major recording studios in the UK and US, producer Norman Newell brought he and Gracie together in the mid 1970s, working on two albums.

The first, Gracie Fields – Superstar, released on EMI’s Music For Pleasure imprint in 1974, included her theme song Now Is The Hour and the sessions went so well a second album, The Golden Years Of Gracie Fields, a double set released on Warwick, was recorded the following year and included Wish Me Luck.

Bill Birch’s hardback fully-illustrated book, A Love Affair With Music, will be launched at the weekend which leads up to the centenary of Geoff’s birth on September 4.

It includes photographs of Rochdale bandleader Freddie Platt, an atmospheric night time shot of the Carlton Ballroom in its heyday and Geoff in the studio with Gracie Fields.

Bookings for Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon events (Calderdale Big Band on Saturday, September 2, evening at Todmorden Town Hall, £10, 7.30pm, and screenings of Geoff on TV - his ‘This Is Your Life’ and ‘Brassbeat’ with Roy Castle performances, plus a set by Todmorden Community Brass Band at the town’s Hippodrome Theatre in Halifax Road, Todmorden, on Sunday, September 3, 2pm, £5), are being taken via Todmorden Information Centre website, which has a special link.

You can also pre-order the book via the same website visittodmorden. co.uk. ●●A control room conference at EMI’s Abbey Road studios during Gracie Fields’ Little Donkey recording session. From left to right are recording engineer Peter Brown, Gracie and her husband Boris Alperovici recording manager Norman Newell, music publisher Teddie Holmes and Geoff Love