Love affair with music that took band leader a long way
EVERY PICTURE tells a story, just not the one you might expect. Take the colour family snap of a couple being shown around New York. A thousand similar shots are taken each year, but this is no ordinary couple, and no ordinary guide.
Smiling broadly is Yorkshire-born musician, band leader and arranger Geoff Love, alongside him, his wife Joy. And their guide? Legendary record producer Quincy Jones, who within a decade would have brought the world Michael Jackson’s
Love came a long way from his home in Todmorden to meeting, recording with and arranging for some of the world’s top stars and the photograph, from the archive of his sister Connie, is one of dozens beautifully reproduced in a new biography of Love.
It was taken in 1975, Love had just been working with Frank Ifield in Las Vegas season, where had met big band jazz legend Jones. The pair hit it off and subsequently Jones gave the Loves a personal tour of musical New York.
Bill Birch’s will be launched this weekend, just ahead of what would have been Love’s 100th birthday, and is part of an attempt to gain wider recognition of his achievements.
Love died, aged 73, in 1991, but left his mark on hundreds of recordings, from the likes of Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland and Vera Lynn. He also sold almost three million records across the world in his own right, under his own name or as Manuel and the Music of the Mountains, and exotic rhythms as Mandingo.
Birch’s fascinating story untangles Geoff ’s family tree, steeped in showbusiness. His own parents, Kidd Love and Frances Maycock, met at a Todmorden fairground. Solo dancer Kidd died young of pneumonia while appearing in Glasgow, and Frances took the family home to Todmorden.
Times were hard in the 20s, prominent Todmorden doctor, and president of Todmorden Orchestra, John De Ville Mather, loaned Geoff his first trombone. By the age of 16 he was in the ranks of a Rochdale dance band. Effectively already a professional, Geoff Love was on his way.
By the late 50s he was being called on by producers like EMI’s Norrie Paramor and Norman Newell. He also worked with Gracie Fields, Yorkshire’s own chansonnier Jake Thackray and Max Bygraves, who featured the Yorkshireman heavily on his television series in the 60s and 70s.
Love was instrumental in founding the Young Persons Concert Foundation, aiming to inspire young musicians. Birch says: “Though he became a musical director and arranger to some of the world’s leading entertainers and a prolific recording artist in his own right, his childhood was certainly no bed of roses. He learned the meaning of humility in life and never forgot it.”
Geoff never forgot Todmorden either. He regularly returned home to conduct concerts featuring Todmorden Brass Band and brought the YPCF there too, conducting them for the last time at nearby Halifax in 1990. While Love never made it onto the Queen’s honours, his home town awarded him one of its first honorary citizenships and once again it is up to Todmorden to put him in the spotlight.
This Saturday, Birch will be signing copies of the biography during the launch of the book at the Town Hall and in the evening, Calderdale Big Band will bring trademark Love tunes to the same venue.
On Sunday, the town’s Hippodrome Theatre hosts an afternoon performance from Todmorden Community Brass Band, interspersed with screenings of Love’s appearances on television’s and
For more details go to visittodmorden.co.uk. priced £20, can also be ordered via the website.