Alec Templeton

Alec Templeton
Templeton in the 1940s.
Background information
Born	(1910-07-04)4 July 1910 Cardiff, Wales
Died	28 March 1963(1963-03-28) (aged 52) Greenwich, Connecticut
Notable instruments
Piano

Alec Andrew Templeton (July 4, 1909/1910 – March 28, 1963) was a Welsh composer, pianist and satirist.

Templeton was born in Cardiff, Wales. There is some confusion concerning Alec Templeton's year of birth. Most published and Internet biographies give his birth year as 1909, and it was certainly registered in September of that year, but his headstone shows 1910 as his year of birth. Blind from birth and gifted with absolute pitch, he studied at London's Royal Academy of Music, his piano teachers there being Lloyd Powell and Isador Goodman.

In 1936, he moved from Wales to the United States as a member of Jack Hylton's Jazz Band, where he played with a number of orchestras and gave his first radio performances on The Rudy Vallée Show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Kraft Music Hall and The Magic Key of RCA.

His first recordings were made for The Gramophone Shop Inc. of 18 East 48th St, New York in 1936 for their "Varieties" label. Two sets of 4 10-inch (25 cm) recordings were issued, the first set entitle "Musical Impressions" on nos. 1006-1009 included:- "Impressions of Old-Fashioned Italian Grand Opera," "A Trip Through a Music Conservatory," "The Shortest Wagnerian Opera," "Impressions of Two German Lieder Singers," "The Lost Chord," "An Amateur Performance of Gilbert and Sullivan," "The Music Goes 'Round and Around," and "Improvisations on Five Varied Melodies." The second set entitled "His Own Compositions" on nos. 1010-1013 included:- "Topsy Turvy Suite" nos. 1-3 ("Bach Goes to Town," "Soldier's Minuet," "Undertaker's Toccata"), "Ghost Rhapsody," "Longing," "Pines," "Voyage a La Lune," "Mothers's Lullaby" and "Friendship."

Signing a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1939, he made a string of amusing sides including "Man with New Radio," "Mendelssohn Mows 'em Down," and a pseudo-operatic rendering of "And the Angels Sing" (written by the Italian composer Ziggy Elmano). A set of three 78rpm records called "Musical Portraits" was issued by RCA Victor as catalog number P-19; it continued in the catalog until the late 40s, and included "Mozart Matriculates." He also did six sides for Columbia in August 1940, including an instrumental entitled "Redwoods at Bohemian Grove" (he had been accepted into that organization). In 1942 he did eight sides for Decca, six of them released as a three-record set with catalog number A-314.