Bowlly ≈ like a bowl. (The song is "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.")
Life story, here, at Wikipedia:
On 16 April 1941, Bowlly... had given a performance at the Rex Cinema in Oxford Street, High Wycombe. [He was] offered an overnight stay in town, but Bowlly took the last train home to his flat at 32 Duke Street, Duke's Court, St James, London. He was killed by a Luftwaffe parachute mine that detonated outside his flat at ten past three in the morning. His body appeared unmarked. Although the explosion had not disfigured him, it had blown his bedroom door off its hinges, and the impact against his head was fatal. He was buried with other bombing victims in a mass grave....
[It was believed by some] that if Bowlly had not died during the war, he would have been "bigger than Bing Crosby," and that "he had a better voice."
I love the song and looking for different versions of it on Spotify is how I stumbled into this name I'd never heard of. Look for yourself, and you'll find versions by much better known singers — Rudy Vallee, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Ethel Merman, The Platters, Lisa Loeb, Robert Goulet, Johnny Mathis, etc. etc.
Is there a better song that expresses the sentiment: We're all gonna die.
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The song sample cut off before the vocal. I went elsewhere and heard him sing the old standard "Heartaches".
Anyone who thinks guy was better than Crosby ... well, has different tastes in music than me. Hell, Bob Crosby was better. Much better.
On an internet sojourn I came across a popular duet from the 1910s and 20s, Van and Schenck. I greatly enjoyed what I heard, and would recommend them to anyone interested in music from another era.
Richard Thompson, 1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd3vsmWhYWI
I enjoied the Ethel Merman and Rita Moreno renditions.
My only knowledge of Al Bowlly is from Richard Thompson’s terrific song “Al Bowlly’s in Heaven”, from his 1986 album Daring Adventures, about a British WW2 veteran who has fallen on hard times. It’s a Thompson concert staple as well. (And if you’re not listening to Richard Thompson, you should be - one of the finest singer-songwriters of the last 50+ years, and one of the finest guitarists as well; if you ever get the chance to see him live, take it!)
Al Bowlly is one of my favorite early 20th Century crooners. Modern technology has really cleaned up the old scratchy recordings so we can hear Al in of his greatness. (https://youtu.be/YZKcZZ6oR8Q)
It's not surprising he died without obvious injury. Nazi German bomb designers favored concussion over shrapnel. Concussion bombs caused body innards to scramble and jellify. Medical aid is nearly impossible and the victim almost surely dies.
Another South African raised talent.
The Small Faces sang a variation on the theme in "Happy Days Toy Town", on the album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968).
Life is just a bowl of All-Bran
You wake up every morning and it's there
So live as only you can
It's all about enjoy it
'Cause ever since you saw it
There ain't no one can take it away.
etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pPCYlYWO6w
The end of Steve Marriott's life wasn't any less gruesome than Bowlly's death.
Go figure. I was born in 1943--after Bowllyi died. But I like a lot of his songs, and particularly those he recorded with the Ray Noble orchestra. The sound is definitely 1930's society in England--a happy (for some) and innocent (for most) time.
Look up Bowlly's version of "Good Night Sweetheart"---and for a little more bounce "Isle of Capri".
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