User:Grika/sandbox/Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (1911 – 4 February 1952), (unconfirmed descendant of the classical composer Felix Mendelssohn), is best known for making Hawaiian music popular in England and throughout Europe during the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s.

Mendelssohn was born in Brondesbury Park, London. He worked for a while in the London Stock Exchange before joining the Navy at the age of seventeen. On leaving the Navy he became an actor and managed various clubs in London (even opening his own Club Felix) and soon became the promotional manager for several band leaders before forming his own dance orchestra that played on Radio Luxembourg and BBC. It was in these performances that he would occasionally play a Hawaiian song, inspired by a visit to the South Sea Islands.

Realizing a long-standing ambition to form a Hawaiian band, in 1938 Mendelssohn took over a band led by Canadian steel guitarist, Roland Peachy and renamed it "Felix Mendelssohn's Hawaiian Serenaders." His first recording for Parlophone was in November 1939 then Mendelssohn set up a stage tour and got a two-year contract with Columbia records in 1941. In 1942 the Serenaders appeared in a variety show called the Yankee Clipper including a troupe of Hula Dancers from around the world which he called his "South Sea Lovelies" and for which he would make up a story about each dancer and would involve audience members in the show as well.

In 1946 the band suffered financial problems which culminated in 1950 when Mendelssohn appeared in bankruptcy court. He put together another tour to repay his debts, but it was a financial disaster and he had to arrange a free show for the Army so he could get back home. In the fall of 1950, Mendelssohn became ill with a stomach ailment. He continued to work, but his health became worse and on February 4, 1952 after entering Charing Cross Hospital, he died of Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 40.

Incomplete List of Steel Guitarists

 * Roland Peachy
 * Kealoha Life
 * Ivor Mairants
 * Wally Chapman
 * Jimmy McCulloch

Singles and EPs
These singles were compiled into a dozen or so albums, and many of those were reissued on CD.

Category:1911 births Category:1952 deaths Category:20th-century musicians