User:Zanimum/N. Fraser Allan

Norman Fraser Allan was a

Biography
Merchant Francis Brown Allan married his third wife in 1887, Theresa Amelia Muldrew.

Norman Fraser Allan was born to Francis and Theresa on April 10, 1890.

Allan entered Upper Canada College in 1906. At some point, he attended St. Andrew's College.

Allan studied under Canadian composer W. O. Forsyth.

Service in the Great War
Allan served for three years with the Queen's Own Rifles, before the Great War. <3> He joined the 9th Mississauga Horse on August 9, 1915. <9> He was seconded to the Canadian Railway Troops, Forestry Depot, 5th C.R.T. during the Canadian Expeditionary Force's 14th draft. <3><9> He arrived in France on October 20, 1917. <4> He returned to Canada in June 1919, <18> and was demobilized in July. <19>

The Canadian Passing Show (1917)
Allan's first known stage musical, The Canadian Passing Show, was cited by the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada as one of the early examples of Canadian stage musicals.

Musical arrangements for 1st Clarinet and Bass survived in the papers of Wm. Perkins Bull, a late era collaborator, and are now at ______________. The surviving songs are titled "I'm Rolling in Coin", "So He Wrote a little Note", "When Women Rule the World", "Queen of the Movies", "I Wonder Why", "The Fallen Star", "So Long, Good-Bye", "We'll Make this World a Paradise", "Ma Cherie", "When Women Rule", "I Wonder Why", and "'Cause We're Pals".

"Ma Cherie" was published by the Empire Music and Travel Club, in 1916 or earlier.

With Bennett, and The Dumbells (1917 to 1942)
Between 1917 and 1919, the "Canadian Army Third Division Concert Party" toured about an a YMCA-sponsored camp show called "The Dumbells". Enormously popular for their musical and comedy routines, they began a long touring post-Great War Canada and the United States after the conflicted ended.

By at least 1922, professional singer Stan K. Bennett and Allan began performing together.

Some of the Dumbells who performed at "the Front" did not continue with the troupe, and others joined in their place. Over 100 performers were affiliated with the group, at some point or another. Stan Bennett and Fraser Allan were among the ten performers to augment the original troupe during the 1922-1923 tour, Carry On. They were given separate billing, as "Canada's Premiere Song Writers." Its unknown how long Allan and Bennett stayed with the troupe, but the Dumbells 1925 revue "Ace High" included Allan's "Gee, I Wish I Were a Kid Again".

Allan is known to have published 26 different songs, one through self-publishing, and the remainder through ten Canadian publishers, primarily A. Cox & Co. and the Empire Music & Travel Club.

The Prince of Mah-Jong (1924)
In May 1924, The Gyro Club of Toronto presented Allan's The Prince of Mah-Jong as a charity fundraiser, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Funds from the show were to go to The Gyro Club's various charities; advance sales were said to be brisk. Betty Marlatt was cast in the female lead, by April 24. A late-April ad promised a cast of 80, but a few press agent lowered that down to "over seventy."

A column in The Globe billed the production as being "one of the brightest and funniest shows seen here for a long time."

The show's first act music included the opening chorus, "Sailing," as well as the songs "Poor Fish," "Zee Maids of France," "You Left Me Mighty Lonesome," "Corpuscles," "The Marine Jazz Band," "The Sailors of the Guard," "Girls, Girls, Girls, Wonderful Girlies," "Hail to the Prince," and "Beautiful Island of Mah Jong". Act II featured "Ki Yi Yaba," "You'll Get Me When You've Got Me," "My Cleopatra," "Rick, Chick, Chick, Chick," "Moon of the Desert," the duet "Tweet, Tweet, Bobolink," "The Sleep Tree," "The Sorcerer," "Music Sometimes Hath Sadness," "No Rum, No Work," "Love is a Game of Chance," "She's A Won, Won, Wonderful Lady," "Pour Soubrette," and "Count Out Your Tiles." The notation survives for very few of the songs: "My Cleopatra" at Queen's University Library.

Allan in mining
Late in the 1920s and early in the 1930s, Allan skewed to the mining industry. Along with having his own holdings in northern Ontario, his "Norman Fraser Allan & Co." acted as fiscal agent of the Barbara-Marshay Mines Company's site in Arizona's Copper Mountains. He remained a representative until at least 1930.

As of 1932, Allan was vice-president and secretary of Newcastle Oil & Mining Co, a company founded in 1931. The company had three wells in Seneca Township, New York supplying Dominion Natural Gas Co., a lease in Middlesex County, Ontario, Turner Valley, Alberta, and a gold prospect in Matachewan, Ontario.

Early in the Second World War, 1940, Toronto lawyer Wm. Perkins Bull wrote the lyrics to a song called "Our Empire's Here To Stay"; Allan wrote the music.

Published songs

 * "Pick-a-ninny whispers : two-step", Toronto: N. Fraser Allan, 1908.
 * "Oh! You harem skirt : song", Toronto: Bell Piano Co., 1911
 * "Oh! You Canadian town!", with Stanley K. Bennett, Toronto/Hamilton: Nordheimer Piano and Music Co., 1914
 * "A dream of a midsummer night : song", Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1915.
 * "Made in Canada : campaign song", with Stanley K Bennett, Toronto: Musgrave Bros., 1915.
 * "The made in Canada campaign song", with Stanley K. Bennett, Toronto: Music Lovers Pub. Co., 1915.
 * "Somebody's eyes : waltz song", with Kennith McInnis, Empire Music and Travel Club, 1915.
 * "The song of the gondolier", Toronto: Empire Music and Travel Club, 1915.
 * "That's what I think of you", with Stanley K. Bennett and Percy Haswell Fawcett, Toronto: Empire Music and Travel Club Ltd., 1915.
 * "We'll fight, fight, fight", with P. R. Craven, Toronto: Empire Music & Travel, 1915.
 * "You dear, just you", with Katherine Smith, Toronto: Empire Music & Travel Club, 1915.
 * "Beautiful island of Boo Loo : from the musical comedy Belles of Boo Loo", Toronto: A. Cox & Co., 1916.
 * "Canada I hear you calling : from the musical comedy Belles of Boo Loo", Toronto: A. Cox & Co., 1916
 * "'Cause we're pals", Toronto: Hawkes and Harris Music Co., 1916.
 * "The fascinating melody : from the musical comedy Belles of Boo Loo", Toronto: A. Cox, 1916.
 * "Song hits from the successful musical comedy the Canadian passing show", Toronto: Empire Music and Travel Club, 1917.
 * "The Sailors of the Guard", from The Prince of Mah Jong, Toronto: Leo Feist, Ltd., 1923. No surviving copies are known.
 * "Our empire's here to stay", with William Perkins Bull, Toronto: Gordon Thompson, 1940.
 * "Forever pals we'll be", Oakville: Frederick Harris Music Co., 1942.
 * "The Girl I Left At Home"
 * "In The Lobby Of A Grand Hotel"
 * "Moon Of The Desert"
 * "My Cleopatra"
 * "She's My Hawaiian"
 * "Until I Have You"
 * "We'll Make This World A Paradise"
 * "Wonderful Loveland"
 * "Would You Look At That Moon"

One of Allan's songs was republished in Canadian Musical Heritage Society's "The Canadian Musical Heritage: Songs IV to English Texts" (1993).

Canadian Encyclopedia also lists a title called "Music in Canada", published between 1914 and 1916.

Dumbells member Al Plunkett recorded "No wonder the waves are wild", in 1928; it was released commercially in 1929. The song is credited to "Allen" and "Stanley Bennett", and thus has been attributed to Allan and Stanley K. Bennett. This is the only known recording of one of his songs.