Black was born as Solomon Schwartz on 14 June 1913 in Whitechapel, England. His parents were Polish and Romanian Jews. He began piano lessons at the age of seven. He was aged only 12 when his first composition was broadcast on BBC Radio and continued his early success by winning a Melody Maker arranging competition aged 15.
In the early 1930s he was employed as a jazz player and composer and had worked with Howard Jacobs, Joe Orlando, Lew Stone, Maurice Winnick and Teddy Joyce by the time he joined Harry Roy in 1936. He had also broadcast and recorded with several American musicians, including jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who had first heard Black on late night radio shows with Lew Stone's band. When the two eventually met in London, the reviewer Edgar Jackson suggested they record together, and a notable collaboration is a duet version of Honeysuckle Rose.
During World War II, Black joined the Royal Air Force, and became involved in managing the entertainment of servicemen based at Wolverhampton. In 1944 he was appointed conductor of the BBC Dance Orchestra, and remained in the job for almost nine years, broadcasting as many as six nights a week.
By this time he had also begun recording under his own name for Decca. Now well involved with the film industry, he went on to compose, arrange and direct music for about 200 more films, notably after being appointed music director at Elstree Studios in 1958. He was also principal conductor of the Associated British Picture Corporation Orchestra and musical director composer of that organisation from 1958-1963.
Stanley Black's radio work kept him in contact with a large listening audience through his incidental music for shows such as Much Binding in the Marsh and the first two series of The Goon Show. He later presented his own programmes on radio and television, including Black Magic and The Marvellous World of Stanley Black.
In the early 1950s he regularly topped the Melody Maker lists of the most-heard musicians on radio. He was chosen to be included on Decca's first release of long-playing records in the UK in June 1950. This enabled him to continue his conducting, arranging and performing and resulted in a large number of albums. He was particularly popular in United States, as evidenced by his inclusion in the Billboard best-sellers lists.
During his life, he conducted many of Britain's major orchestras, and until the 1990s he was still directing regular broadcast sessions at the BBC studios, despite the onset of deafness in later life.
Stanley Black is remembered for writing numerous scores for radio, television and cinema, including the theme-tune for The Goon Show.
Other films he composed scores for include Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957), Blood of the Vampire (1958), Too Many Crooks (1958), The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961), West 11 (1963), The System (1964), Crossplot (1969), and the Cliff Richard musicals The Young Ones (1961) and his orchestral backing for Richard's follow up, Summer Holiday (1962), which won him an Ivor Novello Award. His work also became familiar to millions of cinema audiences as a consequence of his theme tune and music library for Pathé News, written in 1960.
He also recorded many classical works, including collections of Tchaikovsky and George Gershwin. In 1965 he won a Gramophone Award for his version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol. In addition, he arranged and conducted many commercially successful albums on LP and later CD like Tropical Moonlight, Cuban Moonlight, Black Magic, and series of Film Spectacular and Broadway Spectacular for Decca Records.
A Foggy Day
Stanley Black Lyrics
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Out of town were the people I knew
I had that feeling of self-pity
What to do, what to do, what to do
The outlook was decidedly blue
But as I walked through the foggy streets alone
It turned out to be the luckiest day I've known
A foggy day, in London town
Had me low, had me down
I viewed the morning, with much alarm
British Museum, had lost its charm
How long I wondered,
Could this thing last
But the age of miracles, hadn't past
For suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London town,
The sun was shining everywhere
For suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London town,
The sun was shining everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
The lyrics in Stanley Turrentine's song "A Foggy Day" portray a sense of loneliness and self-pity that one might feel when being alone in a foreign city. The singer is a stranger in the city; he is out of town, and he is far from people he knows. He feels overwhelmed and unsure about what to do. His outlook is negative, and he is down. However, the day turns out to be the luckiest one he's ever experienced. As he walks through the foggy streets alone, he meets someone special, and suddenly the sun is shining bright everywhere.
The pivotal moment in the song is the encounter with the person. The singer has found someone special, someone who turns his day around. In essence, the song seems to be a love story in which a fortuitous meeting helps to alleviate the singer's loneliness and bring him back to life. The weather serves as a metaphor for his state of mind. The fog represents his confusion and uncertainty, and the revelation of sunlight might signify the singer finding clarity and hope.
Line by Line Meaning
I was a stranger in the city
I didn't know anyone in the city
Out of town were the people I knew
The people I knew were not in town
I had that feeling of self-pity
I was feeling sorry for myself
What to do, what to do, what to do
I didn't know what to do
The outlook was decidedly blue
I was feeling very sad
But as I walked through the foggy streets alone
I walked alone on the foggy streets
It turned out to be the luckiest day I've known
It ended up being a very lucky day for me
A foggy day, in London town
It was a foggy day in London
Had me low, had me down
It made me feel sad and depressed
I viewed the morning, with much alarm
I was very worried and scared when I woke up
British Museum, had lost its charm
I didn't find the British Museum interesting anymore
How long I wondered,
I thought to myself,
Could this thing last
Will this feeling of sadness continue?
But the age of miracles, hadn't past
But then something unexpected happened
For suddenly, I saw you there
I was surprised to see you there
And through foggy London town,
Despite the foggy weather in London,
The sun was shining everywhere
It felt like the sun was shining all around us
Everywhere
All around us
Everywhere
All around us
Everywhere
All around us
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind