London's Bicentennial (Snippet 15)

 Guy Lombardo

   It is a cold and rainy day in London, but that was not the case forty-two years ago when The New York Times published a story about the Guy Lombardo Ball at Wonderland Gardens on the eve of the opening of the Guy Lombardo Museum. The title of the article may not be accurate and the Museum did not last, but it is worth remembering sunnier days on this gloomy one. Here is a portion from: "IN HOMETOWN, GUY LOMBARDO WON'T BE FORGOT," By Douglas Martin, The New York Times, May 21, 1984.

LONDON, Ontario, May 20 -- It had been a day of warm breezes and spring blossoms. But Saturday night at Wonderland Gardens, where thousands of colored lights twinkled and three shimmering silver balls hung from the ceiling, it was New Year's Eve.

 ''I want you to imagine it's winter out there and the snow is blowing and it's Dec. 31,'' the master of ceremonies said. Then, precisely at midnight, the dance band struck up ''Auld Lang Syne,'' couples kissed and everyone said happy new year.

  It was the first annual Guy Lombardo Ball at Wonderland Gardens, the now-fading dance palace where the bandleader and His Royal Canadians first played over a half-century ago. And even if London's most illustrious native son was only on stage as a cardboard cutout with a balloon taped to its hand, Mr. Lombardo was on hand in such tunes as ''A Sailboat in the Moonlight,'' ''Boo Hoo'' and ''My Gal Sal,' all made famous by the band.

   London, a town of 270,000 about 125 miles west of Toronto, was honoring ''The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven'' with the ball, a reunion of people including Mr. Lombardo's first piano player and his drummer for 56 years, and, most important, the opening of the new Guy Lombardo Museum next door to the dance hall.

   Indeed, the residents were doing the somewhat un-Canadian thing of crowning a hero. Unlike the United States, where heroes' faces are carved on mountainsides and Babe Ruth became a candy bar, Canada seems a bit suspicious of the heroic. Perhaps only Terry Fox, the young cancer victim whose 4,305-mile run across Canada on a route directly passing the new museum here, has been accorded unabashed hero status in recent years.

  Mr. Lombardo is made more difficult to categorize because it is tough to decide whether his success is Canadian or American. In his autobiography he said that he and his original nine Canadians were like ''characters out of Horatio Alger, seeking our fortune.'' All became American citizens.

  A sort of cultural schizophrenia was apparent in a short sketch prepared for the museum's opening. At one point it says Mr. Lombardo is ''the American Dream personified,'' while later it calls the Royal Canadians ''true Canadian heroes.''

  It is nonetheless a truism that many ambitious Canadians are naturally going to follow their dreams to a richer next-door neighbor 10 times larger in population. America's sweetheart, Mary Pickford, was Canadian. So was Raymond Massey, everyone's vision of Abraham Lincoln.

   And today, restless (or maybe just cold) citizens of this northern nation have made Los Angeles the third biggest Canadian city, behind Toronto and Montreal. From the television anchorman Peter Jennings to the singer Neal Young, Canadians are peppered through American life. A Part of New Year's Eve By any definition, however, Mr. Lombardo's success was huge. His was one of the the most famous big bands from 1930 to 1950; no one else came close to selling 300 million records, as did the Royal Canadians. The band played every Presidential inaugural from Roosevelt's in 1933 to Jimmy Carter's in 1976.

   Most important, from the time they began their New Year's Eve broadcasts from New York's Roosevelt Hotel in 1929 until Mr. Lombardo's death in 1977, they were as much the world's New Year's Eve as Times Square, funny hats and too much champagne....
   The 1,400-square-foot museum, built at a cost of about $100,000, is dominated by Mr. Lombardo's last big boat, Tempo VII, winner of a number of big races. Other exhibits are more meager, with Mr. Lombardo's violin, a trumpet and original Royal Canadian red jacket arriving only the morning of the opening. Most of the items are posters, photographs and press clippings, with an antique radio playing any of some 600 Guy Lombardo tunes. The museum's sponsor, the London Rowing Club, is still eagerly seeking contributions of more objects to display.

   But on opening day everyone's main object seemed to be to have a good time. The crowd was colorful, like a big party.

  Members of the rowing club favored tuxedos with different colored cummerbunds and ties; as the night air chilled a scattering of minks provided matronly warmth, and one local politician strutted about in a bright yellow suit with matching shoes. Col. Tom Lawson of the locally based Royal Canadian Regiment graced the occasion with his dress reds. All Want to Remember

   And everybody seemed to want to remember, particularly about Mr. Lombardo's generosity to the town even after he had traveled far enough not to have to look back. There was the 1937 benefit concert for flood victims here and a special concert at London's 1955 centennial.

  Students from Catholic Central High School played ''Powder Your Face With Sunshine'' on instruments given to the school by Mr. Lombardo. Most years, folks said, the Canadians were able to make it back for one concert.

   Elaine Gardner, Mr. Lombardo's sister and Mr. Gardner's wife, remembered that the name Royal Canadians resulted from the prodding of a Cleveland promoter. Lebert Lombardo, Guy's brother and the band's trumpeter, recalled that the band picked up ''Auld Lang Syne'' as a theme song when they were doing the Robert Burns Panatella radio show. (Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, wrote the song.) Stories were also told about Mr. Lombardo's legendary sense of discipline and decorum. Trousers had to have knife creases; drinking before or during a show was taboo, and a fresh carnation was expected to adorn the lapel of each red jacket.....
   At the dance, more than 1,000 guests, paying $10 each, glided across the floor like the old days. To at least one observer, the collective impression was that of a gracefulness such that everyone seemed at times to be gliding on wheels."

   On this bleak day, during a rather bad time, it is worth revisiting such an event and to remember that forty years ago Guy Lombardo was probably more popular than  the Canadian singer, Aubrey Graham, is today.

Sources: 
   The Wikipedia entry is a solid one and it even has a section related to the "Guy Lombardo Museum".
   "London, Ont., To Vote on Closing Guy Lombardo Museum," CBC Arts, Jan. 14, 2008:

   " It could be the swan song for a London, Ont., museum dedicated to native son and musical legend Guy Lombardo.

   London's city councillors will vote Monday on a staff recommendation to close the 1,000-square-foot museum.

   Called the Guy Lombardo Music Centre, it has been dogged by poor attendance, with only 400 visitors in 2007.Lombardo, a violinist and bandleader of The Royal Canadians famous throughout the world, was born in the city. The Royal Canadians were noted for playing the traditional Auld Lang Syne as part of New Year's celebrations in New York.

   Local heritage advocates said they're ready to fight the recommendation to close the museum.

   The closure would be a "slap in the face to Lombardo's legacy," said Barry Wells, an advocate for heritage preservation.

  The recommendation to close has not received public input or scrutiny, he told CBC News.

  The current facility needs to be expanded, run professionally and better marketed, rather than shut down, he said.

  The museum opened in 1983 and displays photographs, posters, video recordings, song sheets and the Tempo VII, an award-winning racing boat owned by Lombardo, who was a racing enthusiast.

   The museum was run by a volunteer board until 2001, when the city took over after infighting and resignations at the board.

   However, it costs taxpayers $27,500 annually to run the museum, according to Ross Fair, general manager of community services in London.

A city report recommends closing the museum permanently and turning artifacts over to Museum London.

  It says Lombardo's birthplace should be marked by naming a pavilion and walking trail in a London park after him."

   "A Bright Note: Guy Lombardo - A Series on Forgotten Canadian Legends, Patrick Maloney, The London Free Press, Oct. 2013.

   "Talk about an old acquaintance who's been forgot and never brought to mind.

   Those are essentially the lyrics immortalized by Guy Lombardo, who may be the most commercially successful musician in Canadian history -- and they serve as a mournful tune for his frayed legacy, a long note, fading into silence.

  "He represents music and the fulfillment of dreams," Nick Panaseiko of the Royal Canadian Big Band Music Festival, said a decade ago. "He is an all-around icon."

   Or, at least, he was.

   Born Gaetano Lombardo Jr in London, Ontario in 1902, Guy Lombardo and some of his brothers formed a big band that drifted from their Canadian roots to U.S. stages -- sparking a stunning run of success that's arguably unmatched among other Canadian performers (take that Celine Dion and Justin Bieber).

   It's believed Lombardo and The Royal Canadians sold at least 100 million records, though the group's boosters will argue sales were three times that.

   Whatever the exact figure, the dance band's popularity was stunning: From 1929 to 1952, there wasn't a single year the band didn't produce a record that hit the charts, many of them going to No. 1.

   But rock 'n' roll took root in the mid- 1950s, and a 1954 single that hit No. 24 on the pop charts was the last time Lombardo and his band enjoyed such a level of chart success.

   That, though, didn't spell the end of Lombardo's fame. He's perhaps most famous for having performed for nearly 50 years on New Year's Eve broadcasts enjoyed by millions across North America -- first on radio, then on television, until the tradition ended in 1976.

   They made the performance of the song Auld Lang Syne a New Year's tradition that still stands.

   Alas, more than 35 years after Lombardo's death at age 75, his name likely draws little recognition from Canadians.

   Even in his hometown of London, legal wrangling marred a 2002 attempt to mark the centennial of his birth, and poor attendance led to the shuttering of the city's Guy Lombardo Museum."