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Reginald Moxon Armitage (15 July 1898 – 4 March 1954) known professionally as Noel Gay. was a British composer of popular music of the 1930s and 1940s whose output comprised 45 songs as well as the music for 28 films and 26 London shows. Sheridan Morley has commented that he was "the closest Britain ever came to a local Irving Berlin". He is best known for the musical, Me and My Girl.
Gay's career blossomed due to his talent for writing catchy, popular melodies in styles ranging from music hall to operetta.
His most famous show, for which he contributed the music but not the lyrics, was Me and My Girl. This originally opened in 1937 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London and, after a shaky start, gained popularity when the BBC broadcast it live on radio on 13 January 1938. It starred Lupino Lane as Bill Snibson and it ran for 1,646 performances despite being bombed out of two theatres. The "showstopper" in that work was "The Lambeth Walk" which has the distinction of being the only popular song to be the subject of a leader in The Times. In October 1938 one of its leaders read "While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances – to 'The Lambeth Walk'.""Peace and 'The Lambeth Walk'", The Times, 18 October 1938, p. 15 The show was revived in 1952 and again in 1984, when the book was revised by Stephen Fry and came to include some of Gay's own songs. The latter production ran for eight years, initially at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester and then at the Adelphi Theatre in London, before going on tour throughout Britain and transferring to Broadway theatre.
Gay went on to write songs for revues by The Crazy Gang, and for star artists like Gracie Fields, Flanagan and Allen and George Formby, as well as penning popular World War II songs such as "Run, Rabbit, Run" (with lyrics by Ralph Butler). He wrote two songs for the 1938 comedy film Save a Little Sunshine.
After the war, his musical output diminished and he concentrated more on production, in part because of increasing deafness and also because the fashion for cheerful Cockney-themed songs was on the wane.
He had created Noel Gay Music in 1938 as a business vehicle. It now forms a part of the Noel Gay Organisation which includes divisions for television and theatre and is a significant British showbusiness agency, under the day-to-day control of his family.
His son, Richard Armitage, set up the Noel Gay Artists agency and became an influential talent agent.
He died from cancer on 4 March 1954. [1]
Some of his songs featured in the film Overlord
Shows
Gay contributed to numerous shows, almost all of them musical comedies or revues. Grove Music Online lists the following, except where the genre is stated as uncertain or as pantomime:
included The King's Horses Uncertain genre Rev. as La-Di-Da-Di-Da, 1943 Rev. as Susie, 1942 Book: Bob Weston & Bert Lee; music: Noel Gay, Harris Weston, Michael Carr & Jimmy Kennedy. Included The Fleet's in Port Again Filmed as The Lambeth Walk, 1939 London Palladium Revue included Let The People Sing, Only A Glass of Champagne, You've Done Something to My Heart, The Girl Who Loves a Soldier Score for pantomime)
Songs
Among Noel Gay's songs were the following, sourced from US Library of Congress copyright catalogues and the catalogue of the National Library of Australia as indicated.
Bibliography
Categories: 1898 Births, 1954 Deaths, Deaths From Cancer, Alumni Of Christ's College, Cambridge, Alumni Of The Royal College Of Music, English Musical Theatre Composers, Musicians From Wakefield, Musicians From Yorkshire, People Educated At Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, 20th-century English Composers, 20th-century English Male Composers
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