Josef Locke
Josef Locke was born in Derry, Northern Ireland on March 23rd, 1917 and is the World Music Singer. At the age of 82, Josef Locke biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Joseph McLaughlin (23 March 1917 – October 15, 1999), also known as Josef Locke, was an Irish tenor.
In the 1940s and 1950s, he was a hit man in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Career
Known as The Singing Bobby, he became a local celebrity before starting to work the UK variety circuit, where he also played summer seasons in English seaside resorts. The renowned Irish tenor John McCormack advised him that his voice was better suited to a lighter repertoire than the operatic one he had in mind, and urged him to find an agent—thus he found the noted impresario Jack Hylton who booked him, but could not fit his full name on the bill, thus Joseph McLaughlin became Josef Locke.
He made an immediate impact when featured in "Starry Way," a twenty-week summer show at the Blackpool Opera House in 1946 and was rebooked for the following summer, then starring for three seasons at the Blackpool Hippodrome. He appeared in ten Blackpool seasons from 1946 to 1969, not the nineteen seasons he later claimed.
He made his first radio broadcast in 1949, and subsequently appeared on television programmes such as Rooftop Rendezvous, Top of the Town, All-star Bill and The Frankie Howerd Show. He was signed to the Columbia label in 1947, and his first releases were the two Italian songs "Santa Lucia" and "Come Back to Sorrento".
In 1947, Locke released "Hear My Song, Violetta," which became forever associated with him. It was based on a 1936 tango "Hör' mein Lied, Violetta" by Othmar Klose and Rudolf Lukesch. The song "Hör' mein Lied, Violetta" was often covered, including by Peter Alexander and was itself based on Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata.
Locke's other songs were mostly a mixture of ballads associated with Ireland ("I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen", "Dear Old Donegal", "Galway Bay", "The Isle of Innisfree", the theme song from the film The Quiet Man, and another Dick Farrelly song, "The Rose of Slievenamon") excerpts from operettas (including "The Drinking Song" from The Student Prince, "My Heart and I" from Richard Tauber's operetta Old Chelsea, and "Goodbye" from The White Horse Inn) and familiar favourites such as "I'll Walk Beside You," "Come Back to Sorrento," and "Cara Mia."
In 1948, he appeared in several films produced by Mancunian Films, usually as versions of himself. He plays himself in the film Holidays with Pay. He also appears as "Sergeant Locke" in the 1949 comedy What a Carry On!.
In 1958, after he had appeared in five Royal Variety Performances, and while he was still at the peak of his career, the British tax authorities began to make substantial demands that Locke declined to meet. Eventually he fled the country for Ireland, where he lay low for several years. When his differences with the taxman were eventually settled, Locke relaunched his career in England with tours of the northern variety clubs and summer seasons at Blackpool's Queen's Theatre in 1968 and 1969, before retiring to County Kildare, emerging for the occasional concert in England. He later appeared on British and Irish television, and in November 1984 was given a lengthy 90-minute tribute in honour of the award he was to be receiving at the Olympia theatre commemorating his career in show business on Gay Byrne's The Late Late Show. Locke also made many appearances on the BBC TV's long running variety show The Good Old Days.
In 1991, the Peter Chelsom film Hear My Song was released. It is a fantasy based on the notion of Locke returning from his Irish exile in the 1960s to complete an old love affair, and save a Liverpool-based Irish night-club from ruination. Locke is played by Ned Beatty, with the singing voice of Vernon Midgley.
The film led to a revival in Locke's career. A compilation CD was released and he appeared on This Is Your Life in March 1992. He performed in front of the Prince and Princess of Wales at the 1992 Royal Variety Show, singing "Goodbye", the final song performed by his character in the film. He had announced prior to the song that this would be his final public appearance.