The World's Greatest Minstrel

Clive with Ron Brodie

Clive & Lenore ~ The Wedding

I was all set to go to the New World. Ron Brodie said I would be back in six-months. He was hoping I would because we were friends from being ten years old and a great pair of builders. We could work from both ends of a wall laying bricks, he being left-handed and me being right. But I never did come back to stay, only to visit.

STARTING OVER.

It was 1967 that I left the port of Hull the 7th day of April and the skies were damp and dull.

I had one thousand dollars and my Woolworth suitcase packed, a happy and contented heart among the things I lacked.

I took a flight to Canada and landed that same day just 3 days in Toronto and I was on my way.

I got a call from Boston, from a Jolson fan I knew "Say Clive I've got a guy down here, who'll make a star of you",

And so I flew to Boston and life began again. My new friends warm and gracious soon eased away my pain.

And then I hit Miami Beach and met my sweet Lenore and now my life has everything it never had before.

I still go back to Hull sometimes and feel a little sad for happy days I spent there and for things I might have had.

Yet I am very grateful, there's nothing that I lack, God took my joy away from me and gave me triple back.

Clive Baldwin, October 23, 1995

The poem gives the essence of my U.K./U.S. Canadian experience but the details are, for me, interesting to go back over. My friend Ron, with Bill, his late father as a passenger, drove me west on the 60 odd pre M.63 motorway miles to the Leeds Bradford airport in the early morning darkness. A twin-engine plane took me to Heathrow where I got on a B.O.A.C airliner with its four jet engines mounted on the back. If I remember right it was a Vickers Viscount. I was getting excited about what adventures might lay ahead even as I recalled that in my army days I was not supposed to fly because of a perforated ear drum. It was cold in Ottawa and there was snow on the ground. We didn't stay long but it was dark when we arrived in Toronto. The Royal York was recommended as a good hotel to stay at but at $50:00 a night that would have soon broken my bank. The next day I found a good motel that had a restaurant for $20:00.As I searched for an affordable room the ice was thick in the gutters and the bitter wind went through my thin Macintosh as if it wasn't there. The next day being Saturday I put on a few sweaters and went to see the sights. As I stood alone on the shore of lake Ontario I sadly mused over what I could have done wrong that took me so far from all the things I loved. Being alone wasn't unusual for an ex wartime evacuee but I don't particularly like the feeling.

I got back to my motel room and shaved and showered in preparation for my singing debut on Yonge Street. At least singing always made me feel better when it seemed nobody else but an audience loved me for what I was. I watched a bit of television and dozed off at about 6 p.m. My big debut on Yonge Street never happened!! I had dozed through till midnight because my biological clock was set to Greenwich meantime. I was a bit jet lagged and not used to the 5-hour difference. It was to be over 13 years later that I came back to Canada because the next day, Sunday, I spoke to John Baumeister on the phone and as it says in the poem, that's how I got to America. John was very anxious to tell me he had set up an appointment for the next Wednesday with Ed' Penney, a well known Boston radio personality who was also a songwriter and show biz entrepreneur who set up New England venues for the big name acts like Sinatra or Frankie Laine. I had recently sent John some semi professional recordings I had made with three top Hull musicians on my 33rd birthday and he had taken them to Ed' said I had a built in echo chamber sound.

I left Toronto and got on an American Airlines jet on Monday headed for the new world city of Boston. I had been evacuated to a village near the old Boston in Lincolnshire so I knew the difference between them first hand.

Johns Wife Dolores was there to meet me at Logan Airport and whisk me away to the Baumeister's 3-bedroom home on Filomena Street in Weymouth in her big roomy De Soto automobile. I was flying all that day and for long after in a euphoria of acceptance. New friends were fast filling in the years of frustration. The neighbours and relations came by to see what that crazy John Baumeister had been talking about since he first heard my recordings. I sang for them and John didn't seem so crazy anymore.

John and Dolores had 10 children together but they insisted they could find room for me under the stairs where the walls were hung with pictures of "the dead guy," Dee's name for Al Jolson. The master bedroom was downstairs too and Dolores giggled as she opened the curtain to show me her "work-shop." The Baumeisters will have my affectionate gratitude to my dying day. I could not have had an American part to my showbiz career without Johns initiative and He and Dee's freely given hospitality.

Wednesday in Boston was another happy first meeting in the Kenmore square office of Ed Penny with his songwriter partner John Domurad. They had written songs that had been recorded by the Mills brothers and Vaughn Monroe so they already had tunes that I was to record later as part of my very own repertoire. Within a few days Ed booked some studio time at Joe Saia's A.A.A. recordings on Dorchester Avenue and I recorded Weeping Willow and Moonlight Baby. John Domurad also played piano at the Ritz Carlton, the finest hotel in Boston so it didn't take long for him to invite me over. It wasn't a piano bar so there wasn't a microphone but it was no problem for a built in echo voice like mine. Back then the melodies of the good old days hadn't been infected by the hippie terminal music disease called "Rock" so Jolson was still 'Big-Time." After a sumptuous lunch one day Ed asked me to go with him to a record store on Massachusetts avenue to help him pick out some Jolson records. He didn't need my help to come up with a great song "Minstrel Man." inspired by the sleeve notes on a long play Jolson album. Ed' didn't promise me anything at first but he asked a lot of probing questions about my background. From my answers as to how I felt about leaving my children behind he wrote "Goodbye Little Girl." I soon learned it and He and John were delighted with my rendition as it came over the control room speakers at the A.A.A. studios.

Ed's Lawyer, Neil Chayett, was at work getting my green card so I could stay in America. Since it only cost me $125:00 I volunteered to lay a concrete path to his home in Framingham. Ed' lived in the same town too, in a house better described as a small castle. So had Vaughn Monroe except that he was more famous for his great singing and the "Meadows" theatre restaurant he owned there.

Everything was happening at breakneck speed but I had the energy to cope with it. In early May a strong wind blew down a big tree at the home of fellow Jolson fan and newfound friend Doctor Barry Brooks. He and his wife Elly' lived in a large old style house by the sea in Winthrop just north of the airport. They allowed me to volunteer my services in cutting it into a multitude of large logs. He still has the movie he took of me at that time. Barry is a great Dentist and well-known collector of memorabilia. He had it all over the place so it was suggested he hire me at $3:50 an hour to convert part of his extensive veranda into a real store place. At the time the U.S. rate of pay was at least double. Elly' was a bit sceptical because to the American mind one usually specializes in just one trade. Knowing I was a bricklayer plasterer it seemed to her that woodwork was rather intricate by comparison. I based my "fee" on what I would have earned in England where Ron and I would completely plaster two 3-bedroom houses in a week (we were so fast the other plasterers would come to observe our simple technique. I would mix and carry the plaster to him to put on the walls and when the four foot square board was full I would start plastering too.)

As part of the deal I would have my own bedroom and board because I had no U.S. license or car to come and go in. The job got done in good time as I ate Elly's finest food at the choicest location in Winthrop. The Brook's treated me as one of the dozens of members of their family so we had many a party where Barry would play guitar and He and I would sing. Barry still spends a lot of his time enjoying his hobby while surrounded by the now loaded shelves I put up 35 years ago. I told Elly' later on that I had never tackled such a big carpentry job before theirs. She gave a horrified gasp as if to acknowledge her original scepticism, but by then it was far too late. Besides, the room was completed to everyone's satisfaction. Even though I don't get to Boston much these days I won't ever forget the bountiful Brook's either.

Big good, natured George McKee who lived at the Broad street end of Filomena Street invited me to his vacation home on long lake in Maine in that beautiful summertime of '67. I think he wanted me to make it with his divorced daughter but I had been dubbed "The Singing Celibate" by Ed' Penney and wanted to keep my reputation intact. If the reader has a problem with my veracity so did Lenore and especially her brother Russell when I told them I was studying the bible in my Las Vegas or Atlantic City Hotel room month after month. It's not that I'm abnormal it's just a matter of being consistent with my particular philosophy. At least I won't die from one or two of today's incurable diseases. Well it was a great vacation and I'm happy to say... (I forget her name,) never made a move on me. The biggest day of all came the following week when Ed' told me we were all set to go to New York to record at Columbia Studios. Boston record distributor Jack North had financed Ed' in the amount of $4000:00 We four flew on the Eastern Airlines shuttle and within two hours we had gone from Logan airport to New York's LaGuardia and checked into the Warwick Hotel on Broadway.

At seven o'clock the next evening we walked through the same doors that had allowed entrance to Al Jolson himself and to lesser luminaries like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet. Lou Waxsman the recording Engineer welcomed us into the big acoustically perfect studio with its forest of microphones and proudly boasted about his new 4 track-recording machine. (I presently own a year 2000 8-track minidisk recorder that takes up one fifteenth of the room) He too was a Jolson fan and had brought his young son along. I met that boy recently as a heart pacemaker recipient in his 40's and he recalled that the experience was as enjoyable for him as it was for the other "Guests" in the control room like Simon and Garfunkle and "The Grateful Dead." Who were blasphemously "Rockin'" to a rhythm they weren't supposed to like. Bill Stegmeyer the musical arranger for Bob Crosby's (Bings brother) "Bobcats" had been hired by Ed' to arrange and conduct for me and was already in the hall organizing the finest of the New York studio musicians. As I recall he was a chain-smoking Sagittarian with that love of the past they all seem to share. (John Baumeister too) Bear in mind that I had no big time experience in show biz so you can imagine what emotional trauma I had to go through when Bill counted the musicians in to play the first song "minstrel man." There were 32 of them including strings, which was 31 more than the piano player back home at the "Station Inn" that I was used to humming a few bars to so he could play in my key! I was crying from sheer pleasure. They practised the song once with great precision as only studio musicians can. Then it was time for me to sing along with them. "Ladies and Gentlemen our "Star" Clive Baldwin" said Bill and they all applauded politely. After the song they applauded again but this time "staccato" which I think in musical parlance means, "more enthusiastically." Who cares how we talk when we're all having a good time?

Ed' knew what he wanted from the session of 5 songs but he still wasn't completely satisfied even after the almost 6 hours that I had been singing and long after the musicians had gone home. We went back to Boston with the backing tracks and did a few more overdubs at the AAA studios but the magic never happened. Then the Beatles arrived in America and a song they wrote, "those were the days" became the funeral dirge of minstrelsy. In the process of getting my green card from the U.S. immigration department I had to get a job as a bricklayer with J.F.K. builders of Hingham (just north of Weymouth) Jack Kelly was the boss. I called him at his home recently and he and his wife are still going strong in the same house. I'll say one thing for the Brickies everywhere-"They're all on the level!" I mention these names out of gratitude and respect for the help they all gave me when I needed it most. I worked for one month before the cold weather arrived and I haven't had to work since except to help out my friends.

By the time the spring came around Ed' had talked the John Sullivan and Lordly and Dame theatrical agencies into booking me around the New England area while he tried to salvage his deal for first option with Columbia records. The "old School" Irishman Vice President who liked my sound was released in favour of a more modern record executive with my first name. Clive Davis was to become one of the biggest names in the record business. He told me he liked my singing but that it wasn't commercial in the new age. All very disappointing for all of us but that's life; no use moping over little things like a blow to the ego especially since compared to bold and brassy Jolson I was a shrinking violet. I have conquered a lot of my fears but there is no denying that the British don't like boastful people even if the boaster is good It's our Christian.Heritage to be humble and well mannered. We were all brought up that way in imitation of the founder of our once all pervading religion. I come on strong now but it's more because it's expected of me. If I didn't my performance and career would be jeopardised

"The Flying Dutchman" theatre restaurant at Hyannis on beautiful white sand and blue sea Cape Cod was my favourite venue and paid enough so that I was able to afford to go back home to Hull by October '68. It was wonderful to see my children and family I took a few photographs for the way we were and felt awfully empty again so I soon headed back to the U.S.of A.

I had bought a used 307cc Yamaha motorcycle that year in memory of my deprived youth and my brief career as an army dispatch rider and headed for the sunny south. The 1500 miles to Miami Beach was nothing to a young lion from Leverton. (The village where I was a wartime evacuee) It was November '69 and the weather was getting colder. My plan was to visit friends on the way down, even those I didn't know except as Jolson fans. I was wearing lots of warm clothes topped by a rain suit. My best clothes and musical arrangements were in two waterproof fold-over suitcases strapped to panniers I made to fit on the rear axle and mudguard. I dropped in on Charlie Hunt in Weehawken New Jersey where the view of New York across the Hudson River is spectacular. Charlie was my father's age and a big Jolson collector who had actually seen Jolson in his last Broadway show in 1940. We met through Barry Brooks, which is how Charlie was at the Columbia studios session to cheer me on. He didn't understand Ed's need to improve on what Charlie thought were great performances from me.

I rented a room for an overnight stay a few streets away in Union City. The proprietor surprised me by propositioning me on the front porch of his establishment after I got back from visiting Charlie. I surprised him by giving him my most indignant high velocity right arm to his shoulder. After spinning like a top for a few revolutions he backed off with the smirk of the undeterred and said he would visit me in my room when I was asleep. I couldn't sleep! My suitcases and the room furniture were piled up against the door to my room that wouldn't lock in fearful anticipation. At dawns early light I moved out thinking that if my ex wife had been as romantic I wouldn't have been sneaking away from the possibility of being provoked into being homicidal. If God can demonstrate His homophobic disapproval of homosexual behaviour by nuking Sodom and Gomorrah who am I to disagree? We never hear from journalists that homosexuals are heterophobes- They discriminate against being normal by preferring other men (-my invention as with the word misopenile by which I give a name to the man hating lesbians.) Mysogynist is a greek word for woman hater. Miso = hate and gyne= woman. There is no word for females who hate men so I made up my own. I’m all for equal rights but I can see the day coming when homosexuality becomes mandatory or be accused of discrimination if one objects to the practise.

Next stop Washington D.C. to meet Jolson discography author Dave Wigransky. He invited me to stay over and we spent a lot of time in his basement studio playing recordings of songs Jolson was said to have sung but never recorded. I sang along and the results were captured on my portable Telefunken recorder. Thanks to long-time friend John Thornell "Get out and get under" was later to fool Terry Quigley into believing it was A.J because there was a whistling part and I couldn't whistle at the time.

Back on my bike and now below the Mason Dixon line (named after two English Surveyors who defined the line between the north and the south of the U.S.A. in 1774.) I tooled down interstate 95 doing about 350 miles a day because my loaded vehicle couldn't do 95. I dropped into Savannah to see the palm trees and the "hard hearted Hannah" I had sung about so many times with my now deceased friend, fellow builder apprentice and singing partner Reg. Todd. (Sagittarius) but Hannah wasn't commercial anymore either. As it got warmer down in Dixie my clothes came off proportionately and as I pulled onto Miami's Biscayne Boulevard I was perspiring in my short-sleeved shirt. I looked in the Miami Herald newspaper for a room to rent and found one at $20:00 a month on 48th street and N.E. 2nd avenue in Miami. The rent was raised $5:00 when I was found washing my cloths in the bathtub.

I was an instant success with Norma Serrano who had her theatrical agency down fashionable Lincoln road on Miami Beach. My Columbia recordings, even though they were unfinished, knocked her out! Being a mostly Jewish population in the winter season giving them Jolson she said was like giving the Irish St Patrick. She introduced me to her musical arranger friend Carlos Varela (Sagittarius) with the recommendation that I enlarge my arrangements to ten men so I could work the big hotels such as the Fountainbleau and the Eden Roc on Collins Avenue.

My first job was at the Doral beach Hotel on the 16 December 1969. Why? I wondered had I been so worried about not being good enough for America? Two nights later I began a long association with my first ecstatically received show at the "bleau." My new show arrangements and a show intro song I wrote myself took most of my savings so come Christmas day I had only enough money for an Arby's roast beef sandwich. I sat on a bus bench on the corner of Biscayne and the 36th street Miami Beach causeway and had a reprise of the feelings I experienced by Lake Ontario and cried out of loneliness as I ate my meagre Christmas dinner.

Someone recommended I take acting lessons so I signed up for Frank Bunetta's acting course at the Mayflower theatre on Biscayne Boulevard. He was the Director of the Jackie Gleason Show so whoever advised me must have thought it was a good career move and I might get recognized. I was! The first thing Frank did was to tell me to keep my voice projection down because the volume hurt his ears. I don't like acting! It's too unreal for my sense of spontaneity. If you can entertain without practicing how to you are being true to the meaning of being called an entertainer. It's exciting for me not to know too much about what will come out once I get in front of an audience.

I briefly romanced fellow acting student Cathy Rollins from Birmingham via Durham who worked in downtown Miami for B.O.A.C. but we had very little in common other than our English ancestry; but we're still friends.

The winter hotel season over I drove my overworked motorbike back to Boston. This time on a trailer pulled by a car I was returning by a very novel system wherein a car owner would pay someone to return their car while they took the 'plane if the car trip back was too much for them to cope with. Back in Boston I resumed my singing career at various venues and formed a very pleasant working and social association with popular Boston comedian Jack Leal, who also rented a spare room to me in his house in Savin Hill. We were not strictly a team but the agent liked to put us together because we used to do some hilarious spontaneous comedy together after I did my spot. When he got married (again) I moved into a room in Roxbury at Evelyn Charbeneau's house. She just received my "sings Jolson Again" video now that I have it the U.S. system. I returned her check for that and other recordings because of our friendship and the fact that she's now 83 but she sent it back because of our friendship and that's friendship!

The summer came and I had another enjoyable season at the "Dutchman."

The Peacock Lounge in Auburn out west on the Massachusetts Turnpike near Worcester Massachusetts was another great, repeat venue for me. Sam Hougasion was the boss but he couldn't afford to pay much on top of his 5-piece band.

Sam was friendly. His idea of a night off was to drive for well over an hour to Rhode Island and have Chinese food in the early A.M after the show.

Cive with Pearl Sieben

Norman Brooks with Clive

One night the internationally known Jolson impersonator Norman Brooks was appearing at the Stateline Casino nearby and I went along. Someone told the manager about me being there and since he had read the raves in the Worcester Gazette regarding my performance he told Norman to call me up for a song. We sang "California here I come" together and he was gracious enough to elicit applause from the audience by saying, "He really does sound like Jolson doesn't he?" He came over to our table and said he didn't think of himself as Jolson but that's what they hired him for. "Me too" I said, "there's a lot of Sinatra and Crosby sound-a-like types but only ever one Jolson." Norman had a quadruple heart problem a couple of years ago but I'm sure he is still trying to plug the very creative songs he wrote himself.

Late in '70 Joe Saia suggested I make an album at his A.A.A. studios in Boston. It would serve as a theatrical credential for me if I could come up with half the necessary $7000:00. By then I was renting a room from the sister of Dolores Baumeister; Florence in Hough's Neck just across the bay from...wait for it, Hull. (Massachusetts). To my great surprise Flo' said she would invest in me. In fact she put up the whole amount. That's when I met two more talented New England songwriters, Stanley Jones and Bill Taylor. The title of the album was "New England Scene." Named after the lovely song they wrote. We kept on making the same mistake; the album was not commercial even if it was well made by Boston's top musicians and Joe's recording expertise. I realised the world had changed drastically when my car was broken into and what little money I had made from album sales that belonged to Flo' was stolen along with other items.

I went song plugging to many radio stations with Stanley Jones who was also the Editor of the Woonsocket Call newspaper in Rhode Island. Stanley is still going strong but sad to say Bill Taylor has since passed on. I recorded a recent C.D. and used their last notable effort called "Boston," but the buying public now falls into the new age category of unpatriotic rebels against what is good. They have destroyed, among other things, our musical traditions. One would think that the citizens of the town where American freedom began would want a song bearing its own name.

Reading the local "Quincy Patriot Ledger" newspaper one-day I saw there was a new Broadway show being planned about the Immortal Jolson. I checked it out and got the phone number of the author of the book, Pearl Sieben. "You sound like my Jolson" she said as I spoke with her. I was soon on my way to her home in Hicksville Long Island. I had no ties so she and her husband Herbert gave me the cosy attic room in their split-level house.

The Immortal Jolson didn't get off the ground for lack of money but Pearl and I worked on a script for a small cast called "On stage Mr. Jolson." I didn't have much work or money so Pearl thought we ought to go up to the Catskill Mountains to see Jerry Weiss who was the entertainment Director of Grossinger's resort. He was interested but insisted that I go through an agent such as Charley Rapp who had offices above the Winter Garden theatre on Broadway. He had most of the New York State jobs sewn up.

Audiences don't make me nervous but agents do. Money is their bottom line not talent. Even in a Jolson show they always prefer to use a cheaper act in order to make as much as possible from their investment. In the case of a known talent like Brian Conley it is his drawing power that kept "JOLSON" going for a very short 18 month 'West End" run in which the Producer used substitutes under the pretext of the show being the draw and not whoever was playing Jolson. At that time I didn't feel like exposing myself to the possibility of rejection by the biggest Catskill booker in New York so Pearl called about a job for me as a security guard I went to the office and had a successful interview. Never went back though...I had an epiphany! What the hell did I want to be in that kind of work for when I had jobs and a following in New England? I headed back in my rusty trusty '62 Ford Comet that Joe Saia gave me for building two big fancy gateposts topped by lions at the entrance to his drive on Elm Street in Brockton. The Hometown of Rocky Marciano and middleweight, "marvelous" Marvin Hagler...and nowaday's Jack Leal. At the same time I cleared Ed Penney's recording bill with Joe's studio at Ed's request. He had tried hard for me but Jolson was a Dinosaur in the new "Age of Aquarius." Ed and I ended our 10-year management contract as good friends. He lives in Nashville these days and has written many a good song there for the top country singers. It was back to the Peacock lounge in the cool autumn time with just a few weeks left before the early snow

Time to hit Miami Beach with my 1961 mercury "Comet" with the self-replaced reground cylinder head that I blew escaping two irate occupants of a station wagon who I beat to the tollbooth on the Interstate 95 expressway. I think I was among the very first road rage driver's. It's not that I get angry; it's those I beat that cannot tolerate coming in second! As usual I called in on my friends on my way down south but being in a car was so much more civilised. Bit cool up north though because the floor on the passenger side had rusted out and I had to have the car heater on high to compensate.

Buddy Walker

Clive, Lenore & George Jessell

I headed straight for my old room on 48th street and shortly thereafter for my agent's office with my newly recorded album credentials. Peppy fields had a television and also a radio show in the afternoon and evening so it wasn't long before I found myself at the Lucerne Hotel on Miami Beach where she produced the show. An entertainer I knew directed me over to a 5ft 7" sharply dressed man in his very late 70s wearing horn rimmed glasses and an obvious toupee sitting alone on a sofa in the lobby. He could have been a double for George Burns BUDDY WALKER C.B. PIX HERE

"Are you Buddy Walker I asked?" Yeah! He drawled in a show business growl. I told him my name etc' and asked him if it was true he had been Al Jolson's understudy. "Sure, in Sinbad Bombo and Big Boy" Why? "Well I would like to play my recordings for you, I hear you're an agent out of the Roland Muse office." Go ahead he said "I'm not due on Peppy's show for another 15 minutes yet" I played "Tootsie" and he casually said "Yeah that's Jolson" and joined in with his own wobbly version of the song. He didn't know Minstrel Man so he listened more intently. "I never heard Jolson sing that song before." Buddy I said, "That's not Jolson it's me"... Wha! That's you?" And shot up out of his chair like a man half his age. He grabbed my arm and propelled me into the showroom. "I've gotta get you on Peppy's show right away" And he did! Buddy and I became firm friends and often performed a dual salute to Jolson on radio, television and theatres.

He never ever substituted for Al in any of his shows. He told me he would put on sunglasses and sit in the orchestra pit and sleep. He could whistle with his fingers like Jolson but never could get the warble. I went to see him in his office in the Olympia building in downtown Miami. Not expecting him to acquiesce because of a previous experience as a 14-year-old in which a whistler I knew, by the name of Terry Alderson, wouldn't show me how. I asked Buddy to teach me the whistling technique. I eagerly followed his instructions and I could have died for joy when a loud whistle came effortlessly forth. It was one of the happiest days of my show business life since the Jolson Stories first inspired me. It took 2 years of constant practice to perfect the whistling because at first I couldn't get the warble either. I began listening hard, almost desperately to Jolson's technique and finally realized that the warble was made by letting the tongue touch the roof of the mouth to be blown down by the air passing over it and quickly springing back like the action of an electric bell. Oh boy! Was I a happy man? I practiced at every opportunity. Of all the people I have tried to teach only two or three have ever been able to get a sound.

As a member of the American Guild of Variety Artistes I attended meetings concerned with raising our entertainment fees up to $75:00. We failed but it was at those meetings that I met a man and wife double act. We just naturally got along well in an astrologically harmonious way. They were extremely interested in knowing about how "the signs" related to each other. As always I never expected they might have had an "agenda." And now, as they say in the business, it's time for a change of pace. I got the idea of writing an inexpensive theatrical production about the adventures I got up to as a Jolson clone with Lenore as my Wife who would play herself as she lived through our experiences. Since her dialogue is already in script form I will insert it as written to save time and repetition. She makes her entrance by picking up on the line of my poem about coming to America.

LENORE ENTERS STAGE...looks, left, right, smiles as she points to herself and says: "His Sweet Lenore, that's me', believe me I wasn't looking for any romance. Life was chaotic enough. Yet, suddenly I was caught up in a whirlwind of excitement and romance.... I was working in television production doing an afternoon taping of a variety show called Peppy Fields House Party. Some of the biggest names in show businesses that were appearing at many of the nightclubs and theatres on Miami Beach would drop by to be on the show. Anyway, at work that afternoon I was having plenty of trouble keeping my mind on the sound and lights. It seems Peppy's guest, the world famous Piano player was truly international, since he had Roman hands and Russian fingers and had been chasing me around the piano bench while I was trying to set up the microphones. Besides that, the production manager tried to convince me to pose for sexy photos to put in his coo-coo magazine called Swingles. "I've been dreaming for months," he said "Dream on", I told him. Finally after getting through what seemed like an endless afternoon of eccentric egos I went home. Performers can be peculiar people and since I was just divorced with a couple of kids and pretty broke, I had two actor friends renting a room at my house for the winter season. She and her husband Luigi...he had one of those fancy Italian names ...I can't quite remember, Luigi? Could it be Libido? Anyway, it was something like that.... he was an opera Singer, but she really took the cake...called herself Belinda and her "Babbling Boobies".

It was a very unique act. She painted bright Red, like lips around her navel and on one of her breasts she painted blue eyes and had a small blonde wig on it. On the other one she painted brown eyes and a black wig. By contorting her body and using her gift for ventriloquism the whole works seemed to wink and talk to each other.... First time I saw it I fell on the floor laughing. Ha-ha, what a talent. Anyway, on this particular evening they persuaded me to go over with them to Peppy Fields House Party Radio Show at the Lucerne Hotel. Peppy's nighttime show was the same kind of variety show as in the afternoon except it was on the radio. As Peppy's sound technician I was always invited and welcome to bring guests.... and all the drinks were free. Belinda and Luigi really worked on me and I agreed to go, realizing later that I was their ticket to free drinks and a night out. About midnight we turned up at the Lucerne Hotel. They had conveniently forgotten to tell me that Clive Baldwin; this handsome and apparently single Guy they had met was booked to be a guest singer on the show. Seems like that was part of their plan to set me up with a new boyfriend because Clive came in about one o'clock in the morning and stopped at our table. Well, when his sparkling blue eyes connected with my sparkling blue eyes the sparks REALLY flew.

Well, the rest of the night passed like in a dream, never even heard the "Mammies" and "Swanees" he sang. I was not a big fan of Al Jolson, even though in 1940 my uncle Sidney Lanfield had directed him in a Movie called "Swanee River" Actually I was more into Johnnie Ray and I got pretty close to him when he was at the Copacabana in New York. I was all of sixteen and that was when I learned that the only thing we had in common was our preference for men. After all the "Mammy Songs" were over Clive made a beeline for our table again, by then it was about 3 o'clock in the morning, so we all agreed to go over to Wolfie's Restaurant a favorite late night hot spot where all the entertainers hung out after their shows. But, my two romantic conspirators took off, leaving me without a ride and no choice but to accept Clive's invitation to take me to Wolfie's. God, was he irresistible, even though his old 1962 Comet had no floor on the passenger's side in front since it had rusted out so what could I do, I had to curl my legs up on the seat. He may have had Jolson's voice, but he sure didn't have his bankroll. Can't remember much about the next hour or two, we smiled a lot and sort of stared at each other while everyone in our crowd was talking and laughing then he drove me back to my house and played his new record album. After one sweet kiss and a promise to call me later, Prince Charming was off by the dawn's early light in his horseless, floorless carriage, leaving a smiling Cinderella behind. So, that was my Saturday night...A week later I was on a dreamy, steamy Cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean with my sexy, adorable, inimitable Clive who received the princely sum of seventy-five dollars and a free trip for me for singing on the old Bahama Star Cruise Ship Well she sank shortly afterwards and she is now serving as a reef somewhere in the Bahamas, but at that time the ship and we were really riding the waves Ooh la la was that a weekend! Now folks I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression of me but this guy was so hard to resist. It was hard to say goodbye when He took off in his rust bucket up to New York. He had to go see what I thought was some pie in the sky producer about doing a Jolson show on Broadway. My mother who was hoping I'd find a rich guy or at least one who had a decent car and a steady income, was not thrilled when I told her two weeks later that the one and only had called and invited me up to New York for the weekend.... It was just around Clives birthday in mid-March and boy did I have a present for him! So, off I flew on Eastern airlines round trip weekend for $99:00. From the "Big Orange" to the "Big Apple" and back. What a steal. The old Comet with no floor was awaiting me at the airport; with Clive at the wheel...by then he had found a piece of tin to cover up the hole. Clive, being very practical knew that the March winds might freeze my, uh, knees. I rather missed curling my legs up on the seat.

After hugs and kisses off we went to Pearlie's house in Long Island where Clive was staying with her and her husband. Pearl Sieben was an old friend of Jolson's from the late 1930's and had written a book and play about him called 'THE IMMORTAL JOLSON' She wanted Clive to play the lead. That first night he was starring in a nightclub called the Top Hat in Franklin Square... What excitement! Clive performing in a fancy nightclub. I was overwhelmed and tired. But not that tired. After the show we went back to Pearlie's where she had so kindly set up the sofa bed for me in the Library at the bottom of the stairs. Clive's room was up at the top the stairs in the attic.... real cozy. It was an awkward moment when we said our goodnights. Still, Clive was so cute, a little perplexed and confused. But, his Lady Lenore had the situation well in hand, and her pillow too. Up the steps to Clive's room I went as I gave a big smile to Pearlie and Herbert. We were uninhibited and our eagerness for each other was something that could not be denied. I explained the facts of life to Pearlie early in the morning that we were still young and crazy with passion and new found freedom,, and the spicy atmosphere of a new romance was so tantalising. But she was consumed with another kind of passion all she could think about then and later was getting Clive into a musical on Broadway. LENORE EXITS....

Clive & Lenore ~ The Arc

Some of my recollections may be slightly off chronologically after these thirty odd years but its close enough to prove I don't have Alzheimer's. I must have gone back to Pearls briefly for Lenore to join me there. From Pearls I went back to Miami Beach because I was renting a room on Euclid Avenue on south beach for a few weeks when Lenore and I decided we would try to make it as a couple.

Life was never dull with Clive Baldwin. Not only is he an Entertainer with an ego to match his talent, but for relaxation and in memory of his wartime experiences and fear of a 1980s Russian atom bomb attack; he built a floating fallout shelter with the help of his friend Ron Brodie. He calls it "Noahs Arc" (natural or atomic hazard shelter aquatic re-locatable construction

He'll fix the house or write songs. He never say's "I can't do that" without giving it a try first. We both write a lot of poetry, we're always on the go. Although we never had a dime back then we still managed to winter in Miami Beach and as soon as June rolled around, we summered in the Catskill Mountains. As if we had plenty of money...My grandfather had built a bungalow there right after World War Two ended and I had spent many happy days there with my family. Now 25 years later, Clive rebuilt the place and we became "bungalow bunnies". It was there that we met up with some show biz sharks that inhabit the phoney and funny world of show business. An agent by the name of John Sweetstein heard about Clive and turned up at one of the shows. "Gonna' make you a star, kiddo, you got the stuff, me and uncle Teddy and the Judge,down in Miami , we're gonna' put you in the big time. Right. So he booked Clive, and kept a big piece of the action for himself and then came down with us to Florida to make Clive a star. Right again. First we met uncle Ted, a one time butcher turned theatrical agent...which wasn't really too much of a career change, and the Judge, well, he was a piece of work...wrote up a lifetime one sided theatrical contract for Clive ...20% to them and the old saw. "No guarantees in show business". When we refused, their limo driver/cum bodyguard showed up at the house and escorted us up to the office for what we knew would be the big finale. Uncle Ted pulls out a gun hands it to the driver and say's "here, show that broad over on Palm Island that we ain't playing' around." I couldn't believe my ears what a stupid threat, and so I hollered out "Are you nuts? What the hell do you think this is...Chicago, in the1920's? And you're some kind of Capone! Well you're not even in the mob because I know someone who is and they would never behave this way"... I was practically screaming by then, so Uncle Teddy said to Clive..."shut the hairpin up or you're in big trouble". Hairpin! That was it.... I stormed out with Clive right behind me. The adventure continued when I called my girlfriend Pepper's husband who had some "wise guy" friends in high places. He knew them all, from the Catskills to Long Island. In just a few hours I had his assurance that there would be no further interference from the "terrible trio" and that made us feel a lot better. There never was another word from them. Our Friend took the heat off us and put it on them. Ten years later I asked Salty what he had done...."Just told them to look the other way and cross the street if they ever saw Clive Baldwin come by." Simple as that! And while they were moving out of our lives, the big names started to roll in. Bob Hope booked Clive onto two of his shows and in one star studded event Clive performed right alongside Rock Hudson, Lex Barker, Arlene Dahl and Vincent Price, and even Georgie Jessel the original Jazz Singer, when it was a play on Broadway. What a character! He walked up to me, put his face in my chest and said "Wasn't I married to you one time"? I said, "Cut it out, Georgie. I smiled and said, weren't you excited about Clive"? I should have known better, he said "Who the hell cares about HIS chest."

Clive was singing at the Yiddish American Vaudeville Theatre in Miami Beach when we met the songwriters Irwin Levine and Larry Brown the guys who wrote "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree" and they saw the show. "Love your singing" they said. "We're big Jolson fans and we want to write songs for you." And they did. One night about 3 A.M. the two guys called us and said we've got a hit for Clive and we listened to them sing and play "Who's In the Strawberry Patch With Sally" over the phone from New Jersey. We were getting excited! And then they wrote another, a real cute one that no one else but Clive could record. "Now It's Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Alice Cooper, Elton John; a spoof on Al Jolson coming back to life to find that no one in these rock and roll days was singing about his Mammy. "Give Me A Good Old Mammy Song" was and still is a great favourite of Clive's.

Those guys were brilliant taking a little piece of an old song and weaving beautiful tapestries of old sounding new songs. Matter of fact, the song was Clive's idea, and he wrote some of the lyrics at the time. Unlike Al Jolson, he wasn't getting credit for his input. "Mammy Song" was a big hit later by Tony Orlando and Jimmy Osmond who copied Clives patented talking bit verbatim. These two geniuses had a really bright idea when they said "let's do a Jolson show!".only we'll leave out the Jolson songs and Clive can sing all of our songs". So they wrote fast and furiously and came up with a few really catchy tunes. That made me feel like I was Sittin' on top of the world, but, I fell off. We both did, or were we pushed? With no Jolson songs it wasn't really a Jolson show and the audiences and critics agreed that although Clive was the living voice of Al Jolson, "they'd walk a million miles for one "Swanee" or "Mammy"... and the show closed. Boom just like that. Then we started getting tough! In the last week of the run we forced the producer to put some of the Jolson songs in, but too late. One critic wrote "The curtain goes up at 8 but the show begins at 10 o'clock when Clive Baldwin in an apology for the preceding two hours sang some of the great Jolson songs. They were delivered in a way that made everyone know just why, even thirty years after his death, the world wouldn't settle for anything less than that real Jolson voice in a Jolson show. Back to Florida we went and produced our own touring show "An Evening With Al Jolson," Starring Clive Baldwin...it was a great little musical revue with actors playing the parts of Oscar Levant, Bing Crosby, Jimmy Durante and and 3 dancers we named "the Jolsonaires." I got to play the part of Mae West. And Ooh, I did it good!

Clive with the original 'Sonny Boy'

Al & Erle Jolson

Well I got to go to a wedding with Mae on the 15 of March 1976 as the best man. I must have been the best man because Lenore wouldn't settle for less. She claims she is the last Mrs Baldwin and I don't argue with that because it wouldn't do any good.1976 was America's tri centennial year so it seemed an auspicious occasion to become a U.S. Citizen too on the 6th of June thereby relinquishing my status as a British subject.

Our very own show was a nice little package that we first opened dinner theatre style in the Red Dolphin room at Tony Sweets fish market restaurant on the 16 of January 1976. It was a popular M.B. spot on Indian Creek waterway and the 79th street causeway, which ties Miami Beach with Miami across Biscayne Bay. We used to "knock 'em dead," literally. During one exciting show an elderly woman died of a heart attack. When the ambulance men came they pounded violently upon her and she came back to life. Normally they would have sent her home but she said she wanted dessert and to see the end of the show where I sang Mammy, her favourite song. We toured the show from Miami to Michigan. Even went back to the Peacock lounge. Sam was friendly, minus Rhea and still single but being Easter time there weren't many customers. Sam decided he would cut our money so we cut the show and did a short free one for the patrons who came into the parking lot while we complained about Sam. He quit the business shortly after reading our story about his treachery in the Worcester Gazette.

When "Jolson" closed I was still doing jobs in the Catskills, the Riverboat in the bowels of the Empire State building, cabaret at the famous Roseland dancehall, Waldorf Astoria ballroom. And the elegant Rainbow room in the N.B.C. building where Jolie might have performed while recording his late 1930s Kraft Music Hall shows. I was also busy in Orlando and Miami Beach etc. Then I started to work the cruise lines going to the Caribbean ports. Even got to Portugal and Spain on the Q.E. 2 and the South Pacific on the Rotterdam. Tab Hunter the movie actor was the theatrical director on board and gave acting lessons. I played the Clark Gable part in "It happened one night." My portrayal caused Tab to remark that I was better than Gable...Gable Wall that is. While on the Caribbean cruises Dave Read the comedian said I should phone his theatrical agent in Sydney, a big Jolson fan who put on full productions with supporting international Artistes, a 10 piece band and 16 boy and girl dancers. I sang the Paul McCartney Stevie Wonder etc song over the line from Minstrel Manse to Sydney and began a 20-year (every 2 years) reign as the Pommie (Prisoner of Mother England) born W.G.M in Australia. The greatest boon was that I could visit my Sister Jean and her large family living near Liverpool, about an hour by train from Sydney. She had left England in 1961 so it was quite a reunion.

Work in the U.S. began to slow down in the early 80s when the Catskills tradition was not maintained by the baby boomers. Miami Beach hotels were also affected in the same way. By 1984 I thought a country western Jolson act might boost my sagging career so I went to Nashville to see Ed Penney. Ed was slowing down too. He gave me a couple of his songs to learn but that was as far as my idea went.

I had a Mall show to do in Sorrento (the one in Florida) Lenore and I stayed overnight at Francis "the big band singer of W.W 2" Langford's Outrigger motel" nearby. The next day we went to see what was around the bend of the Okeechobee waterway just up the road on interstate 95. I had travelled that way many times never failing to be intrigued by what I couldn't see from the bridge over the wide waterway that links Florida's east coast with the gulf of Mexico. "2 acre lots on Citrus Boulevard and the waterway $48000" read the sign. We signed up for lot 24. 18 years later it's worth $160,000. Noah's Arc is parked up there surrounded by palm trees.

Then yet another door opened when Terry Quigley ran a Jolson get together in Leeds where he showed some film he had taken of me performing in the Jerry Lewis theatre in the Catskills. Nick Dobbs the Steward of a large club in Middlesborough wanted to book me but I said I needed at least 5 jobs to make it pay. He contacted a booking agent but he backed out on the agreement at the last minute. I knew I would be a hit so I combined a family visit with an appearance at Nick's club. It was the November of 1984 appearance there that started the *"Tees, Humber, Tyne & Wear" connection. In 1996 Give my regards to Jolson was born and has played the U.K. theatres for the last 6 years *(For our non-U.K. members those are the main rivers in the N.E. of England that serve as county boundaries) I have succeeded in show business beyond my wildest dreams. All of Al Jolson's famous friends that I met approved of me for my ability to evoke memories of him. All of them have since passed on. Only Al's last wife Erle and Davy Lee is still with us.

The gorgeous Lenore

Mae West

There can be no doubt that there will come a day when there will be no market for my kind of music. It may be another 10 years but it will come. I will not retire from work or life I enjoy the creative part of it too much even if people don't care for my writing or what I have to say or do. I just want to go on being as useful as my energy allows me to be. I have some ideas about what to do with my spare time. I could sing for church congregations and recite my poems or read from the "do it yourself bible study book" that is my current obsession. In its pages I leave no doubt that it is my considered opinion that our time on earth is nothing more than a testing of our true character. A brief opportunity full of joy and pain to discover whether or not we can accept that there is a divine Creator who is looking for individuals who desire to be part of his plan of bringing a better system to earth than we humans are capable of. We have had 6000 years of failure and time is running out. About 2 years ago I read a book I had to re-read 3 times called "Genesis revisited." I have now read the rest of Zecharia Sitchins 6 books and reading them inspired the following. If you are tempted to feel I'm a little crazy for being full of unusual theories so was space travel before rockets were invented. And those pagan Arabs who brought down the trade towers in New York on behalf of their moon god Allah And you always thought there was only one God!

WHAT TIME IS IT?

There's a couple of verse in the Bible that to some may seem hard to believe,

so I thought I would think on the matter and see what results I achieve.

It's the subject of time that's in question the time that we know here on Earth,

as opposed to the outermost planets that were there at the time of earth's birth.

Now the earth goes around in a circle and once around the sun is one year,

with the sun in the centre to warm us otherwise there'd be nobody here.

I won't break time down to the second if you're reading this rhyme you're not dumb,

could it be there's a planet past Pluto from which the New Kingdom will come?

When we're troubled we all look to Heaven and we pray when we die we'll go there,

but the earth is the planet we love most, there is no better place anywhere.

Admitted we sweat at the centre and we freeze when we get to the Poles,

but we all seem to cope with the problems and adapt very well to our roles.

The furthest orb out there is Pluto but it ain't necessarily so.

It was found in the year nineteen-thirty, a mere seventy-two years ago.

I believe there's a planet still further, the Sumerians told us about,

with a thirty six hundred year orbit, which would clear up those verses we doubt.

The verses relate to our Lord's time and they tell us in their simple way,

that a thousand earth years to us humans is to God only one single day.

The Sumerians started with Noah. Were they named after Noah's son Shem?

When they all clambered down from the mountain the Lord came and looked after them.

We are not talking fable and myth here we are dealing with history and fact.

It is Sumer where history started, and they wrote it as clay tablet tract.

It's really not hard to imagine, think of "Star-Trek" the other way 'round,

the Elohim came in their spaceship and they loved the blue planet they found.

When the Elohim (Angels) came down to Abram they came as a trio of three,

and promised him all kinds of good things, which in our day would prove progeny.

The brain is a thought-wave processor that can send and receive from afar

like the beam of a garage door opener inspiring the door from the car.

So it's not hard to think distant thought waves that inspire men to fly to the moon,

and since we are made in Gods image we'll be meeting our maker quite soon.

For Jesus might well be a Spaceman with a mother just like yours and mine.

He has millions of years just to think things, so His thinking is simply divine.

When He said He'd be gone for just two days that's the two thousand years

He's been gone. Time is a relative matter depending which planet you're on.

And He has a Father in Heaven but He's bringing that Heaven to Earth,

He cast out the Devil from up there and we've learned for ourselves what He's worth.

Why did God send him down here to test us with all of his funk and his noise?

Because there are people that like him and God wanted to give us a choice.

Those verses have spoken quite plainly now perhaps you might see by their light.

The Bible remains uncorrupted, still inspiring the things that I write.

Clive Baldwin. May 20 2002.

We senior citizens have experienced war so the next and last one will be no surprise to us if we're still around. Our generation did nothing to deserve W.W.2 so what happens when the baby boomers do? They are wild animals compared to our "Children should be seen and not heard" depression years environment. I'm not a cynical person looking for the worst-case scenario; I love life as much as anyone. To my mind the worst that can happen is that I don't pass on the messages that I have studied so diligently that I have had to write a book about it. Books are written on all kinds of secular subjects that we must digest in order to pass examinations to prove we are qualified for our line of work. Why should the bible be any different except that you won't know you've passed Gods examination of your spirit until you wake up in His New Kingdom?

Well that's my "Baldwin" story. I didn't think it was worth telling when compared to the giants of show biz but the general consensus is that so far it has been interesting. My thanks to all of you for being friends of mine, and I hope, of each other. I've got a few enemies too and I thank them also for revealing the loyalists among you. We do have to have the bad in order to know what is the good. All of us being human even the very best of us is a bit of each so I'm not throwing stones at those who have taught me that the negative is what makes a circuit out of the positive and produces light or heat. All creation is based on the existence of two polarities from the tiny atom's neutrons and protons to God and the Devil. And now I'd like to leave you with a good word I once heard in church BINGO!

"What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God." Keep Smiling.Y’all!

Clive Baldwin