Ronnie Ronalde (born Ronald Charles Waldron, 1923, London) is a British music hall singer and siffleur. Ronalde is famous for his voice, whistling, yodeling imitations of bird song and stage personality. His crystal clear yodeling gained him acceptance with connoisseurs of Alpine and Western music around the world.
After early struggles, Ronalde's first successful UK tour (in the late 1940s) met him with a wave of interest. Ronalde’s first recordings were with Decca Records (these were only to be whistling performances), but his first major label contract came from EMI. Ronalde would also join Pye, Major Minor and Columbia records, becoming a million selling artiste.
“If I Were a Blackbird” (1950) is among Ronalde’s most famous songs from this period. This rendering of Delia Murphy’s Irish folk song had him in the British top 20 for 6 months. She would later jovially express her thanks for boosting her income. Other songs include “Tritsch Tratsch Polka” (a showcase of Ronalde’s high speed delivery whistling) and “Bells Across the Meadow” (by Albert Ketèlbey). His best known recording is “In a Monastery Garden” (by Albert Ketèlbey). Ronnie has played it as his show finale for decades, and over a million copies of it have been sold in their varying formats.
Arthur Gelien was given the stage name "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks landed him a role in the film "Island of Desire" opposite Linda Darnell. Hunter had a 1957 hit record with the song "Young Love", which was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks and became one of the larger hits of the Rock n' Roll era. He also had the hit "Ninety-Nine Ways", which peaked at #11. His success prompted Jack Warner to enforce the actor's contract with the Warner Bros. studio by banning Dot Records, the label for which Hunter had recorded the single (and which was owned by rival Paramount Pictures), from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter.
Hunter starred in the 1958 musical film Damn Yankees, in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington D.C's American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway show, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the 1954 best-selling book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglass Wallop. Hunter later said the filming was hellish because director George Abbott was only interested in re-creating the stage version word for word. Hunter was Warner Bros. top money grossing star from 1955 through 1959.
