Laurie London is an English singer, who achieved fame as a boy singer of the 1950s, recording

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 in both English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

At the age of thirteen he made an up-tempo version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of the spiritual song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" is a traditional American spiritual. It was first published in the paperbound hymnal Spirituals Triumphant, Old and New, in 1927. In 1933, it was collected by Frank Warner from the singing of Sue Thomas in North Carolina...

" with the Geoff Love Orchestra

Geoff Love

Geoff Love was a British easy-listening, and disco orchestra leader. He was born in the industrial town of Todmorden in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a mixed race American-born guitarist and dancer, and his mother an actress. As a child, Love began to learn to play the violin but...

 for Parlophone Records (45-R4359) which was picked up by its co-owned American sister label Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 (F3891). In April 1958, it reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 and remained there for 4 weeks (#1 Most Played By Jockeys, #2 retail sales), but was to be his only hit record

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

. It was the most successful record by a British male in the 50's in the USA, topping the charts.

According to one online source, "he worked at the Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 with such renowned record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

s as Norman Newell

Norman Newell

Norman Newell, OBE was born in Plaistow, Essex , and was a successful British record producer in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as co-writer of many notable songs...

 and George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

" and "special songs were written for him, tailored to the German taste in popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

, and he recorded them in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 and Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 with producer, Nils Nobach."

He participated in the 1959 "Deutsches Schlager-Festival" (German Hit-Festival) singing "Bum Ladda Bum Bum".

He is mentioned along with his hit song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" in the Colin MacInnes

Colin MacInnes

Colin MacInnes was an English novelist and journalist.-Early life:MacInnes was born in London, the son of singer James Campbell McInnes and novelist Angela Thirkell, who was also related to Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin. His family moved to Australia in 1920, MacInness returning in 1930...

 novel Absolute Beginners

Absolute Beginners

Absolute Beginners is a novel by Colin MacInnes, written and set in 1958 London, England. It was published in 1959. The novel is the second of MacInnes' London Trilogy, coming after City Of Spades and before Mr. Love and Justice...

.

London has a credit as "singer" in the 1961 German movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 "Und Du, mein Schatz, bleibst hier", which might be translated as "And you, my darling, will stay here".

He originally retired from singing at the age of nineteen.

Later cover versions of the Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard

Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....

 hit "Lucky Lips" (1963), and "The Bells Of St. Mary" (CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, 1966) went unnoticed.

London then left the music industry except for a few rare public appearances. In the 1990s he ran a hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

, The Angel, in Petworth

Petworth

Petworth is a small town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 east-west road from Heathfield to Winchester and the A283 Milford to Shoreham-by-Sea road. Some twelve miles to the south west of Petworth along the A285 road...

, West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

, but sold it in 2000. He currently lives in North London

North London

North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

 and manages a pub in Portsmouth called The Ship and Castle.

Recordings

• "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
  He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
  "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" is a traditional American spiritual. It was first published in the paperbound hymnal Spirituals Triumphant, Old and New, in 1927. In 1933, it was collected by Frank Warner from the singing of Sue Thomas in North Carolina...
  
  "
• "Bum-Ladda-Bum-Bum (Boom-Ladda-Boom-Boom)"
• "Auf wiederseh'n Marlen"
• "Banjo Boy"
• "Basin Street Blues
  Basin Street Blues
  "Basin Street Blues" is a song often performed by Dixieland jazz bands, written by Spencer Williams. The song was published in 1926 and made famous in a recording by Louis Armstrong in 1928...
  
  "
• "Bells Of St. Mary's"
• "Boomerang"
• "Casey Jones"
• "Cradle Rock"
• "Dark Town Strutter's Ball"
• "Darling Sue"
• "Down By The Riverside"
• "God's Little Acre"
• "Gospel Train"
• "Handed Down"
• "Hear Them Bells"
• "Hey, Hey - es wird Musik gemacht"
• "Hopalong Cassidy"
• "I'll Make You Forget Him"
• "I'm Afraid"
• "I'm Gonna Walk And Talk With My Lord"
• "I Gotta Robe"
• "Ich bin nicht arm, ich bin nicht reich (I'm Not Poor, I'm Not Rich)"
• "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strand Bikini"
• "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
  Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
  "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" is a well-known negro spiritual.The song is believed to have been composed by slaves in the first half of the nineteenth century. Some references suggest that it was copyrighted by Jay Roberts in 1865...
  
  "
• "Lucky Lips
  Lucky Lips
  Lucky Lips is a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Ruth Brown in 1957. Her version reached # 6 on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart, and # 25 on the US pop chart.-Cliff Richard version:...
  
  "
• "Mamatschi"
• "Mandolino Pling Plang Plong"
• "My Mother"
• "Nix Fraulein, nix Mademoiselle"
• "Old Time Religion"
• "Pick A Bale Of Cotton"
• "Pretty Eyed Baby"
• "Roll On Spring"
• "Sad Songs"
• "Schenk mir einen Traum"
• "Schöne weisse Rose"
• "Schritt für Schritt"
• "(She Sells) Sea Shells"
• "Three O'Clock"
• "Today's Teardrops"
• "Up Above My Head
  Up Above My Head
  "Up Above My Head" is a Gospel song, originally recorded in the 1940s by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight as a duo.-Style:The song is formed in the traditional call and response format, with Tharpe singing a short line followed by Knight's "response" of the same line...
  
  "
• "Wild und heiss"

External links

• "Ask Mr Music - Jerry Osborne (1998)"
• images.google.com