What the Average Listener Likes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 555, 10 February 1950, Page 18

What the Average Listener

Likes

ENRY RUDOLPH — bandleader, arranger, composer, vocalist, player of half a dozen musical instruments and purveyor of popular music to thousands of enthusiastic list-eners-was born in London and came to New Zealand 30 years ago. By day he is a watchmaker, working in a little office overlooking Wellington’s busiest street; by night he is one of the mainstays of 2YA’s light musical’ programmes. He first became associated with radio in 1936, when Henry Rudolph’s Dance Orchestra used to broadcast regularly every Saturday night on relay from the Bowen Street Hall. Although he had that | dance band for 18 years,

he considers that his success in radio has always been mainly with vocal combinations, who sing popular melodies to his own arrangements. His first vocal group was the Swingtime Harmonists, a group of three girls whom he accompanied on the Hammond organ. They used to broadcast regularly from 1937 to 1942, when they were absorbed into the Harmony Serenaders, a girls’ quartet which still broadcasts fairly frequently. He also took over early in the war the Melody Maids, a combination of nine girls who were shortly afterwards merged with a male quartet and orchestra to beeome the 2YA Concert Party. This larger group gave over 500 concerts during the war to the troops in various camps in this country, and in New Caledonia. One of his most popular radio shows was the Old Time Dance session, which was broadcast once a month for about five years. Like any man with long experience in one field, Henry Rudolph has his own definite ideas about broadcasting. He’s not keen on jive, but prefers "popular melodies." "I've known the boys in my dance band wanting to play the ‘Bugle Call Rag,’ but the people would always prefer to hear the ‘Donkey’s Serenade,’ " he says, "and the same applies to radio. I always try to choose pieces with pleasing melodies. And if there is any excuse to get comedy out of a number I always use it. On the other hand, I don’t bother about opera and classical music. I go for what’s in between, because that’s what the average person likes." Henry Rudolph is a past-master at getting the best out of his singers, and

he preiers to use vocalists because "on an average, people are more interested in vocal

presentation than in_ instrumental." Half the battle he considers is in choosing the right songs for the singers, and he has always found that everybody has a song to suit them. One of his singers had a flair for comedy but didn’t know, it, and although he alwagts wanted to sing serious numbers, Henry refused to allow him anything but comedy, much to his own chagrin but to the audiences’ great appreciation. He says the trouble about working with girls is that they are always getting married. "I just get them trained and off they go." But he has an unflinching faith in the talent of New Zealand girls for tadio singing, and few have passed through his hands without making a name for themselves on the air. He gets his greatest kick out of arranging popular songs to suit the voices he has to work with, a skill in which he has had no formal training, but at which he is an adept with few peers. "We do it all nic@® and sweet," is one way he puts it, and another is "It’s all microphone tech-nique-quiet singing-whether you are in the studio or on the stage, and. the effect is not the same without the mike." One high authority has said that there is nothing in London to compare with the style that Henry Rudolph and _ his singers have developed. One of his dreams is to see the NZBS equipped with a full-time variety orchestra and a full-time chorus, but he realises that this would be of little use until there is a proper Broadcasting House, with a fully-equipped radio

theatre, where a live audience could also transmit its enthusiasm over the air.

P.J.

W.

a oe Ee This is the second of a series of, personal sketches of people who have become widely known in broadcasting. Ser