Sophy

When I was a very small girl, we had a big grandfather clock. It stood in a sort of alcove on the landing and on one side of it there was just enough space for me to wriggle in and hide. The shiny brass pendulum would swing back and forth, back and forth with a steady regular rhythm and I felt safe in my hiding place beside the grandfather clock.

But then I grew too big for the hiding place, and I had to go to school. I would go each morning holding my big sister’s hand but once there I was on my own among all these other little children and we would be ushered into a line and we all took part in ‘morning assembly’. We recited ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ which all the other children seemed to know by heart and soon enough I also knew, whilst understanding none of the beautiful phrases. It took years before I knew what ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’ meant. But I loved singing the hymns and I quickly learned the words of the popular ones even though I was offended by the musicality of the children who sang with more gusto than ability.

I was fascinated by the piano that stood at the front of the Assembly Hall. My teacher Miss Phithean would touch the keys and music would come forth for the children to sing along to it in some near accompaniment to the music. It was by far the best part of the school day, and I was longing to touch the piano like Miss Phithean did to create the music.

Eventually I managed somehow to get into the school hall on my own and touched the shiny ivory keys. It was clear to me that each key had its own sound, and it didn’t take me very long to touch the keys and produce a fair if simplistic copy of the tune to ‘There is a Green Hill’, one of the more popular hymns we sang in morning assembly. Miss Phithean, came to investigate as the piano was out of bounds to the pupils. She played a few tunes on the piano and asked me to copy her, which I did. Many years later she told me that when she saw me playing, she recognised my unusual gift and believed that she had been granted the privilege of discovering a great talent.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great talent. My gift was an ability to pick out a melody on a piano having only heard it once. Despite my teacher’s pleading my parents were unable to pay for lessons for me, but I was now permitted to practice on the school piano.  Miss Phithean gave me the occasional lesson and I was soon able to play instantly any melody once heard. After a certain amount of practice, I could even improve on the version I had heard.

When I was sixteen I left school and took a job as Junior in a local hairdressing salon. I had no interest in hairdressing but the tips I received funded the music lessons that I began to attend. My music teacher recognised the unusual ability I had to play any tune by ear and suggested that I could earn more by playing with a small dance band. I knew that my old fashioned parents would object to the very idea of a dance band, which to them meant misconduct and depravity so at the age f seventeen I left home and shared a small bedsit with one of the girls I had worked with at the hairdresser’s.

Playing in the dance band was great fun, all the other musicians were male and quite a lot older than me. They looked after me and I learned a great deal from them. I also continued my lessons. Apparently, my facility to play anything once heard was quite an unusual talent in the music world and I found that I was offered all kinds of work. I moved to London because a lot of recordings were being made and the main recording studios were in the London area. Sometimes I would be playing in a trio or quartet, sometimes with a full orchestra and I played in backing groups for all the popular singers.

 I was twenty when I first attended a Symphony concert. Along with several of my co-musicians we attended one of the Promenade Concerts at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. The soloist was a lady whose name I had never heard before. The lady was the famed and celebrated pianist Dame Olga Jaoa Randa and the experience of hearing the magic that this lady created was to change my life. I left that concert knowing that I could never attain that standard but determined nevertheless to continue my study and practise and to achieve the best possible standard.

At this time, I obtained most of my work through a theatrical talent agency run by a man I knew only as George. One day he offered me a job in a place called The Orchid Garden.

“But that’s a night club, you know I don’t do nightclubs” I objected,

“It’s a very respectable night club, and it pays very well,” It is perfect for you, they want a singer pianist who looks good.”

“But I don’t sing”.

“All musicians can sing; we aren’t talking opera. Wear your best frock and go see them.”

He had nothing else to offer me and my next term’s fees for lessons was due, so I went.

The Orchid Garden was in Mayfair, not in a back street as I feared but on a very respectable looking street, there was a discreet sign outside, I rang the bell, sure I had the wrong address. A doorman answered my bell, he seemed to be expecting me,

“For the interview Miss?”

I nodded, this was like no night club I had ever imagined, but then I knew nothing of night clubs. I was escorted down the hall through a doorway and into a largish room, empty tables with chairs on the tables, a cleaner mopping the floor, a bar at the right-hand side and a shiny, white, concert grand piano at the far end.

“Play something Miss Morton.” The voice came from a man seated at the bar with his back to me.

I assumed a night club would want lively dance music, so I started to play “Puttin on the Ritz”, a jazzy number.

“Stop! Can you play ‘Smoke gets in your eyes?”

I switched tempo to the slower rhythm.

“Slower please.” I slowed the rhythm till each key was singing separately.

“That’s good. Now sing,”

It was so slow that singing was almost impossible, I was barely breathing the words.

The man got down from his stool at the bar and came toward me, I could see he was younger than I had thought,

“That is great” he said, “What else can you play?”

“Anything, I can play anything”.

He started to pull titles out of his memory, Begin the Beguine, Stormy Weather, All or Nothing at All, Deep Purple, all old standards, he couldn’t catch me out.

“I am Max, I am the manager here and I think you could be perfect for us, but we need to do more work.”

We worked for hours and by the time Max was satisfied, the songs were almost unrecognisable. He showed me how to give each word a subtle extra meaning. It was totally different to my own character but by the time we had finished rehearsing I was practically having sex with that beautiful Piano.

I needed the right dress and Max took me to Harrods, a store I had never dared enter before and he selected the most amazing dress in the evening dress department. I was terrified the first time I performed in the Orchid Garden, but the clients liked what they saw and heard, came again and brought their friends. Our clientele was drawn from the highest in the land including sometimes Royalty, but like me they wanted to remain anonymous, half ashamed to be in a night club.

I was a great success; beyond anything I could have dreamed. The glamour magazines loved me and for a few years I couldn’t go anywhere without a camera man popping up to take a photo for one paper or another. I wanted to be Dame Olga Randa and ended up as Lady Gaga, but don’t search Google for Sophy Morton, the night club singer. The woman who was photographed at the best parties, who was snapped crossing the Atlantic on Concorde, who starred at the famous Catnip Club in New York was called Olivia Alexander. With Max beside me I enjoyed success such as I could never have dreamed of, but I was embarrassed by the success and ashamed that my parents would hear that I was singing in sleazy nightclubs.

The places I sang were not really sleazy, but they were not where I wanted to be, and they took up so much of my time that the lessons had to stop and I was ashamed of that as well. I went home once and Max, now my husband came with me. I didn’t tell anyone at home how we earned our living and Max understood because his family were the same as mine. We were two of a kind and we just didn’t fit where we were born. With Max beside me I enjoyed success such as I could never have dreamed of, but I was embarrassed by the success and ashamed that my parents would hear that I was singing in nightclubs.

It came to an end when our twin girls were born. I had every intention of going back to singing but Max had moved on. He had an amazing gift for knowing what people wanted to watch and that is how he became so successful as an impresario. He presently has shows running in London, New York and Tokyo.

I became a piano teacher back in my hometown, I bought an old upright piano and my girls practise their scales on it and maybe, just maybe, one of them one day will be a concert pianist.