Joe Loss Orchestra
The Joe Loss Orchestra was one of the most successful acts of the big band era in the 1940s, with hits including "In the Mood". In 1961 they had a hit with "Wheels Cha Cha Cha", a version of The String-A-Longs' hit "Wheels". Other hits included David Rose's "The Stripper" in 1958 and "March of the Mods (The Finnjenka Dance)" of 1964.
In April 1951 Elizabeth Batey, vocalist with Joe Loss, fell and broke her jaw. Joe was badly in need of a replacement and remembered hearing Rose Brennan on radio during a visit to Ireland. Within days he had located her and, before a week was out, she was in Manchester rehearsing with the band. She stayed with Loss for fifteen years, before giving up show-business in the mid 1960s. She wrote many of the songs she recorded with Joe Loss under the name Marella, and co-wrote songs with John Harris. Her co-vocalist with the orchestra from 1955 was Ross MacManus (father of Elvis Costello).
The Joe Loss Orchestra carries on under the musical direction of Todd Miller, who was a vocalist with the band for 19 years before Loss's death. In 1989 Joe Loss became too ill to travel and in 1990 he entrusted the leadership solely to Todd. The orchestra has been in constant operation since 1930 and in 2010 it celebrated its 80th anniversary.
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“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
““Pop” Wyman ruled here with a firm but gentle hand; no drunken man was ever served at the bar; no married man was allowed to play at the tables; across the face of the large clock was written “Please Don’t Swear,” and over the orchestra appeared the gentle admonition, “Don’t Shoot the Pianist—He’s Doing His Damndest.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program. Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State (The WPA Guide to Colorado)