On 19 January 1936 Sonny Farrar was leading Jack Hylton's band on a recording session while Hylton was in Chicago, when for some reason he used a 12-year old schoolgirl named Pat Sibley to sing on a record called “Moanin’ Minnie”. It was all one would expect from a 12-year old schoolgirl whose immature and raucous performance gave no hint that in four years' time Pat would turn into the mature Anne Shelton.
Born in Dulwich on 10 November 1923, Pat or Anne as she turned out to be, got her big break with Ambrose at the Mayfair Hotel and on Decca Records, also working with Jay Wilbur on Decca's low price label Rex. These early war years were a peak period for quality songs that Anne recorded with both bands, latterday evergreens but then just pops of the day like “Blueberry Hill”, “Fools Rush In”, “Frenesi”, “Amapola”, “Green Eyes”, “I Know Why”, etc.
She did many radio programmes including Calling Malta in which she became known as The Forces' Favourite, but more important to her was appearing seven times with Major Glenn Miller's AEF Orchestra and singing with Bing Crosby at the Queensbury All-Services Club. She starred in three films, topped the bill at the London Palladium and had a hit record with Lilli Marlene. And still only 21 !!
In 1945 she left Ambrose, working mostly with Stanley Black, but Decca was out to capture the mass public and the musicianship of Anne's wartime work wasn't enough in the postwar world and the songs became increasingly commercial. Although our repertoire here emanates from this dubious era she obviously made the best of things with standard type material like “Wonderful One”, “And The Angels Sing”, “I Talk To The Trees”, “The World Is Mine Tonight” and “The Loveliest Night Of The Year”.
It was about now that she went to America for seven weeks, during which she recorded in New York, later returning for almost a year, doing more recording and earning herself rave reviews in Variety and Billboard for her debut at the Copacabana in Manhattan.
Back home again she did radio, TV and live dates and climaxed her record career with a massive hit “Lay Down Your Arms”, which went to No.1 in the charts and stayed around for another ten weeks near the top.
Anne Shelton made a special appearance on TV in a 40th anniversary tribute to the AFN with a Glenn Miller sound-alike band including Ray McKinley and Peanuts Hucko from the wartime crew, but from then she devoted most of her time to ex-serviceman's charities. She had always had problems with her weight, which probably contributed to her death from a heart attack on 31 July 1994.
This information is featured in the CD booklet.
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