Just watched a documentary on BBC4 about stride pianist Mrs Mills, which was a very popular stride pianist and her labelmates at EMI back in the day were the Beatles. Her piano 'the Mrs Mills piano' is still at Abbey Road (the Beatles used it too) and it was interesting what the Abbey Road techs did to make it sound the way it did.
Didn't realise Geoff Love was her MD and he also dueted with her; from his name and the recordings he put out, I had assumed he was a white guy. Interesting doc.
I have it on very good authority that Mrs Mills, aside from making her fortune by pinning working class cultural aspirations firmly to the 19th century gutter by banging out calculatedly deferential tunes on the "joanna" while wearing flesh tinted boxing gloves, did in fact ghost write the score to "Taste The Blood Of Dracula" when James Bernard decided to pull a sickie and put his feet up for the weekend.
She was in fact Elisabeth Lutyens leading a curious double life in a fat suit.
