Larry Adler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler, (10 February 1914 – 7 August 2001), was an American musician, widely acknowledged as one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. He was mostly known for his collaborations with musicians such as Sting, George Gershwin, Kate Bush and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
[edit] Biography
Larry Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland, into a Jewish family. He taught himself harmonica (which he preferred to call a mouth-organ)[1] and began playing professionally at the age of 14.
Adler moved to the United Kingdom in 1949, having been forced to leave the USA after accusations of sympathising with communism. This led to a general sentiment of disregard for him in North America during the 1950s; he moved to Great Britain, and spent the rest of his life there.
Apart from his career as a musician, Adler also made appearances in several movies. He was also known as a prolific letter writer, with his correspondence with the satirical magazine Private Eye becoming legendary. Larry wrote an autobiography - entitled It Ain't Necessarily So - in 1985, and worked as a food critic for Harpers & Queen for some time.
The 1953 movie Genevieve brought him an Oscar nomination for his work on the soundtrack, although his name was originally kept off the credits because of McCarthyism blacklisting.
In 1994 for his 80th birthday Adler, along with George Martin, produced an album of George Gershwin covers, The Glory of Gershwin, on which Adler and Martin performed Rhapsody in Blue.
He was a great showman and a most entertaining performer. He enjoyed telling outrageously corny jokes in his concerts, as he showed in his visit to Australia with Issy van Randwyck to promote his Glory of Gershwin album. The concerts also revealed that he was a competent pianist, when he opened each performance with Gershwin's Summertime, playing piano and harmonica simultaneously.
Adler had four children, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He died peacefully in St Thomas' Hospital, London, at the age of 87, on 7 August 2001.
