Joe Loss

Joshua Alexander "Joe" Loss LVO OBE (22 June 1909 – 6 June 1990) was a British dance band leader and musician who founded his own eponymous orchestra. Loss was born in Spitalfields, London, the youngest of four children. His parents, Israel and Ada Loss, were Russian Jews and first cousins. His father was a cabinet-maker who had an office furnishing business. Loss attended the Jews' Free School, Trinity College of Music and the London College of Music (now part of the University of West London). He started violin lessons at the age of seven and later played violin at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool and also with Oscar Rabin. Loss started band leading in the early 1930s, working at the Astoria Ballroom and soon breaking into variety at the Kit-Cat Club. 
In 1934, he topped the bill at the Holborn Empire but in the same year moved back to the Astoria Ballroom where he led a twelve piece band. In 1935, Vera Lynn appeared with the Joe Loss Orchestra in her first radio broadcast. With broadcasting, recording and annual tours in addition to the resident work the band became highly popular over the next few years. In the 1950s and early 60s, Loss was resident band leader at the Hammersmith Palais and was remembered by a trainee nurse at Hammersmith Hospital as being as kind and gentlemanly when she attended him in hospital as he was in his public persona. His band's signature tune "In the Mood" would often be requested three or more times a night.
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==Links to Peel==
Joe Loss's orchestra were regularly featured on live shows broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, some of which continued into the early days of Radio One. Although Joe Loss tried to keep up with the times, his band and others like it were considered old-fashioned by younger listeners the late 1960s, so not surprisingly Peel paid no attention to them. Among the singers who were featured with Joe Loss, both live and on BBC broadcasts, was Ross McManus, father of Elvis Costello, who joined the band in 1955 and recorded a single with them in 1964. 
Much later, however, Peel played a few songs from the early years of World War Two by Joe Loss's orchestra, when he included them in his Peelenium selections for those years.. 
==Shows Played==
;1995
*30 December 1995 (BFBS): 'Oasis'
;1999
*12 August 1999: Begin The Beguine (Peelenium 1939)
*17 August 1999: Spitfire Song (Peelenium 1940)
*24 August 1999: V Stands For Victory (Peelenium 1941)
==External Links==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
Category:Artists