Leo Dryden

Infobox performer
bgcolour =
name = Leo Dryden

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imagesize = 150px
caption = 1890 Sheet music
birthname = George Dryden Wheeler
birthdate = birth date|1863|6|6|mf=y
location =
deathdate = death date and age|1939|4|21|1864|1|1|mf=y
deathplace = London
othername =
homepage =
genre = Music hall
spouse = Hannah Chaplin 1892-3

George Dryden Wheeler (6 June 1864 - 21 April 1939), was an English music hall 'vocal comic'. In 1892, he met Hannah Chaplin, mother of Charlie, and also a music hall performer. They had an affair, and a son, George Wheeler Dryden (31 August 1892), leading to the breakdown of her marriage to Charles Chaplin, Sr. Sadly the couple split up and the child was kept by Dryden, leading to bouts of mental illness, and admission to the Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon, this was the end of Hannah's career and the start of a long decline. She was not reunited with her son until the 1920s.

Leo Dryden was best known as the "Kipling of the Halls" [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=_KQQ4AwLPgsC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=%22leo+dryden%22&source=web&ots=xTL8kc8hkV&sig=do9VTfrKLJnrlWWSf4quyNSpq0c "Popular Music in England, 1840-1914: A Social History" Dave Russell] (1987McGill-Queen's Press) ISBN 0773505415 accessed 17 Oct 2007] for his patriotic and colonial songs including "The Miner's Dream of Home" (1891); he also performed parodies, including "Shopmates" ["Shopmates" a parody on the popular song, "Shipwrecked"] and one on "Feniculi Fenicula" [ [http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_greatandonly1.htm "My Great and Only" (Kipling, notes by David Page)] accessed 17 Oct 2007] . He dressed to fit the songs, as a Canadian Indian for "The Great Mother", as an Indian soldier for "India's Reply", and "How India Kept Her Word" (1898). Even America did not escape, with "America Looking On", about the Boer War [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D03E2D7173FE433A25757C1A9669D946197D6CF&oref=slogin "New British War Songs" 14 October 1900, "New York Times"] accessed 17 Oct 2007] . These examples of colonial fealty were well received by British audiences, and parodied in Rudyard Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads". He was also known for tear jerking ballads such as "Don't Go Down the Mine, Dad" (1910), possibly inspired by the great 1907 mining disaster at St Genard in South Wales, and "Good-bye, Mary!" (1911). At the start of World War I, he returned to patriotic songs with "Call Us and We’ll Soon Be There" (1914).

Dryden also appeared in "The Lady of the Lake" (1925), an early sound film inspired by the Walter Scott poem.

By the 1930s, with the halls in decline, and his son joining his own half-brothers in America, Leo Dryden was reduced to busking in the streets. He died in London 21 April, 1939.

References

*"The Miner's Dream of Home", Leo Dryden

External links

*imdb name|name=Leo Dryden|id=0238712
*imdb title|title=The Cat With Hands (2001)|id=0371596
* [http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/lifebeforevinyl/P15.htm Words to "The Miner's Dream of Home" (bottom of page)] [http://cobs.rollerorgans.com/data/media/midi/1016.mid Music]
* [http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/dontgo.html Words to "Don't Go Down in the Mine, Dad"]

Persondata
NAME= Dryden, Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Wheeler, George Dryden
SHORT DESCRIPTION=
DATE OF BIRTH= birth date|1863|6|6|mf=y
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH= death date and age|1939|4|21|1864|1|1|mf=y
PLACE OF DEATH= London