This article titled “What the Queen Mum played on one’s gramophone” was written by Tom Ewing, for The Guardian on Monday 14th March 2011 20.00 UTCAfter John Peel died, fans were excited to learn about a special longbox in which he kept the heart of his record collection – an eclectic set of 7in singles with a beloved tune for any conceivable occasion. Revealed at the weekend, the Queen Mum’s record collection – around 100 albums she kept at the Castle of Mey, her Highlands retreat – gives royal watchers a similar opportunity to reconstruct a life through music.
How much can it really tell us, though? It’s easy to focus on the surprise inclusions – Paul Simon’s Graceland, for instance, the collection’s one concession to post-1940s pop music. But as anyone who has ever bought presents for grannies will realise, their record collections have a habit of picking up oddities along the way. For all we know the presence of Graceland implies nothing more than Edward or Andrew making a last-minute birthday visit to the John Menzies shop in Inverness.
Despite that, a couple of entries really are puzzling. Moddan’s Bower by Mirk may be rooted in traditional Scottish folk but it’s also a highly prized psychedelic rarity, getting a glowing review on a site called Lysergia. And how to explain Keith Jarrett’s exploration of jazz and contemporary classical music, Arbour Zena? Abandoned by a passing European bicycle monarch in the late-70s, perhaps?
The bulk of the records are easier to understand. There is a lot of Scottish music – traditional singers such as Jean Redpath, collections of folk tunes and reels. The extent of it suggests that the Queen Mother’s affection for this was genuine: more care seems to have gone into selecting the folk component of the collection than the cursory section given over to English classical music. These are social records – things to put on when guests are over, as they very often were. Record collections before the rock era were often an extension of performed or parlour music, not necessarily a well-sculpted expression of individual taste.
But one part of the collection does seem more personal – records by variety singers, music hall performers and jazz orchestras from the inter-war years. Alongside bandleaders Glenn Miller and Paul Whiteman are mostly forgotten names – comedienne Beatrice Lillie, pianist Charlie Kunz. This is the music she grew up with, and kept with her till she died – the music that shows the Queen Mother not as hostess, or royal, but as pop fan.
What the Queen Mum listened to – and what she should have
She owned: Edith Piaf – La Vie En Rose. Iconic chanteuse, a fixture of every postwar gramophone collection.
She should have owned: Grace Jones – Island Life. Includes a radical revision of La Vie En Rose. Jones may not have had Piaf’s pipes but her imperious demeanour would have struck a royal chord.
She owned: Wilf Carter – Christmas In Canada. The Godfather of Canadian C&W, Carter enjoyed a long career but was best known for his yodelling numbers.
She should have owned: Jimmie Rodgers – Blue Yodel. Country music’s greatest yodeller, Rogers recorded no less than 11 lonesome Blue Yodel songs before dying of TB in 1933.
She owned: Despers Steel Orchestra. Venerable steelband from Trinidad known for their imaginative orchestrations of classical pieces.
She should have owned: Prince Buster – FABulous Greatest Hits. A reputed love of ska is sadly underrepresented in the collection. And he’s a fellow royal!
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