Let's Have a Party! The Piano Genius of Mrs Mills

MUSIC: "Arnold Layne" by Pink Floyd

1967.

The Summer Of Love.

The Vietnam War.

The Beatles released Sgt Pepper.

In London, Jimi Hendrix

sets fire to his guitar,

and The Rolling Stones are jailed for drugs possession.

NEWSREEL: Police said when they entered the house,

there was a sweet smell of incense about.

And in the charts at number 17,

with her biggest-selling album to date...

..the one and only Mrs Mills.

MUSIC: "Mrs Mills Medley"

She reminds me of a school dinner lady.

She looks like she could, when she's not playing the piano,

be dishing out really lumpy mash to kids...

but with a big smile on her face.

Suddenly, this very ordinary-looking woman, with a lovely smile,

who was normally... you know, looked like someone's aunt...

had a record deal with EMI,

playing in the same studio as The Beatles and Rolling Stones,

it was just absolutely bizarre.

APPLAUSE

She was exceptional.

And it was that talent

that took her to selling millions of records worldwide.

"Famous"! Go on with you.

A lot of people say, "Who?" which I find annoying,

but I just say she was a variety artist and a brilliant pianist,

and if they ever get time to listen, they ought to, basically...

because they don't know what they're missing.

"SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT" ENDING

APPLAUSE

This rather plump, cuddly, loveable,

auntie sort of figure,

that your mum and dad liked, but maybe you thought

was a little bit kitsch and a little bit...

not exactly hip.

Good Lord, here she is now!

Well...!

APPLAUSE

Today, Mrs Mills has been all but written out of popular music history.

But, with over 40 albums to her name,

in the 1960s, her sing-along piano playing

and bubbly personality

made her a firm family favourite.

Hello, Mr Preview!

That's not the Queen - that's Mrs Mills!

LAUGHTER

BOTH: She's the queen of the ivories!

It's interesting to look at music history,

because the books say one thing and yet, let's look at the charts,

and let's see how eclectic the charts are.

You look at a Top 40 in 1964,

and you can have anyone from...

The Beatles...

to Frankie Vaughan to, let's say...

Ken Dodd.

The narrative is very straightforward, and it goes,

"The Beatles came along,

"biggest band ever, everybody loved them..."

MUSIC: "Twist And Shout" by The Beatles

"Then everybody went psychedelic..."

MUSIC: "I Know What I Like" by Genesis

"And then there was glam rock..."

MUSIC: "Hell Raiser" by Sweet

"And prog rock..."

MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes

"And then there was punk..."

MUSIC: "New Rose" by The Damned

And anything that doesn't fit with that is left out.

Self-evidently, Mrs Mills doesn't fit with that.

So, the people that are writing history...

I guess are not Mrs Mills fans.

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: "Ain't That A Grand And Glorious Feeling" by Mrs Mills

One thing you have to consider is, just when Mrs Mills was becoming popular,

there was a fear about a lot of community...

in fact, a moral panic over mods and rockers,

gangs of youths fighting each other.

No-one could understand why this was happening,

why such animosity was felt because someone rode a scooter rather than a motorbike,

all these kind of things.

So, Mrs Mills represented...

a value that had been lost

in the eyes of some,

and that perhaps, if only we could just get around the piano again,

sing songs together,

the young, the old, whatever your ethnicity is,

whatever your class is,

sing these songs.

and you will feel that you have bonded with your friends and neighbours.

And then you won't go and cause...

riots in Margate.

MUSIC: "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Mrs Mills

MUSIC: "My Generation" by The Who

# People try to put us down

# Talkin' 'bout my generation

# Just because we get around

# Talkin' 'bout my generation

# Things they do look awful cold

# Talkin' 'bout my generation

# I hope I die before I get old... #

You then have a dichotomy.

Popular music goes off rather in The Beatles and The Rolling Stones,

and all the Liverpool singers that come after that.

But the more middle-of-the-road popular music still carries on,

and people like Mrs Mills - she was still going in the 1970s, of course.

For most teenagers,

Mrs Mills had an appeal

second only to, say, the appeal of ABBA to punk rockers.

It was regarded as the kind of music...

HE LAUGHS

..That their music had rebelled against.

You certainly wouldn't be seen dead walking down the street

with a Mrs Mills album cover.

Of course, in those days, that was the whole thing.

On the Saturday, you went to a record store or record shop,

and you bought an album,

and you walked home with it, down the High Street with it tucked under your arm.

And those were your sounds, man, for the weekend.

People would say, "Oh, look, he's got the new Stones album,

"he's got the new so-and-so album."

That made you appear very cool,

cos you had this album under your arm.

Certainly not Mrs Mills.

MUSIC: "Powder Your Face With Sunshine" by Mrs Mills

Mrs Mills is unique in having this

raucous pub style, this, "Let's have a good laugh, a good singsong."

And just the energy and the enthusiasm...

is worth more than musical polish and sophistication.

But, at the same time,

the technique is immaculate!

She's got quite a broad appeal...

by virtue of the fact she can play any music,

but obviously in exactly the same style.

While her records may seem as quintessentially British as a pub sing along,

Mrs Mills' playing style actually had its roots in ragtime

and the jazz clubs of East Coast America.

The style of piano playing that she used

was in its day known as "vamping style" or "stride piano",

which was basically this kind of bass pattern.

HE PLAYS PIANO

This was a kind of technique

that developed in the 1920s -

American players in Chicago,

James Johnson,

later, Earl Hines.

Jazz players who worked upon this particular style

to give a lot of rhythmic punch

to the jazz music they were playing.

MUSIC: "Carolina Shout" by Willie "The Lion" Smith

It rapidly became an outdated style,

so that by the time Mrs Mills was playing...

it did sound very old-fashioned.

The stride piano style is difficult.

It's a dead thing now,

and it's a great shame.

It died because it has no end user.

The end user for the stride piano player was always the pub.

PUB SING ALONG

Thousands and thousands of pubs in the UK,

in the '40s, '50s and '60s -

every single one of them had a piano in it.

People would come and sit down at the piano and play,

and people would sing,

and it was just great, great fun.

That's really where the stride piano player

used to play.

Basically, what the stride piano player is...

your right hand plays the melody of an old classic, whatever it is...

If you take Sweet Georgia Brown...

HE PLAYS SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

If you have a band, you'd normally have an acoustic guitar player

who would play the chord for you.

So you'd have...

HE PLAYS SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

But then you'd also have a bass player -

probably a stand-up string bass player,

-who'd play the bass notes...

-HE PLAYS SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

Good stride piano players would put the two together...

HE PLAYS SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

Etcetera, etcetera,

for the length of the piece.

But when the pubs died out,

there was no call for those piano players,

because people were playing pianos or keyboards within a band

that had a guitar or rhythm section and a bass player,

so they didn't have to do that any more.

I think what might surprise some people,

if they think of Mrs Mills as a party pianist,

or pub pianist-style,

is that it's actually very tricky

to do this vamping style.

-You're playing a bass note down there...

-HE PLAYS BASS NOTE

-..Playing a chord up there...

-HE PLAYS CHORD

Because you're playing the melody with your right hand...

so, in fact, you have to have the accuracy

to jump from one chord to another.

I'll show you, if I speed up,

and very soon, I won't be able to play it without wrong notes...

HE PLAYS PIANO

I can't even play the beginning!

If I play slowly...

You just can't do it.

Mrs Mills was amazingly accurate,

and it's quite a tricky technique.

MUSIC: "I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts" by Mrs Mills

I play the piano myself,

and I picked up loads of tips from listening to Mrs Mills.

And I still play cockney piano and things now.

One of the main tips is just to keep it going, keep it really live,

but also filling in all the gaps between the tunes.

It's hard to demonstrate that without a piano.

But if she plays a really standard song,

it's all the little fill-ins and gaps she puts between the tune

that just kind of brings it to life,

and she has a standard set few

that appear throughout a lot of the songs.

When people rushed out and bought the sheet music, to try to play like Mrs Mills,

they found that whilst they might be able to get the basics of the tune,

they weren't able to put in all the little bits that made her music special.

For example, when she was playing a well-known song from the '30s,

the actual sheet music is quite simple,

but if I show you the bars that she changed,

the actual tune goes...

HE PLAYS PIANO

Whereas Mrs Mills used to put a little bit in to change that, and she goes...

HE PLAYS PIANO

So she used to put a little bit in-between,

and it was those "twiddly bits", as she used to call them,

that really made them unique,

and it gave it that sparkle.

It was this sparkle that turned an unknown 40-year-old housewife

into the most unlikely of stars.

Born Gladys Jordan in 1918,

she grew up in Essex,

and at the age of 29, married Bert Mills,

settling down to a life of suburban bliss.

Never dreaming that one day, she would become a household name.

When did you start to play the piano?

-When I was 3½.

-Yes?

They took me away when I was seven,

because the teacher said I was wasting her time and their money.

Yes?

When did you become famous?

"Famous"! Go on with you.

THEY LAUGH

I came in to show business in 1962.

Mrs Mills had just about the best...

discovery story in the world, I think.

She was working as a superintendent at a typing pool,

at the Paymaster General Office in London.

She used to work in a dance band

in the evenings, just to get some extra money and things.

I was playing at a local golf club dinner and dance

with my little band,

and an agent happened to be there.

Literally, they did their set and afterwards,

a man came up to her and said, "More people should hear you play,"

and gave her a telephone number.

She just thought it was going to be

for another job for the band, you know.

But then it wasn't. It was for the Billy Cotton Show on the BBC.

And she went along for an interview

and Billy Cotton was there,

and they said, "Yes, we'll have her."

The balloon went up and I couldn't believe it.

Kept pinching myself to see if I hadn't dreamt it all.

MUSIC: "My Old Man" by Mrs Mills

# My old man said follow the van

# And don't dilly dally on the way... #

That appearance on the Billy Cotton Band Show

was to change Mrs Mills's life forever,

and soon led to a contract with Rolling Stones manager, Eric Easton,

and top EMI record producer, Norman Newell.

# I dallied and dillied

# Lost my way and don't know where to roam... #

It was Norman

who, if you were a pianist,

was the producer to aim for,

because it was Norman that recorded Side Saddle and Roulette

and Snow Coach,

the huge Russ Conway hits.

MUSIC: "Snow Coach" by Russ Conway

Russ had been very successful throughout the 1950s,

with these piano records,

and so I suspect that when Norman saw Mrs Mills...

having a success on the Billy Cotton Band Show,

his antenna probably went up and he said, "OK, let's try this woman."

'She burst through the door and almost fell over the huge bag of

'shopping she was carrying.'

Yes, the same man who discovered some of the biggest names in music -

internationally famous record producer Norman Newell.

APPLAUSE

Norman! I'll never forgive you! Lovely!

Mrs Mills was really lucky to be with Norman Newell,

because, I think he kind of, looked after her in a way, as well.

He kind of programmed her albums quite well.

He picked really good musical directors to work with her,

in particular Geoff Love who kind of understood the fun that she needed

in a recording studio.

-EAMONN ANDREWS:

-Norman's not alone.

With him is top musical director Geoff Love.

APPLAUSE

THEY EXCHANGE GREETINGS

I was lunching with them today

and they never said a word, the pair of them. Lies! Lies!

-Tea break, love!

-Tea break, yes, oh dear!

It's interesting you see on some of Mrs Mill's recordings,

she has a chorus of people joining in but they're not a church choir,

they're not even in tune most of the time, like the honky-tonk piano.

It's raucous singing

and this helps to generate that sort of party effect.

# Then his mama went out

AUDIENCE: # Da-da-da-dee-dee-de

GEOFF LOVE: # Then her papa went out

AUDIENCE: # Da-da-da-dee-dee-de

# Geoff and I stayed home... #

She sings duets with Geoff Love

and there's a number called Da-da-da-da which is like

a song from the early part of the last century and it was like

a couple who were sort of getting together in the front parlour.

# Glad and I stayed home

# Three of us on our own... #

The mama went out and the papa went out,

then the lights went out and his cigar went out.

It was all about went out and they did this duet, Geoff and Glad,

and when it got to the line about the cigar, instead of the cigar

went out she sang, "His cigar came out!"

# Then his cigar came out... #

TRIES TO CORRECT

RAUCOUS LAUGHTER

GEOFF: # Fire went out

MRS MILLS: # But when the light went out

AUDIENCE: # Da-da-da-dee-dee-de. #

Although there's a sauciness at times obviously

with some of the repertoire,

there's also a kind of moral wholesomeness as well.

It's endorsing community and family values in the end.

# But when the light went out

AUDIENCE: # Da-da-da-dee-dee-de. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

I think the big success of her records

was appealing to parties and probably parties in the home.

At the time she's playing, the piano has declined as an instrument

that a lot of people could play.

You've only to go back to the 1920s, early '30s -

a lot of women could play the piano.

# Reminds me of me pappy

# Who was handsome, young and happy

# When he planted this old apple tree. #

So in a way it was, I suppose for the young,

like seeing your granny play and the whole

sort of atmosphere of the family coming together,

singing these songs, inviting friends around,

it had all the appeal of the pub sing-song.

# I dream

# Of the old apple tree. #

# My old man said follow the van

# Don't dilly dally on the way... #

Mrs Mills was the sort of music that I was brought up with because

all my family played and all our family parties

were just old-fashioned sing-along, getting around the piano,

just like Mrs Mills.

So I suppose I was always endeared towards Mrs Mills

because she was playing this sort of music I was brought up with

and it was like another old auntie, you know,

and that's why I love all her stuff.

I started playing that old-fashioned stride style myself.

MUSIC: "My Old Man" by Leigh and Collins

# And you can't find your way home. #

They were almost disposable. They weren't masterpieces.

It was a very functional type of music.

It was music that was just there when you were having a knees up.

When you weren't having a knees up, you don't play that music.

# I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts

# Here they are standing in a row

# Big ones small ones Some as big as your 'ead

# Give' em a twist a flick of your wrist... #

Having a party on your album title pretty much gave you

instant sales because the people who bought these albums

they would put them on when they had a party.

It was as simple as that.

You didn't say I think I'll put Mrs Mills' party album and sit on

your own and listen to it and smoke a pipe or whatever it was you did.

You put it on because you wanted to have a sing-along.

# Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner

# And I love London town... #

It all goes back to the sort of 1930s, 1940s, '50s,

when people did gather round the family piano.

By the '60s most of them had got rid of the piano.

They had no room for it

because the television came in so there was no room in the parlour

for the piano so the alternative was you bought Mrs Mills' album.

You put that on. You could still have your sing-along.

# I love London town. #

I mean to some extent her records were the very first karaoke.

You could sing along to her stuff.

So you put the albums on and after everyone had a few drinks and

Aunt Maude had her dry sherry, they would start singing the songs.

It would end up as a singsong.

It was very much a family thing I think that people did.

She was born in 1918, so we're talking just before the war.

She'd start playing and people'd think, "That's what

"I remember", you know, the tunes, songs from the war years when things

weren't very good for people

and it was quite dark and depressing.

# Made me happy sometimes

# You made me sad

# But there were times dear

# You made me feel so bad... #

It was out of the war years you know the idea that everyone had

a piano, not a TV or record player,

so you just play a piano and sing and you feel better.

That's exactly what she was and she was born out of that sort of style.

# Yes I do, you know I do

# Gimme gimme gimme

# You know you got the kind of kisses I'd die for... #

I think mostly women buy the type of music that she was playing.

They could identify with her, those sort of people that

like that type of song could identify with Mrs Mills -

a chubby, tubby, ebullient lady, very nice person,

and they could identify with her.

She gives that sense of, you know, just come and join me

and be jolly and let's have a laugh, that sort of thing.

Let's be merry and jolly.

When you hear her play it brings so much life and joy into a room

and for me,

if I'm feeling just a bit fed up or a bit down or anything, I just bung

a Mrs Mills record on and I start feeling jolly straightaway.

But no, she's great to kind of, dance along to.

MUSIC: "My Old Man" by Leigh and Collins

What she did didn't depend on fashion or style.

It was what you see is what you get

and her fan base, her audience,

knew what they wanted and Glad knew what they wanted.

And so it's going to go down well on radio and TV and for a mixed

audience at a time when popular music was beginning to separate

off its audiences into the older audience and the younger audience.

With the exception of Top Of The Pops, I don't think you ever really

saw rock music at all. You saw it on Top Of The Pops

and Old Grey Whistle Test and kids TV

and the rest of the time it was Mrs Mills world

and everybody else was just living in it.

Back then a lot of show needed a musical interlude.

In fact, even quite recently, shows...you think, hang on a minute

I'm watching a comedy review show and now there's a musical interlude.

It still happens. Back then if you couldn't get some really good singer

you'd just get someone to knock out some tunes on a piano

and if you can knock out four tunes in three minutes that's great

and suddenly there you go, you've got people that can do

medleys of numbers. I'll come on three quarters of the way

through the show, bit of music, you have a rest, everyone can go

on the back foot for a bit and then we're back into the show.

APPLAUSE

Of course that was Colin Rose having fun with a few old flames.

I wonder what he does with the old ones.

It's back to our Glad who always plays with a certain amount of fire.

CLASSICAL MUSIC SCORE

She lends herself very well to television in that she's

bringing the music hall to our TV screens and that she's

bringing that variety and I just love the fact that she was

just there looking at the audience, smiling, that's cabaret in itself.

You always thought or sensed that Mrs Mills was probably the standby

guest on something like the Des O'Connor Show,

Morecambe and Wise, Harry Secombe Show, anything like that,

if they had some big guest that was going to come in and suddenly

dropped out at the last minute. "Get Mrs Mills."

She'll come in, knock off four numbers, it'd be great.

That'll be the three-minute music number done, phoom, done. Sorted.

Let's give a warm welcome for Mrs Mills.

APPLAUSE

ERIC CHEERS

-Hell, fire, it's all happening now.

-It's lovely to see you.

I'm glad to see you, Glad.

-Lovely to be with you and I brought this for you.

-Great. What is it?

What do you mean what is it? It's one of my fabulous fruitcakes.

-Is it really?

-All the fruit stoned.

LAUGHTER

Glad Mills was Eric and Ernie's favourite support act.

They loved her, they would always insist that she was on their bills.

It actually made sound sense because if you think about it

there would be no clash, they did comedy, she did music.

Although they would have appealed to the same

kind of audience, middle of the road audience.

Yes, she was Eric and Ernie's favourite act.

I'm going to put it down there, stand on it, and I'm the same height as you.

LAUGHTER

I'd not stand for that Glad, if I were you.

Tell you what, if you want a laugh, roll on him.

LAUGHTER

What I did think was brilliant, they totally ridiculed

her like they did with every act but it was all about her weight

and nowadays on television they wouldn't...that's not PC, is it?

So they wouldn't necessarily do that.

But she just goes along with it and laughs all the way through and they

keep laughing with her so she has an infectious laugh, so you can see why

people at the time would have really enjoyed watching her on television.

-Don't be rude.

-I won't be rude.

-Where's the piano?

-You hungry?

She didn't care whether she was cool or uncool.

She was quite happy with her image and very happy with her appearance,

her size, shape, she didn't care two hoots whether other people

poked fun at her. She was enjoying herself.

You have to admire her for that.

-What are you going to play?

-I'm very glad, Glad.

-Something bright and jolly.

-Something bright and jolly.

There's a thought. Before you go, love, give us a laugh.

-One of the specials, before you go.

-You can't laugh to order.

Think of him stripped!

Her laughter was almost legendary and you can't hear Mrs Mills laugh

without...even me thinking of it now...you can't think of her

kind of laugh without immediately wanting to join in.

She used to say laugh and grow fat and it works.

She used to say, she did!

No, she didn't bother. When she was doing her first pantomime

and she played Fair Enough and she had a wand, obviously,

and she'd be waving the wand and they'd put weights in the end,

so every time she lifted it up it fell down and things like that.

People have always played tricks, but they knew she'd just

laugh about it you see, she'd just roar with laughter.

Did you find it difficult being rather plump? What about clothes?

I don't have any problem at all

because I've got a dear little lady that makes everything for me.

-By the way, do you like this?

-Very much.

I got that from Rent-a-Tent.

She didn't come in small, bless her, but that was part of her charm

and she had this wonderful smile and even though she wasn't that

old then, I can remember thinking of her as the sort of granny or

auntie or the lady next door, you'd like to have.

She had that great art of turning and smiling,

so she'd be playing away and then she'd...

JAZZ STYLE MUSIC

When she first started releasing records with EMI, she was

so worried that she wasn't a star, somebody who wasn't deserving

of this fame, that she actually refused to give up work and she

used to come into Abbey Road during her lunch hour to record the records.

I said I couldn't come into show business and give up my job

and my pension.

-What job?

-I was a civil servant in the Treasury.

-Were you?

-Yes.

-You're happy you did it now?

-What? I should think I am.

I've never looked back and I've had a ball, I really have.

The notion that she could make a living being an entertainer,

I think was a little foreign to her. It took a few years to convince her.

It was only after she reached the top 20 that EMI turned round

and said you absolutely need to leave your job

and be a full-time entertainer and that's when she did.

She was probably about the least showbizzy person I've ever met.

Her appeal really was her ordinariness

and whilst everyone's quaffing champagne and canapes,

all she really wanted was a cup of tea and a biscuit.

She was very grounded and very down to earth

and I think that's what people liked about her.

When I first came into show business, yes, I was quite alarmed.

In fact, I went to a very exclusive restaurant with Geoff Love

and my recording manager Norman Newell,

and we were sitting by a little table where the head waiter was

making a crepe...I learned afterwards it was Crepe Suzette.

And suddenly it burst into flames.

I felt ever so sorry for him and I said, "Never mind, love."

LAUGHTER

I said this has happened to me at home with the chips!

I mean for many years she remained living in a modest

maisonette in Loughton - she was a household name by then.

But she was always very, very ordinary, she'd speak to anyone,

there were no airs or graces with her.

She was just a lovely ordinary woman who just enjoyed making people

happy with her music.

She was just pure entertainment, that's what it was,

and it was always a smile, I mean some of the songs

she used to do was very much a reflection of who this woman was.

I've some written here.

She'd go Ain't It A Grand And Glorious Feeling

into Yes That's My Baby,

straight into... here's a great one...

Powder Your Face With Sunshine.

You see. Only Mrs Mills could do that.

And there she was, a contemporary of The Beatles.

She's absolutely in the tradition of British music hall performers.

These were performers like Marie Lloyd, Lily Morris

and Florrie Ford -

their songs in the music hall had choruses in which

everybody joined in and sang along

so many of the songs that Mrs Mills played were, in fact,

those music hall songs - Oh, Oh Antonio,

Don't Dilly Dally On The Way

and songs like that, they go back to those music hall ladies.

MUSIC: "My Old Man" by Leigh and Collins

What she did cleverly or her manager Norman Newell cleverly did was

pepper her records with old fashioned songs like Cockney numbers

and then he'd pop in a hit of the day, like one record at home

where the first track is Save All Your Kisses For Me

which is one of the Eurovision Song Contest hits and Congratulations

and I think there's the odd Beatles song on one here and there as well.

I think they tried to market it for everybody.

MUSIC: "Yellow Submarine" by Lennon & McCartney

The track listings seem to be put together it's like demented.

This is clearly 1976, '77.

And you go from Save Your Kisses For Me

a recent hit, to How Much Is That Doggy In The Window,

Blueberry Hill,

Consider Yourself... I mean it's all over the shop.

Sheik Of Araby, Trail Of The Lonesome Pine, Cabaret...erm...

# Yellow submarine, yellow submarine. #

Piano was always notoriously hard to record.

If you listen to a lot of early recordings of pianos they either

sound incredibly woolly or they got a little bit of reverberation,

a little bit of wooooo...the way they play the notes are not clear.

By the time Gladys had come along, they'd sorted all that out

so you could actually have a sort of a piano sound that you hadn't heard before.

Just how did Mrs Mills achieve that distinctive piano sound?

The answer lies in the studio where Mrs Mills,

along with one or two other bands, recorded all her hits.

I've been here for about 10 years

and the first time I saw that piano,

I was like, "What's that piano?" "That's the Mrs Mills piano"

so it's carried on the tradition

and I guess it will always be known as the Mrs Mills piano.

Whether people who talk of the Mrs Mills piano know exactly who Mrs Mills is, I don't know.

You have to go and do your research, I suppose,

because I don't think everyone is fully aware of the history

and the background and as to why, but it's just known as Mrs Mills'.

To create the distinctive honky-tonk sound, the piano was subtly adjusted

by an Abbey Road pop engineer, and has remained that way ever since.

To get a more metallic sound, they decided to try

and put a lacquer on the hammers here, which seeps into the material

and toughens up the hammer and you get a more metallic percussive sound.

Which sounds very different to how a grand piano would sound for example,

which is very lush and beautiful. This is more edgy.

And another thing they tried was to get more of a chorusy effect.

You see these - each hammer strikes three strings

and they would tune the piano traditionally as you'd tune a piano,

and then once they'd done that, they would just take the centre string

and just knock it slightly out.

Not too far, so it's still harmonically in tune

but it still has that unusual sound.

The best way to describe it in modern day would be like a chorusing effect.

I'll give you a little demonstration of how it sounds now

in the style of Mrs Mills - bashing!

I don't think any of the honky-tonk pianos I've encountered have ever been quite the same as this one.

This one has a certain magic and also I'm very aware of its history.

It's great to play it and know that so many hit records have been made on this instrument.

Despite giving it her name,

Mrs Mills was by no means the only musician to play the piano.

# Every head he's had the pleasure to know

# And all the people that come and go stop and say hello

# On the corner... #

The Beatles were looking for new sounds, something slightly unusual

so they'd look around and see what was available at the studios

and they had things like mellotrons and various other upright pianos

and organs and celestes and things like that

so again this was just an instrument that was around and it was like, "Ooh, let's try that out

"and see what it sounds like and if it works, it works."

You can hear it quite clearly on Penny Lane,

and also With A Little Help From My Friends.

# What would you think if I sang out of tune?

# Would you stand up and walk out on me? #

I know they all liked her, funnily enough. They all liked Mrs Mills.

They didn't mind she played a different kind of music to them.

They liked her, they quite liked her music.

She was a very popular lady.

She was actually on the very same label as The Beatles -

she was on Parlophone, you know,

and so to have the two of them sort of on the same... under the same banner

is just extraordinary really, when you come to think about it.

That was part, of course, of the breadth of EMI's catalogue.

For example, George Martin, who was the man that signed the Beatles, was recording comedy records.

-# You've got to go out

-He's going to go home!

-You've got to go out

-# He's going to go home!

-You've got to go ah-ha-ha-ha-hoy if you want to go out... #

Those records were hugely successful

and George then took a punt on The Beatles as a pop act.

A new era had started where record companies were just signing up so many different things,

throwing it all out there and seeing what worked,

and most, if not all of the labels, had a real diversity of people on board.

Everything from crooners to rock bands

and some had started to get sort of much heavier bands and things involved as well.

So nobody would have found it strange to have had strange bedfellows like John Lennon and Mrs Mills.

In fact you never know, it might have happened one day.

The other thing to bear in mind is that she would have been cheap!

Because she's her own entertainment - the piano and sometimes she puts in the voices herself,

and even when other people are brought in to join in choruses,

they're clearly not specialised singers.

It's just rounding people up and having a good old party time

so enormous costs were not entailed in recording her albums.

The tradition of popular pianists

goes back to, and just talking about the post-war period,

Charlie Kunz, who played the sort of music that Mrs Mills played.

And on EMI of course there was a very successful pianist called Russ Conway.

He was opposite to Gladys, he never smiled.

He just always looked thoroughly miserable.

And EMI's principal opposition was a woman called Winifred Atwell, a magnificent pianist.

Winifred Atwell was known for pieces such as The Black And White Rag

which was used for the theme tune on Pot Black, which is a snooker programme.

If I play a short extract from that, it's much more...

much more sort of in your face, if you like.

So it was much more fast and kind of erm, you know, complicated,

and people would look at it and be wowed by the technicalities of it.

Mrs Mills tended to put a slightly simpler approach to her music.

Whilst it was very technically demanding,

it had a more simplistic feel to it

and I think that's kind of summed up with things like her record of Good Morning, for example.

The tune really stands out.

It's still obviously technically quite challenging,

but the tune stands out as quite simple and I think that's what was the success

so something like Mrs Mills' arrangement of Good Morning would go:

Glad was always "the honky-tonk pianist"

but you very rarely heard her play ballads or anything floaty

whereas Russ Conway had his concerto albums and his pop albums as well

because he covered quite a lot of the pop hits of the day,

whereas Glad was much more hemmed in to the sing-along style.

There was a feeling when she first started recording that this had been done before by other pianists,

but Mrs Mills actually stands out quite differently from the other people

in the sense that she actually kept her style very true to what she did.

She didn't try to be anything else

whereas some of the other pianists were experimenting with different styles

and trying to change their careers to fit in with trends.

Mrs Mills always remained the same, you know,

she came in and she did what she did best from the start to the end,

and her career remained like that.

She was very welcoming to me because I came on the scene in the early '70s

and I would have been a rival, if you like,

and somebody that might have taken work away from her

because I was the new piano player on the block and everything,

but she was really nice and said, "Oh, there's room for us all in the business.

"You have your audience and I have mine."

She said, "You'll do really, really well for yourself." She was very, very nice and very encouraging.

It seems as though every decade sort of throws up a couple of popular pianists.

In the '50s of course it was Winifred Atwell and Joe Henderson.

'60s, Glad and Russ,

and I came along of course in the next decade.

I came in the '70s along with Richard Clayderman.

And then it kind of stopped after that

because people kind of stopped listening to honky-tonk piano playing.

Her style of playing may be out of fashion now

and her recordings hard to come by,

but there's one thing about Mrs Mills's records that never fails to strike a chord.

If you don't know what she looks like,

you just hear the recordings,

then all I can say is that you're hearing this wonderful piano playing that has got so much life

and fun about it, you just want to know who this person is playing it

because the personality comes across so well just from listening to it

and then suddenly you see a record cover

and you go, "Oh, my goodness, of course,

"it's got to be somebody who's a big fat bubbly person like that with candy floss hair."

I believe a lot of people collect the albums specifically for the sleeves.

Yeah, I can understand people going for the covers,

but they don't go for the records!

I just love Mrs Mills's album covers.

They remind me of a sort of Carry On album cover

from the Carry On films, just having a great time.

I love the one where she looks like she's at the beach

and all kind of posing as if you're having those photos taken on the beach.

It's just great fun, I love them.

This album might appeal to someone who had quite a high threshold for kitsch.

They're kitsch and they're lovely.

At the time we hated them, but now we love them.

Her album covers are fantastic.

I think one of the things about Glad is that she had a terrific sense of humour,

and she was put in all kinds of situations for her album sleeves and went along with every one.

This is probably a little bit cruel

because is the elephant a plump animal like Mrs Mills is?

She wasn't the kind of artist who had an image to maintain for youth

and the coolness, you know, it was just her and her great zest for life

and her music, and it really matched her image.

You know, somebody who was fun to work with.

She played uplifting fun music

and the LP covers were sort of there to match that.

It was blatant in your face.

This is what you're going to get, this is what it sounds like,

and this picture of the people on the front was a picture of you when you play this record.

You'll be all sitting and having a good time, enjoying yourselves and singing along with Gladys.

Party. Party is used all the way.

How many different words and phrases of the party can they use?

Party Mixture, Party Singalong, Party Pieces, Welcome To My Party,

Come To My Party, Mrs Mills' Party, All-time Party Dances.

Gosh, I know rather a lot, don't I? It's a bit scary.

I mean I can't say the album titles had an awful lot of thought given to them.

Mrs Mills Plays The Roaring Twenties. That took a bit of brainstorming.

That's just called Mrs Mills.

Mrs Mills' Knees Up Party. Yep.

She didn't have an equivalent of like Frank Sinatra's suicide albums or anything like that, you know.

There was no kind of "Mrs Mills Plays Songs For The Lonesome" or anything like that.

It was just...parties.

She wasn't averse to making a complete fool of herself, was she?

And that's why people loved her.

Any Time Is Party Time, well that's a truism.

It's just half a dozen shots of Mrs Mills with different hats on.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It's party time, so party means wearing hats, plain and simple.

I don't know what to say about that. Erm...

1967, my goodness.

By then you would have thought they would have put an album cover designer on it

but obviously they were far too ashamed.

Filed under pop instrumental and popular. There you go, popular.

This is 1967, the same year that Sergeant Pepper came out. Amazing.

Also, it's a weird thing for a pianist to call her album.

She's blatantly not...blatantly not playing it with her nose,

so why would you say that?

By the '70s, the corniness really was becoming corny.

It's not even kitsch any more, this cover.

It's just a slightly boring picture of her with penguins.

Also, what kind of party is it?

Is it art? Yes, of course it is. Yes.

Is it good art? That's for you to decide.

Another Flippin' Party. It's like... Unless...

Once again I don't really understand the scenario that's being depicted here.

The one to me that doesn't work - that's not Mrs Mills.

That's a woman about to go in the church and play the organ. No.

In those days when there were 12 inch LPs,

it had to catch your eye as soon as you walked into a record shop.

You had to see it right across the record shop

so, unlike today where you buy your music online or download it or what have you,

but in those days it had to be eye-grabbing, attention-grabbing.

That's what makes a good cover.

You look at all her album covers and every one is a little gem,

but they're all so bad they're good.

There's not one Mrs Mills album you go, "That's not a very good one."

This one's as good as that one, as good as that one.

They're all great...in a bad way.

MRS MILLS: Famous, go on with you!

I now look back and I've had a ball.

Now we're all ready for a little singalong. You'll all join in, won't you?

-You just can't laugh to order.

-ERIC MORECAMBE: Think of him, stripped.

Despite changing tastes in music

and an appeal rooted firmly in yesteryear,

Mrs Mills had a recording contract with EMI until the day she died in 1978.

30 years after her death, when old has become vintage

and vintage is the latest thing, is there still a place for Mrs Mills on our iPods?

A new generation of musicians certainly think so.

For me, I like her because she's fun,

and in an age where everything is retro and careful and calculated,

what I like about her, it's proper working class entertainment.

There's no airs and graces, it's just fun.

It's not about the actual music itself,

it's about this is the music that brings families together,

puts people in the street for street parties, you know?

So I think because there's been a lot of that with the Jubilee and everything,

I think people have started to think "Yeah, this is all right. We'll get back to doing this."

It's not about trying to be clever or ironic or pleasing to hipsters

and looking cool, it's about good old-fashioned entertainment.

# Roll out the barrel

# We'll have a barrel of fun

# Roll out the barrel... #

Gladys Mills might be old,

the music might be old she plays, on paper,

and the sound might be old on paper,

but if you got one of her records

and you played it to a 15-year-old kid, that's brand-new to him or her.

They've never heard it before. It's brand spanking new.

Er, and we forget that sometimes.

# Roll out the barrel

# We'll have a barrel of fun... #

I think there's always a place for somebody that can supply, effortlessly, the atmosphere

of good times, good fun, and you know, as we've said, a knees up.

If you go to a pub and someone's playing the piano

and it's all jolly and all that, in a groovy madness sort of way,

it just gives a good feeling to the place.

It gives the whole thing a lift, and that's what Mrs Mills did. She gave everyone a lift.

I was chatting to a 22-year-old guy after the gig,

and he said, "You started and you were playing Roll Out The Barrel

"and all of a sudden I started singing along

"and I have no idea how or why I know the words to that song!" But he absolutely loved it.

You've only got to look at the kind of music that was played

at all the street parties for the Jubilee celebrations

to realise that they are the kind of songs that people want to hear

in that kind of situation

and I can bet that up and down the country there were a lot of ghetto blasters who were playing Mrs Mills.

I think her style of playing is absolutely timeless.

As a pianist myself, if I've played in venues and people say, "Oh, play this song, play that,"

and I always play it in the Mrs Mills style, you know, the strong rhythmic left hand,

and people absolutely love it. They love it because they recognise the tunes.

It's got a good beat and they can sing to it

and I think that type of entertainment will never die.

-APPLAUSE

-Yoo-hoo!

Now we're all ready for a little sing along and you'll all join in, won't you?

-ALL: Yes!

-27 of us?

I know you will because you know them all. So here we go then!

It's hard to know whether Mrs Mills would have survived today.

Erm, she might now, funnily enough,

because there is such openness to all the different kinds of music and people are interested.

10 years ago, not a hope in hell.

There was a woman on Britain's Got Talent on last year, maybe last year?

It was this jolly woman who played like a medley from Grease on the erm...

Grease the musical, rather than the land of my forefathers - on an electric organ.

I suppose there was an element of that but these people never actually win.

Mrs Mills would not be picked up by EMI today,

I'm absolutely sure because I believe there's almost no market at all

for that kind of party sing along music.

That's not to say that a miracle might not happen

and suddenly the public might get an appetite for it. Who knows?

There might be a programme on television, like this very programme.

Could you imagine somebody playing like a Lady Gaga hit

or a Madonna hit or a Take That song in the style of Mrs Mills?

Wouldn't that be fun? Yeah, why not? Do it!

I think that there's something about it that those of us of a certain age

probably have a soft spot for, a fond memory,

and nostalgia has a funny way of showing up again in another form.

But I don't...there'll never be another Glad.

# My old man said follow the van

# And don't dilly dally on the way

# Off went the van with me home packed in it

# I followed on with me old cock linnet

# But I dillied and dallied

# Dallied and I dillied

# Lost me way and don't know where to roam

# Well you can't trust a special like the old time coppers

# When you can't find your way home. #

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: "You Are My Sunshine"

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd