Alec Templeton

Blind from birth and gifted with absolute pitch, he studied from the age of 9 at Worcester College, Oxford with Ivor Atkins (organ)[2] and later at London's Royal Academy of Music, where his piano teachers were Lloyd Powell and Isador Goodman.[3] In 1936, he moved from Wales to the United States as a member of Jack Hylton's Jazz Band,[1] where he played with a number of orchestras and gave his first radio performances on The Rudy Vallée Show, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Kraft Music Hall and The Magic Key of RCA.1–3 ("Bach Goes to Town," "Soldier's Minuet," "Undertaker's Toccata"), "Ghost Rhapsody," "Longing," "Pines," "Voyage a La Lune," "Mother's Lullaby," and "Friendship."Signing a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1939, he made a string of amusing sides including "Man with New Radio" and a pseudo-operatic rendering of "And the Angels Sing" (written by the trumpeter and bandleader Ziggy Elman).Templeton's compositions sometimes presented tongue-in-cheek variations on classical composers, including "Mendelssohn Mows 'em Down," "Scarlatti Stoops to Conga," and "Bach Goes to Town," the latter covered by both Benny Goodman's band (1938) and The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street (1941).