Larry Adler

Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler, (10 February 1914 – 7 August 2001), was an American musician, widely acknowledged as one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. He was mostly known for his collaborations with musicians such as Sting, George Gershwin, Kate Bush, Cerys Matthews and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Biography

Larry Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland, into a Jewish family and graduated from the Baltimore City College high school. He taught himself harmonica (which he preferred to call a mouth-organ)[1] and began playing professionally at the age of 14.

Adler moved to the United Kingdom in 1949, having been forced to flee the USA after false accusations of sympathising with communism during the notorious McCarthism trials, which made it impossible for him to find work. The accusations, although without foundation, led to a general sentiment of disregard towards him in the USA during the 1950s and early 1960s. Having settled in London, he spent the rest of his life there.

Apart from his career as a renown musician, Adler also made appearances in several movies. He was also known as a prolific letter writer, with his correspondence with the satirical magazine Private Eye becoming legendary in the UK. Larry wrote an autobiography — entitled It Ain't Necessarily So — in 1985, and worked as a food critic for Harpers & Queen for some time.

The 1953 movie Genevieve brought him an Oscar nomination for his work on the soundtrack, although his name was originally kept off the credits in the United States because of McCarthyism blacklisting.

In 1994 for his 80th birthday Adler, along with George Martin, produced an album of George Gershwin tunes, The Glory of Gershwin, on which Adler and Martin performed Rhapsody in Blue.

He was a great showman and a most entertaining performer. He enjoyed telling outrageously corny jokes in his concerts, as he showed in his visit to Australia with Issy van Randwyck to promote his Glory of Gershwin album. The concerts also revealed that he was a competent pianist, when he opened each performance with Gershwin's Summertime, playing piano and harmonica simultaneously.

Adler had four children, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He died peacefully in St Thomas' Hospital, London, at the age of 87, on 7 August 2001.

Reference

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

External links

• Larry Adler biography and credits at BFI Screenonline

• Interview with Larry Adler, originally broadcast June 19, 1987