The “Mr.Music” Story

Desmond Kelly Star of eLanka

The “Mr.Music” title came to be, as I am now the oldest-living Western-Style entertainer from “My Lovely Island Home”, as I call her. Humbly, & thanking God for HIS gifts to me, I have been “on-stage”, from the age of five, starting at the Convent of Our Lady Of Victories, in Moratuwa.
There, I sang (and “acted”), for them from 1941-1944.,

joined St.Sebastian’s College, also in Moratuwa till ’47 when I was nine years old, had the chance to “learn” piano, but preferred to teach myself the “ukelele”, met Wally Bastiensz at the birthday party of one of my College mates, & Wally decided to teach this “sudhu-kolla”, as he called me, to sing “Baila” Wally was already a “Kossa”, much older than myself, but saw that this was what I wanted to do, just entertain people So, I played my uke and sang baila to anyone who would listen. At ten or eleven, I was “treading the boards”, already singing English Songs, some Sinhala Songs like “Uda-rata nithi perale” etc., a beautiful old Sinhala Song, PLUS “baila”, some verses, raw “kunuharapa”, not knowing the meaning of what I was singing, but already had my audiences rolling around, laughing. They knew what I was singing about, I didn’t.

Came (shifted) to Colombo, joined St.Peter’s College when aI was around 12 years old, immediately got into the Music, Art & Drama Society, run, at the time, by Fr.Noel Cruz, became an “Altar-Server”, went to Church every day, like a good boy, learn’t all the beautiful hymns in Latin, joined the College Choir, under Papa DeNeise, enjoyed every minute of the lovely Latin “Benediction” Hymns like “Tarntum Ergo” & everyone thought that I was heading for the Priesthood. It just wasn’t to be. Celibacy just wasn’t my thing. My active “hormones” were “acting up” & I was already very interested in the opposite sex. There was just ONE difference. The girls HAD to be extra-pretty. The girls who were “nice from far, but, far from nice” , I only respected, but that was as far as it went. This rather long introduction is only the “tip of the iceberg. Already, my life was “FULL”, & I was enjoying it”fully”.

My very FIRST girl-friend, with whom I would walk to the Convent with, was a Sinhalese lass, only about 5 years old with long black plaited tresses hanging low & down her back. She was beautiful & her nickname was “Murunga Karal”. Cannot really say what became of her after I left Moratuwa for good.

Anyway, back to Colombo. We couldn’t find a home to rent, so we spent a few months with my Aunt Ouida & Uncle Roy (Demmer) in Sea Avenue, Colpetty, before moving to share a home in Vaverset Place, Wellawatte, where I espied another “beauty” by the name of Coleen. She was part Irish & beautiful, to go, with it.

From a very early stage, I “courted” these girls by simply talking to them, singing to them, & making them feel “special”, I suppose. If they listened, I sang.

At St.Peter’s, I met an extra-special friend by the name of Denis Roberts. Denis also loved music, was really an exceptional singer who, not much later on was dubbed “the carbon-copy” of Frank Sinatra in England.

Other musical pals of mine at St.Peter’s were pianist Patrick Nelson & Elmo Mullholland, to name just two of many. Elmo also sang & wanted to learn the guitar.

Soon, very soon, it was 1950, I was 14 when we shifted, as a family to Number 38 Lorensz Road, in Bambalapitiya. There, I started to teach myself the acoustic Spanish Guitar, started the very first Lorensz Road Carol Party with my brothers Ian & Rogan, Denis & Conrad de Silva who was also from a very musical family. Then, a bloke by the name of Charlie Schokman joined me & Charlie, Rogan & Conrad took on the name “Semi-tones”, backing me with 3part harmonies, I was still in College, but not studying much at all I have always believed that “educational qualifications” are much better gained by READING, than by anything else. Study Science if you want to be a Scientist, Medicine, if you want to be a Doctor, Podiatry, if you have a “foot-fetish”, but, as far as I was concerned, & I read everything I could lay my hands on, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So, by the time aI was 15, I had 3 major “loves” in my life, Music, Books & Pretty Girls, speaking of whom, I then met the first real love of my life, Neliya Hingert. The music kept going too. I was never ever left out of “Concert Programmes”, my name “featured” on so many, there were times I just could not keep up. Plenty of Concerts, plenty of personal appearences, no money. MONEY has always run a distant 2nd in “Showiz” as far as I was personally concerned. Applause, watching people enjoy what I did, always meant more to me than anything else.

Then there were several lasses who caught my eye. For obvious reasons, I cannot give their full names because nearly all of them left me for better, more affluent partners anyway. . There were “beauties” like Aloma, Yvette, Romayne, Desiree and al least 2 or 3 others, special “haunts” like Lindsay Girls’School, the Milagiriya Convent, Holy Family Convents in Bambalapitiya AND Dehiwala, couldn’t keep up.

Then, I decided that I would try Radio-Ceylon to see whether I could “go on Radio”. I did, and was featured on Vernon Corea’s “Spotlight” show. Vernon taught me everything about “Radio Appearences”. He was a really great guy and, in my opinion, the top man in Radio at the time. Then, the biggest & best “Showman” that our Little Country would ever have, by the name of Donavan Andree heard me singing somewhere and decided that I should do a few shows for him. I was still at College, now, monitor of the most notorious “form” at St.Peter’s, namely “Junior D”. Denis Roberts was my “Prayer Monitor” & Elmo Mullholland, who went on to become one of the “top” bass players in the Country was still asking me to teach him some “chords” on guitar. Still, plenty of singing, plenty of girl-friends, plenty of harmless enjoyment but ONLY some part-time payments from Donavan, when I did any work for him. Then he (Donavan) decided to get this Circus troupe in from England to “tour” Ceylon for 6 months. Unfortunately, on the way to Ceylon, they, i.e.”The Jenkins & Schumanns Circus” lost their eldest son, to typhoid, in India & Freddy Jenkins sent in a telegram to Donavan telling him that they needed a young man to take the.place of the son they lost, to sing & play guitar back-up for their Hawaiian dancers on stage for “The Continental Non-Stop Revue”, a two-hour Variety Show featuring Music, Magic, Comedy, and other “Circus-Stuff” & , to make a long story short, Donavan got me the job, I “ran away” from College & Home to join this Circus Group, toured with them for 6 months, nearly lost my life a couple or three times, started to earn really “big bucks”, enjoyed EVERY MINUTE of every show. We did three shows daily, each lasting about 2hours, 7days a week. When the tour was over Freddy & Edna Jenkins wanted to “adopt” me and take me with them around the World and, hopefully start another “Circus-family” with their daughter who was also, not only beautiful (a typical English rose) , but a CONTORSIONIST as well. I would have loved to go & my dad said o.k., but mum refused point blank, to sign the necessary papers to let me leave the Country & go “gallavanting” around the Planet, as she.put it, so, there I was, back at Lorensz Rd., no job & no money, once more. This was the time I remember Bill Forbes & myself working together at a big Service station, serving petrol. Donavan also gave us part-time work, but then Bill went off to England, & as Kal Khan, made a name for himself over there. This was Donavan’s thing. I was his first “child-prodigy”, if you like, Bill.Forbes was another & Cliff Foenander also
was one of his favourites. He also liked Denis Roberts.

Wherever Donavan happened to be, each of us had to “sing” a special song for him. My song for him was “Ain’t misbehavin”, Denis sang “I’ll make up for everything” & Erin de Selfa, his “female favourite” sang

“The nearness of you” so beautifully, the “nearness of Donavan” , at the time, was even nearer to Erin than anyone else. Donavan was also responsible for sending Cliff Foenander to the Phillipines, where he met the “Fabulous Echoes”, joined them and went over to the States & made a huge name for himself, ending up on the Ed Sullivan Show on television, there.

“Your’s truly” was the only one to remain in Ceylon & make a name for himself in the Country of his birth & I am very proud about that. Now, I was also being heard over the Commercial Service of Radio Ceylon & it was there that I met Chris Greet. It would take a “small book” to explain the crazy situations that my friend Chris & I got into. He was also a proud “ladies’-man”, problem was that he was making “dates” with three or four girls at the same time and obviously, could not “achieve his ends” wuth something just short of a “harem”, then he would appeal to his good friend “Des”who had his own problems to deal with. They were wonderful problems though, and somehow, we would work them out. Chris Greet & Des. Kelly had a total of, at LEAST a dozen special girlfriends to contend with. Chris also had a “car”, Des didn’t even have a bicycle. The old double-deckers were my only mode of transport. Even my guitar was a bloody old 6 string accoustic one, something like Willy Nelson had.
Then, I met the second “girl of my dreams” Cynthia.

She was a Dehiwala girl, & I met her after finally giving in to my friend Elmo Mullholland’s appeal to help him with a few more “guitar-chords”. Elmo announced to Cynthia’s younger sister Mercia that “radio-star” Desmond Kelly would be visiting & I had spent hardly fifteen minutes teaching Elmo how to tune his guitar to perfection, when Mercia turned up on “her”bicycle, was introduced to the already “living legend” of 16 yrs & because she was also pretty, I decided to accept her invitation for me to “come home” & sing a song for her.

I couldn’t go at once, of course. I had more part-time work coming up from Mr.Andree. He had just gone & organized for about a dozen World famous wrestlers to come to Colombo & perform their “fake” wrestling bouts for him. Donavan wanted me at the ticket -box outside the “Ring” selling tickets & collecting the cash money, as was done in the old days. He trusted me, and said so, and I never ever let him down. He paid me for the service and on top of that, I got to meet my top Wrestlers like Dara Singhe, Wong Bok Li & even the Aussie champ “Tiger Holden”. It was a superb job, over nearly a month & I forgot all about Mercia & Dehiwala for a while. However, at Lorensz Road, one night, I had a “sweet-dream” about Neliya who was still on my mind, woke up wide awake just after midnight and wrote a song called “Dream-World” for obvious reasons. Because I haven’t a clue about the theory if music, I picked up my old guitar, strummed the original tune, while writing down the lyrics at the same time in an exercise book. It took me about 45 minutes to write the song dedicated to Neliya. I also found out that I could write simple but melodic songs of this sort, in next to no time. Seems I was a natural born “Poet” as well, but the most difficult thing about songwriting for me, was to decide on a suitable “Title”
for the song. I had, by now, started to write my own songs. I had already written a song for “Aloma” who, when I first met her at the Lindsay Girls’ School, looked exactly like a very young Ava Gardner. Every Thursday afternoon, they had, what was called, the “Band of Hope”, (a semi-religous meeting), hopefully to make us youngsters better Citizens. Another guitarist, Melroy de Silva who ended up as the leader of the “Fireflies” & myself would regularly go for these meetings, not because we wanted to get any “holier” but we wanted to “Cap” all the pretty “angels” at the School & I remember well, that the boy-friends of some of these girls would gather outside waiting to get their own back on these two blokes serenading their girlfriends. Melroy had his own girlfriend there for a while and I “wrote” a song for “Celonia” too. We used to enjoy those Thursday afternoons. Two guys, two guitars, singing our hearts out to dozens of Lindsay School-girls & getting hugs & kisses.aplenty in payment. Then, everything came to a sudden HALT.

I went back to Dehiwala to teach Elmo a new chord that Melroy had just taught me and ended up in Waidya Avenue to serenade Mercia,but fell for her.older sister Cynthia who was not only beautiful, but had the most beautuful “eyes” I had ever seen on a woman before.

I promptly forgot about Aloma, Neliya, Shirley, Yvette, Charmaine & about a half dozen others and asked Cynthia to “be my girl”. She accepted on”ONLY ONE” condition.” I was going to be ONLY for her & nobody else. To be brutally honest about it, I could NOT, but her “eyes” hypnotised me &”I said “O.K”. o.k., I promise.
That was the end (honestly), of my particular “Harem”
Being something of a Radio-Personality & still, now almost a “household name” in Showbiz, I used to get letters, cards, marriage proposals etc., etc., from women I had not even set eyes on. I had a “fan-club” of about a hundred & fifty girls who used to follow me wherever I went. I used to get “mad, sustained applause at every concert I did. Cynthia knew that I was in this business, but she was getting more and more jealous & “protective”,as she put it. She “claimed” that Dream-World was her song & how could I refuse those EYES. I would have written another song for Neliya but, by now, Neliya was getting herself ready for the “Miss Ceylon” contest coming up very quickly in 1955. Not making any excuses, Cynthia was living in Dehiwala, Neliya & I were still living in Lorensz Road, so I COULD NOT HELP meeting Neliya from time to time. Cynthia did not know this and I did not want to risk being murdered, so I didn’t tell her. Then Neliya won the Miss Ceylon Title, was invited to America for the Miss Universe Contest, the following year, to be fair, asked me to go there with her, but I had to say “no”
One reason was Cynthia and the other reason being, as they say, in Sri Lanka even today “NO MONEY, NO VOTE”. I had proposals offering me acres of Land as prospective “Dowrys”, plenty of “Pagga” as they call it for my fair hand (being a Burgher-Bugger), in Marriage
BUT ABSOLUTELY NO CASH IN HAND. Thinking of getting married to Cynthia, as I was “seeing” her every day and I would have saved a fortune in bus-fare, & she was employed as a Stenographer with the P.M.G. in Fort, so I had to get a bloody “job”. No qualifications
to speak of, so I then joined the Royal Ceylon Navy as a Supply Assistant, where a WHOLE NEW LIFE BEGAN.

If the above could be classified as Book/Magazine, 1 Book two could be about my eight years in the Royal Ceylon Navy. This was where, from a 17 year old “boy”, the Royal Ceylon Navy turned me into a “man”, a tough one, able to “adapt” to ANYTHING! .D.K.by J.A., O.K.?.

A WHOLE NEW LIFE BEGAN & sign off with Desmond Kelly Star of eLanka.