Changing Faces of St Marylebone

St Marylebone parish church has always been known for its glorious music and a number of institutions with musical connections are also based in the parish. One of these is the Royal Academy of Music, which moved into a new building on Marylebone Road in 1911.

Evelyn Dove trained at the Academy before touring the United Kingdom’s clubs with a band made up of West African, British West Indian and American musicians. Black music was becoming hugely popular all over the world and Dove toured as far as India and Russia, where her audience included Stalin. She became an international cabaret star who was compared to Josephine Baker and built a glittering career in the years before World War II.

From 1939 to 1949 Dove appeared regularly on the BBC (coincidentally also in Marylebone, at Portland Place); she was the first black singer to do so. She had a gorgeous contralto voice and her popularity rivalled that of Vera Lynn, the “Forces’ Sweetheart”.