Cover Notes
Most of the music to which Britons danced during the late Victorian and Edwardian years was fairly obviously of European origin and during the first decade or so of the twentieth century dance music was simply that and the conductors and orchestral members were not household names. Then in 1912 an American vocal group came to London and proclaimed the vitality of syncopated music derived from the American negro.

In the summer of 1921 a British pianist - Jack Hylton - proved by his records with the Queen's Dance Orchestra that organised arrangements of popular dance music were not copyright by Americans and over the next two decades Britain was able to produce even more recorded evidence of the quality of native dance bands.

However during WW2 the popularity of the dance band began to decline in favour of popular vocalists and it was obvious by the end of the war in 1945 that the dance band days were as good as over. More recently there has arisen a nostalgia for things as they were and the original 78rpm records have become collector's items. What is more, major and minor record companies have begun to reissue these long-lost treasures in LP form.

The publication of this discography is a reflection of the ever growing interest in the collection and study of records of British dance music and contains, as far as possible, complete data on every known recording by British dance bands from January 1st 1911 to December 31st 1945 and the standard of accuracy achieved by the six years of preparation should ensure that this book will stand for many years as the standard work of reference on the subject.

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