25 minutes | Thursday, 13 January 2022
The Island's vast tourist industry needed entertainment, and leading artistes popularised songs which led to large sales of sheet music and promoted the emerging recording industry. Florrie Forde spent many summer seasons in the Island and popularised a number of songs related to it. Her big hit song in 1909 was 'Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?'. Songs about 'Kelly' had become popular since 1887, but Florrie Forde's success also inspired 'answer' or 'follow-up' songs by Billy Merson and Billy Williams, which we hear.