Biography
Born on 1 July 1899 in Eire as Clarence Patrick O’Connor, the tenor who would become widely known as Cavan died in London on 11 January 1997. His family relocated to Nottingham soon after his arrival in the world, and his Irish father passed away when the boy was only two. Leaving school, the young man took work first as a pit boy at the local colliery and later as a lather boy in a barber’s shop. Eager to serve in World War I, he was rejected by the Navy on account of his age, so he enlisted in the Army and reached France by the close of 1915. Demobilized in 1919, he found employment in a music showroom where he sold instruments and delivered pianos. The proprietor overheard him singing, arranged a Masonic-lodge concert for which he received seven shillings and sixpence, and the members of the lodge subsequently raised a collection of £200. With that sum O’Connor journeyed to London and auditioned before Sir Hugh Allan at the Royal College of Music, winning a four-year operatic scholarship that established him as a dedicated singer.
While singing in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Old Vic, he attracted the attention of a recording executive and cut test discs of “Take A Pair Of Sparkling Eyes” and “The Wandering Minstrel” with full orchestral backing. Engineers later informed him that his voice possessed the ideal “cutting” quality for the wax process then in use. In the early 1920s he took part in an experimental television broadcast with John Logie Baird and entered Sir Nigel Playfair’s company at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, where he played small roles and understudied in The Beggar’s Opera, The Duenna, and the 1926 revue Riverside Nights. His versatility next led him into a season of opera under Lillian Baylis at the Old Vic, appearances at the Gaiety Theatre, and performances with Fred Hartley’s ensembles; in 1925 he successfully auditioned for the BBC at Savoy Hill.
Steady work continued, yet genuine stardom arrived only in 1935 when Eric Maschwitz, then head of Variety at BBC radio, conceived the weekly feature “The Vagabond Lover.” Modelled on Arthur Tracy’s American persona as “The Street Singer,” the programme presented an unidentified vocalist whose identity listeners were invited to guess, one national newspaper offering a guinea for the most convincing description. Overnight success followed; once O’Connor’s name was disclosed he ranked among Britain’s highest-paid radio artists, second only to Gracie Fields. The Stoll Moss circuit promptly booked him into leading music halls, where audiences responded warmly to his relaxed entrances—singing his signature “Goodnight (I’m Only A Strolling Vagabond)” in a slouch hat, corduroy trousers, open-necked shirt, and sports jacket casually slung over one shoulder.
In the late 1930s he performed in the United States and on the Continent. During World War II he broadcast regularly from Bristol until the studio was destroyed, after which he moved to Bangor; he also appeared frequently on Monday Night At Eight and Jimmy O’Dea’s Irish Half Hour. In 1939 Maschwitz and George Posford supplied him with the specially written “The World Is Mine Tonight,” which joined his established repertoire of “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” (whose melody he first encountered on a music box in Bangor), “Daybreak,” “When I Leave The World Behind,” “In The Still Of The Night,” “Danny Boy,” “The Rose Of Tralee,” “The Mountains Of Mourne,” and “Hear My Song, Violetta.” He had brought the last-named song from Berlin, asserting that it had been “pinched” from La Traviata. Across his career he amassed more than 800 recordings for numerous labels, accompanied by studio orchestras and dance bands directed by Bertini, Alfredo, Harry Bidgood, Herman Dareweski, and Geraldo. Standard ballads appeared under his own name, while lighter commercial releases were issued under the pseudonyms Cliff Connelly, Pat O’Brian, Terence O’Neill, Alan O’Sullivan, and Harry Carlton, among others. He also acted in two films, Ourselves Alone (1936) and Honeymoon Hotel (1946).
After the war he toured South Africa and the Antipodes yet maintained a steady schedule of British engagements until the rise of television closed most music halls and shifting tastes in popular music curtailed opportunities for ballad singers. With his wife, Rita Tate—a fellow Royal College of Music student who played piano—and their son Michael on guitar, he formed the Avonmore Trio. A modest resurgence occurred when producer Don Ross placed him in a series of small nostalgia package tours that travelled the provinces; his final stage appearance came in 1985 at the reopened Hackney Empire in London, where he topped the bill and received an enthusiastic reception.
While singing in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Old Vic, he attracted the attention of a recording executive and cut test discs of “Take A Pair Of Sparkling Eyes” and “The Wandering Minstrel” with full orchestral backing. Engineers later informed him that his voice possessed the ideal “cutting” quality for the wax process then in use. In the early 1920s he took part in an experimental television broadcast with John Logie Baird and entered Sir Nigel Playfair’s company at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, where he played small roles and understudied in The Beggar’s Opera, The Duenna, and the 1926 revue Riverside Nights. His versatility next led him into a season of opera under Lillian Baylis at the Old Vic, appearances at the Gaiety Theatre, and performances with Fred Hartley’s ensembles; in 1925 he successfully auditioned for the BBC at Savoy Hill.
Steady work continued, yet genuine stardom arrived only in 1935 when Eric Maschwitz, then head of Variety at BBC radio, conceived the weekly feature “The Vagabond Lover.” Modelled on Arthur Tracy’s American persona as “The Street Singer,” the programme presented an unidentified vocalist whose identity listeners were invited to guess, one national newspaper offering a guinea for the most convincing description. Overnight success followed; once O’Connor’s name was disclosed he ranked among Britain’s highest-paid radio artists, second only to Gracie Fields. The Stoll Moss circuit promptly booked him into leading music halls, where audiences responded warmly to his relaxed entrances—singing his signature “Goodnight (I’m Only A Strolling Vagabond)” in a slouch hat, corduroy trousers, open-necked shirt, and sports jacket casually slung over one shoulder.
In the late 1930s he performed in the United States and on the Continent. During World War II he broadcast regularly from Bristol until the studio was destroyed, after which he moved to Bangor; he also appeared frequently on Monday Night At Eight and Jimmy O’Dea’s Irish Half Hour. In 1939 Maschwitz and George Posford supplied him with the specially written “The World Is Mine Tonight,” which joined his established repertoire of “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” (whose melody he first encountered on a music box in Bangor), “Daybreak,” “When I Leave The World Behind,” “In The Still Of The Night,” “Danny Boy,” “The Rose Of Tralee,” “The Mountains Of Mourne,” and “Hear My Song, Violetta.” He had brought the last-named song from Berlin, asserting that it had been “pinched” from La Traviata. Across his career he amassed more than 800 recordings for numerous labels, accompanied by studio orchestras and dance bands directed by Bertini, Alfredo, Harry Bidgood, Herman Dareweski, and Geraldo. Standard ballads appeared under his own name, while lighter commercial releases were issued under the pseudonyms Cliff Connelly, Pat O’Brian, Terence O’Neill, Alan O’Sullivan, and Harry Carlton, among others. He also acted in two films, Ourselves Alone (1936) and Honeymoon Hotel (1946).
After the war he toured South Africa and the Antipodes yet maintained a steady schedule of British engagements until the rise of television closed most music halls and shifting tastes in popular music curtailed opportunities for ballad singers. With his wife, Rita Tate—a fellow Royal College of Music student who played piano—and their son Michael on guitar, he formed the Avonmore Trio. A modest resurgence occurred when producer Don Ross placed him in a series of small nostalgia package tours that travelled the provinces; his final stage appearance came in 1985 at the reopened Hackney Empire in London, where he topped the bill and received an enthusiastic reception.
Albums
Singles
