My friend Marjorie Clare, who has died aged 96, was, as Marjorie Daw, an elegantly glamorous and popular vocalist with the Oscar Rabin Orchestra in the 1950s and on many BBC Light Programme broadcasts and recordings. She also sang on hit recordings of the 60s, including Helen Shapiro’s Walkin’ Back to Happiness (1961) and Mary Hopkin’s Goodbye, written and produced by Paul McCartney (1969).
An excellent musician, she was a fixture in the 60s lineup of the vocal quartet the Fraser Hayes Four, who provided the up-tempo musical interludes for 10 series of the Kenneth Horne comedy vehicles, Beyond Our Ken and subsequently Round the Horne, on the BBC Light Programme, still repeated often on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Born in Hackney, east London, to Robert Turtle and Millicent (nee Burriss), Marjorie spent her early years in South Africa, where her father was an executive for British and American Tobacco. At school she loved singing hymns and became part of a group called the Four Little Sisters, who entertained soldiers injured in the second world war at Baragwanath hospital.
After attending Forest high school, Johannesburg, she answered an advert for talent in Variety magazine and her first employment as a professional singer was with the Roy Martin Orchestra, as a member of his vocal group, the Melodeers, and subsequently as featured vocalist, broadcasting frequently on South African radio.
Encouraged by Roy Martin to try her luck in Britain Marjorie, (or Marge, as she was always known) returned to the UK in 1948, eventually joining the Oscar Rabin Orchestra. Here, she met the jazz drummer Kenny Clare and they married in 1952. Kenny’s stellar career was such that Marge happily took on the role of supporting him and looking after their family, adopting twins, Susan and Lesley, in 1962.
Marge continued to work as a busy session singer on the London studio scene, in vocal groups run by Mike Sammes, Beryl Stott and Rita Williams. She recorded a solo EP, Personally, for Columbia Records in 1958. Marge can be seen in a DVD release of the Rank Organisation’s feature For the Record, backing the teenage Shapiro on Walkin’ Back to Happiness (“whoopah, oh yeah, yeah”) filmed at EMI’s Abbey Road studios. Marge also made an appearance in a musical sketch in an early Morecambe and Wise TV show in 1963.
After raising her family in London and Surrey, Marge relocated to East Grinstead, West Sussex, where she played a key role in the upbringing of her grandchildren and volunteered at their school. She moved to Worthing in 2001, an area to which many of her musician friends had retired. She loved walks on the sea front with her dog, crosswords, reading and using her iPad to keep in touch with friends and family.
Kenny died in 1985 and her daughters in 1990 and 1993. She is survived by her grandchildren, Gabrielle and Theo, and great-granddaughter, Lily.
