James Last

Early life

Last was born to Louis and Martha Last in Bremen, Germany. He was the younger brother of Robert Last and Werner Last (aka Kai Warner). His father was an official at the postal and public works department of the city of Bremen and Last grew up in the suburb of Sebaldsbrück. He began studying the piano at age 10, though he could play simple tunes such as the folk song "Hänschen klein" when he was 9. His first music teacher felt he lacked any musical talent. Last started playing more actively with his second tutor and switched to the double bass as a teenager. His home city of Bremen was bombed heavily during World War II, and he ran messages to air defence command posts during the raids. He entered the Bückeburg Military Music School of the German Wehrmacht at the age of 14 and learned to play bass, piano and tuba.

After the end of the war, he joined Hans Günther Oesterreich's Radio Bremen Dance Orchestra. In 1948 he became the leader of the Last-Becker Ensemble, which performed for seven years. He was voted as the best bassist in the country in a German jazz poll for 1950, 1951 and 1952. When the Last-Becker Ensemble disbanded, he became the in-house arranger for Polydor Records, as well as a number of European radio stations. During the next decade he helped arrange hits for artists such as Helmut Zacharias, Freddy Quinn, Lolita, Alfred Hause and Caterina Valente.

Work

Last first released albums in the U.S. under the titles The American Patrol on Warner Bros. Records around 1964. He also released a series of nine albums in a series called Classics Up To Date which served up arrangements of classical melodies with strings, rhythm and wordless chorus from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s. Last 1965 album, Non-Stop Dancing, was a recording of brief renditions of popular songs, all tied together by an insistent dance beat and crowd noises. It was a hit and helped make him a major European star. Over the next four decades, Last released over 190 records, including several more volumes of Non-Stop Dancing. On these records, he varied his formula by adding different songs from different countries and genres, as well as guest performers like Richard Clayderman and Astrud Gilberto.

He also had his own successful television series throughout the 1970s with guests including ABBA and Lynsey de Paul which was screened across Europe. Last's trademark sound employed big band arrangements of well-known tunes with a jaunty dance beat, often heavy on bass and brass.

Though his concerts and albums were consistently successful, especially in the UK, where he had 52 hit albums between 1967 and 1986, which made him second only to Elvis Presley in charting records, he had relatively few hit singles. In the UK, his only chart singles were "The Seduction", a cover version of the theme from American Gigolo (1980) composed by Giorgio Moroder, and "Biscaya" from the album Biscaya. His single "Mornings at Seven" became a familiar tune in Britain after the BBC used it as the theme music for an ice skating programme. It was originally released on 7" vinyl in 1968 and has since then been included in several albums including By Request and Eighty Not Out. In the US, where "The Seduction" became a Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 22 on the Adult Contemporary chart in May 1980, Last was somewhat more successful on the singles charts. In 2003, his song "Einsamer Hirte" (The Lonely Shepherd) which features the pan flute of Gheorghe Zamfir appeared on the soundtrack of the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill Volume 1.

He won numerous popular and professional awards, including Billboard magazine's Star of the Year trophy in 1976, and was honoured for lifetime achievement with the German ECHO prize in 1994. His song "Music from Across the Way" (recorded by Andy Williams in 1972) is a melody with a classical feeling and was a worldwide hit; it was the only other Last single apart from "The Seduction" to reach the U.S. Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 84 (and No. 18 on the Adult Contemporary chart) in late 1971. (His only other U.S. chart single was a double-sided entry featuring remakes of the Village Stompers' "Washington Square" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary", which reached No. 22 on the Adult Contemporary chart in early 1971).

Last was awarded the Carl Alan Award by Princess Margaret for being the leader of the most popular dance band of 1981. In Canada, he had three hits on the RPM Magazine Top Singles charts ("El Cóndor Pasa" at #46, "Music From Across the Way" at #28, "The Seduction" at #32) and four on the Adult Contemporary/MOR charts ("Music From..." at #2, "Heart of Gold" at #17, "The Seduction" at #36, "Reach For A Star" at #20).

Songs composed by Last which achieved success in the US include "Happy Heart" and "Music from Across the Way", both recorded by Andy Williams, "Games That Lovers Play", recorded by Eddie Fisher, and "Fool", recorded by Elvis Presley. By the time of his farewell tour in the spring of 2015, Last was reported to have sold well over 100 million albums.

His signature piece was "Orange Blossom Special". He played this at almost every concert. He encouraged the band to have fun with it and sometimes the band members would go into the audience and make a conga line complete with duck head umbrellas. It was always a popular piece at his concerts.

In February 2015, after almost 50 years on tour, James Last announced that he was finally bidding adieu to the stage. The last concert of his "Non Stop Music James Last in Concert 2015" farewell tour took place in Cologne's Lanxess Arena on 26 April 2015, ending an era of almost half a century of "happy sound" music.

Personal life

Last married his first wife, Waltraud, in 1955; they had two children, Ronald and Caterina. After 42 years of marriage, Waltraud died in 1997. Two years later, Last married Christine Grundner from Bavaria. Last and Christine divided their time between homes in Florida and Hamburg. He gave much credit to Christine and son Ronald for help with his music.

Financial difficulties

Despite being the "most commercially successful bandleader" of the second half of the 20th century, Last's easygoing spending and "incompetent" financial advice led him at one stage to the "brink of ruin" financially.

Illness, final tour and death

In September 2014 Last learned that a "life threatening" illness had worsened (the exact details were never disclosed), and in early 2015 he announced his retirement from touring would take place following a final "goodbye tour", which commenced in Germany and ended in London. Last died less than three months later, on 9 June 2015 in Florida at the age of 86.

Writing in The Independent, Spencer Leigh suggested that Last's Non-Stop Dancing albums "paved the way for disco and dance mixes". Asked if he minded being labelled the "King of Corn", Last had replied "No, because it is true."

Awards

List of awards: