Reginald New

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Reginald New" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (May 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Reginald New

Reginald New (April 1902, in Lewisham, Kent – 28 November 1958, in Beckenham, Ken^[1]) was a popular UK theatre organist whose career spanned the 1920s through to the 1950s.

New was first a chorister and then assistant organist at St George's, Catford^[2] later organist at Christ's Church, Chislehurst ^[2] before he became a cinema organist.^[2] When cinemas started using organists to accompany silent pictures, New was among the pioneers at various London cinemas in 1920.^[2] On 28 November 1929 he made his first BBC radio broadcast from the Beaufort Cinema, Washwood Heath, Birmingham.^[3] After broadcasting 468 times,^[2] he transferred to the Regal Cinema at Kingston-on-Thames in 1933 making another 200 broadcasts^[2] from there.^[4] He was subsequently organist of the State Cinema, Dartford for four years from 1936. He often gave concerts on the Cheltenham Town Hall organ and broadcast from there on 8 December 1935.^[2] In August 1940 he was appointed organist of the Regal Cinema, Beckenham.^[2] New was unique in that he used two signature tunes - signing in with "Jolly Good Company" and signing out with "Old Father Thames".^[2][5] During his time at Dartford, he composed the "Dartford March".^[2] This became a soldiers' marching tune and was sung by many who came back from Dunkirk.^[2] Reginald New made over 800 broadcasts in his career.^[2] The Compton organ from Washwood Heath was subsequently removed in 1937 and placed in the Abbey Road studios where it was recorded by Fats Waller.