{"id":13150,"date":"2013-08-29T12:21:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T11:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=13150"},"modified":"2013-08-29T12:25:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T11:25:27","slug":"happy-birthday-to-legendary-piano-player-mrs-mills-who-would-have-been-95-years-old-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/happy-birthday-to-legendary-piano-player-mrs-mills-who-would-have-been-95-years-old-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday to legendary piano player Mrs Mills, who would have been 95 years old today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mrs Mills I'm Mighty Glad album cover\" src=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/images\/mrs-mills-mighty-glad.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"402\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ninety five years ago today,\u00a0Gladys Mills, n\u00e9e Gladys Jordan, was born in\u00a0\u00a0Beckton, East London and from these humble beginnings she would go on to become a piano superstar.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mrs Mills - a collection of album covers\" src=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/images\/mrs_mills_albums-25.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"614\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Taking piano lessons from the age of 3 to 7 years old, Gladys ended up working at the\u00a0typing pool in the office of the Paymaster General in London in the daytimes, while banging out her trademark singalong tunes in local clubs and pubs at night.<\/p>\n<p>In an improbable twist of fate, she was spotted\u00a0by a talent scout at a Woodford Golf Club dance when she was in her forties, and this chance encounter would lead her to national fame.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"735\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eNVYwRVhJOg?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Signed up to manager Eric Easton &#8211; the same fella who later went on to manage The Dave Clark Five and The Rolling Stones &#8211; Gladys&#8217; first &#8220;Mrs Mills Medley&#8221; single went straight into the top twenty, and a long international career encompassing over 30 successful albums followed, as well as TV appearances on the Morecambe and Wise show.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mrs Mills - a collection of album covers\" src=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/images\/mrs_mills_albums-36.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"596\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Mrs Mills didn&#8217;t take herself too seriously (check out some of the <a href=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/mrs_mills_albums.html\" target=\"_blank\">crazy album covers<\/a>!) and she certainly liked to party, something reflected by her album titles, which included:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Everybody&#8217;s Welcome at Mrs Mills&#8217; Party<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s Party Time!<br \/>\nMrs Mills&#8217; Party<br \/>\nEverybody&#8217;s Welcome at Mrs Mills&#8217; Party<br \/>\nCome To My Party<br \/>\nLet&#8217;s Have Another Party<br \/>\nSummer Party<br \/>\nParty Pieces<br \/>\nParty Mixture<br \/>\nBumper Bundle Party<br \/>\nMusic Hall Party<br \/>\nAnytime Is Party Time<br \/>\nAnother Flippin&#8217; Party<br \/>\nHollywood Party<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s Party Time Again<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mrs Mills Experience being filmed by the BBC at the Brixton Offline Club, Prince Albert Coldharbour Lane, London SW9, Friday 13th July 2012\" src=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/images\/mrsmills-albert-july-2012-bbc-08.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"407\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always loved Mrs Mills, and last year formed a band with some friends to celebrate her music.<\/p>\n<p>Calling ourselves the <a href=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Mrs Mills Experience<\/a>, we seem to have struck a chord with the public, being <a href=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/mrsmills-albert-july-2012-bbc.html\" target=\"_blank\">filmed by the BBC<\/a> and invited to play some prestigious gigs including supporting Chas &amp; Dave and headlining a stage at the Beautiful Days festival in August 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Check our <a href=\"http:\/\/mrsmills.org\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">our website<\/a> for forthcoming shows or visit our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MrsMillsExperience\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Happy birthday, Gladys. You&#8217;ve been a real inspiration and given a lot of people a lot of happiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ninety five years ago today,\u00a0Gladys Mills, n\u00e9e Gladys Jordan, was born in\u00a0\u00a0Beckton, East London and from these humble beginnings she would go on to become a piano superstar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43],"tags":[245,472],"class_list":["post-13150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-mrs-mills","tag-mrs-mills-experience"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/mrs-mills-mighty-glad1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3q6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13150"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13158,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions\/13158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}