Layton and Johnstone Records

The story of one of the most successful musical partnerships in the history of 20th. century show business - that of Turner Layton and Clarence Nathaniel Johnstone - began when both were employed by the music publisher and folk music annotator William Christopher Handy, in New York, in 1923. Elsie Janis booked them for a season in her revue Elsie Janis At Home in London in the summer of 1924. They were a modest success; but they also caught the attention of the owner of the Cafe de Paris, who engaged them to appear there in the late-night cabaret, and their success in this medium was instantaneous and long-lasting. They topped the bill in stage and cabaret all over the United Kingdom for the next eleven years, then after a tragic scandal involving Johnstone, the partnership was dissolved in November, 1935. During those eleven years they recorded 1,008 numbers, with a total estimated sale figure of more than 10 millions discs. Click on the next headings for some details of their lives and works.


Turner Layton
Clarence Johnstone
Layton and Johnstone

It is hardly surprising that many of their records still turn up in charity shops, boots sales and Internet auction sites. They are almost invariably very badly worn - a sure sign of their popularity - as a result of being played very frequently with heavy pickups and steel needles. Most of them date from the earliest times of electrical recording and vocal numbers such as these often present more difficult challenges during restoration than instrumental numbers. The examples of their work on this page are therefore not necessarily representative of the very best results of audio restoration. Nevertheless, listening to examples of the songs of Layton and Johnstone can be a pleasant experience.

The recordings are in a highly compressed format (mp3) so there is some loss of quality, especially at the extremes of the frequency range. To listen to them you will need a standard player such as Windows Media Player or RealPlayer at http://www.real.com, the basic version of which which may be downloaded freely, or Total Recorder at http://www.HighCriteria.com which enables you to record the audio on to your hard drive for future playing but for which there is a modest charge.

Turner Layton made a lot of solo records, including a few while his partnership with Clarence Johnstone was still flourishing. Here are a few examples.

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