Violinist, Jazz Bandleader. He is most remember for being a popular musician throughout the 1950s and 1960s with British Broadcasting Company radio broadcasts and numerous recordings. In Britain, he was called “Mr. Music”. Stapleton began playing violin as a seven-year-old, and played on local radio by the age of twelve. As a teenager, he played for silent movies. He broadcast regularly from the BBC Studios in Birmingham, England, and then went to Czechoslovakia to study under Otakar Sevcik, the famous teacher of the violin. On a scholarship, he attended Trinity College of Music in London and played in a dance band there led by Henry Hall. This ensemble also played on the BBC and made several recordings for EMI. After losing his position in the band because he was "just too young", he went back to his hometown in Nottingham and formed his own band. In the 1930s, he toured South Africa with the Jack Payne Orchestra. Later in the 1930's, he and his band relocated to London where they won their own spot performing on the BBC in 1939. His career was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he served as an aerial gunner in the Royal Air Force, eventually organizing shows and concerts at various military facilities and joining the RAF Symphony Orchestra. Following the war, he played with the London Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of London, and the Philharmonic Orchestra. He formed a band played at Fisher’s Restaurant in London’s New Bond Street. In the spring of 1957, for reasons that have never been clear, the BBC decided to disband his orchestra. Stapleton was cut loose from his longtime employers, but he never broke stride, organizing his own orchestra again, going on tours, cutting more records and still appearing on radio. Surprisingly, even amid the rise of rock & roll and the Beatles, there were no interruptions in his work, and he tried to understand the new music. In the mid-'60s, he occasionally got promising rock bands that crossed his path to sign recording contracts. In 1966 the Stapleton Band moved to Pye Records, where Stapleton later became A&R controller and an independent producer, masterminding the multi-million-selling Singalong series of albums by Max Bygraves. His audience was still there, however, and in the early '70s he resumed recording and touring with a re-formed orchestra but sadly died suddenly at the age of 59. In 1956, he released three albums: “Dancing in the Dark”, “Strings on Parade”, “Dim Lights and Blue Music”. This followed with 2 or 3 albums a year through 1961. His albums along 45 RPM's singles continued to be released a regular intervals each year even after his death. In 2003, a collection of his jazz, classic and stage productions was released on a CD, “Decca Recordings: Cyril Stapleton and His Orchestra”. In the United States, Stapleton made the Top 30 with ‘”The Children’s Marching Song” from the film “The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness” which, along with “Blue Star”, sold a million copies. Known world-wide, he was a successful and talented man providing music for almost four decades.