Wodonga - Leonard Hubbard

A popular vocalist of the 1920s was baritone Leonard Hubbard, another singer about whom little is known. He recorded quite prolifically for Zonophone Records in the UK, including several songs with a distinctly Australian theme, but evidence for an Australian connection is tenuous. There was a Leonard Hubbard who toured Australia, as a boy soprano, with Edwards Branscombe’s Westminster Abbey Glee and Concert Party in 1903 and who by 1911 was an adult chorister at the Abbey. His great-uncle George Hubbard was a resident of Launceston, Tasmania and the Launceston Examiner occasionally reported on his musical career which included singing at the Coronation of George V, but there is nothing to directly link that Leonard Hubbard to the recording artist of the 1920s. Whoever he was, in 1924 he embraced the popularity for songs about Australian towns, recording Back to Croajingolong and Wodonga on Zonophone 3637, Cootamundra on Zonophone 3653 and I’m Going Back to Yarrawonga on Zonophone 3636.