Adelaide Hall, Joan Hammond and Lena Horne were a trio of talent who graced Blackpool stages

It seems some Retro readers hope for the bingo moment - the "never knew that" story from the archives.

Today could be triple-bingo day with the Blackpool visits of Adelaide Hall, Joan Hammond and Lena Horne.

Adelaide Hall (1901-1994) was born in Brooklyn and sang with the early Duke Ellington band before coming to Britain in the 1930s.

New Zealand-born Joan Hammond (1912-1996) was a champion golfer and a sportswriter in Australia before becoming an opera singer.

New Yorker Lena Horne (1917-2010) had a 70-year career but made only two Blackpool concert visits, with enthusiastic reviews.

First, we're noting Adelaide Hall's visits on weekly variety bills at the old Palace Theatre in the 1930s and 40s and quoting a Gazette review from May, 1945.

As the bill-topper, dubbed The Crooning Blackbird, the opinion was: "Adelaide Hall . . . is an explosion and carries the audience by sheer force of personality. Her art is immaculate. Her singing of Accentuate the Positive must be seen to be believed."

Her last Palace appearance, also as bill-topper, was in November, 1949.

Soon after the Grand Theatre reopened in 1981, Adelaide Hall was one of five veterans in Duggie Chapman's Golden Greats of Variety, for one week.

There couldn't have been a greater contrast in the Blackpool appearances of the operatic soprano Dame Joan Hammond.

She was the prima donna with the Carl Rosa Opera Company at the Opera House in April, 1946, opening their repertoire in Madam Butterfly.

When the Carl Rosa returned to the Opera House for two weeks in February, 1948, she sang one of her noted roles, Tosca, the Gazette noting: "Her purity of tone, her clear, fine phrasing and rich dramatic sense dominated the stage."

In March, 1949, she guested with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the Opera House, and her final visit was for a concert in November, 1951. Third in our retrospective, Lena Horne

headed two Opera House concerts on July 6, 1952, when the Gazette's Bill Burgess wrote: "A striking figure with raven hair, flashing eyes, dazzling teeth and dusky complexion, she sang with an almost agonised intensity."

And on Lena's second Opera House visit, for the CADS charity concert on May 7, 1961, the Gazette's Michael Berry (later known as comedian Lennie Bennett) declared: "In a skin-tight golden gown, she took the audience by the scruff of the neck and never let go.

"She pouted, purred, snarled, crooned and swung her way through a dozen numbers like The Man I Love, From This Moment On, New Fangled Tango and, of course, Stormy Weather."

Lena Horne was an American dancer, actress, singer, and she was also a civil rights activist. Her incredible career spanned over 70 years and in that time she appeared in film, television, and, of course theatre. In her very early days Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club, she was just 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.