Cole Porter's 'Let's Face It!' - The Early Recordings

That's the young Danny Kaye riding in a Jeep on the Let's Face It! program cover above. He was the motive force behind Cole Porter's 1941 hit show following his breakout performance in Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark, which had its opening early that same year. Just nine months later Kaye's name appeared above the title on the Imperial Theater marquee for Let's Face It!

The exclamation point in the title was apparently optional

The book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields was basically a sitcom - three suspicious wives decide to bribe some soldiers at a nearby base to take up with them in a jealousy ploy. The soldiers' girlfriends find out. Complications (and Kaye specialties) ensue.

The cast was a starry one, at least in retrospect. The three wives were Eve Arden, Vivian Vance and Edith Meiser, two of whom became famous. (So did Arden's understudy, Carol Channing.) The soldiers' sweethearts were Nanette Fabray, Sunny O'Dea and Mary Jane Walsh, one of whom became famous (Fabray), and one of whom recorded several songs from the show (Walsh).

Edith Meiser, Vivian Vance and Eve Arden show Danny Kaye the big bucks 

As usual with the musicals of the time, there was no original cast album; however, Kaye did record three of its songs for Columbia, and Walsh did four for the Liberty Music Shop label. As far as I can tell, those four were exactly half of Walsh's total recorded output. Earlier, Columbia had engaged her for four songs from her other notable Broadway appearance, in Rodgers and Hart's Too Many Girls. That 1939 show is coming up in this series.

As was the practice back then, an original cast member's presence didn't mean they recorded the numbers they sang on stage. So for the first item in this collection, "Farming," we have recorded versions by Kaye, who did perform it on stage, and Walsh, who did not. The song was a sendup of the then-current fashion of the elite taking up the rural life, a topic that also inspired movies, an S.J. Perelman book, and latterly television's Green Acres.

Next in running order (at least here; this post covers only a minority of the show's score) is possibly the best known song in the show, "Ev'rything I Love." As the title might suggest, it's a tender song, and a good one. It was certainly the most popular with the record companies: Victor alone had four recordings of it - by Glenn Miller, Sammy Kaye, Dinah Shore and Tito Guizar. It has quite a lovely melody, and Liberty Music Shop broke the budget to bring in a chorus to support Walsh in her fine recording. In the show, Kaye and Walsh sang it in duet.

Mary Jane Walsh

Leading the orchestra in Walsh's recordings was Max Meth, who also conducted the theater performances. I don't know whether the stage orchestrations are used here, but I doubt it. In any case, the show's orchestrators were Hans Spialek, Don Walker and Ted Royal, a formidable trio.

I've added a second recording of "Ev'rything I Love" to the playlist because it includes the verse, which I hadn't heard before, and because the disc is by Buddy Clark, who makes frequent appearances around here.

Cole Porter

A contrast with the previous number is "Ace in the Hole," one of Porter's best and a song long beloved by cabaret performers. On stage, Mary Jane Walsh was joined by the other two girlfriends of the soldiers, but she does a solo on record. Her flinty performance of this cynical anthem is a great contrast to the romantic "Ev'rything I Love," as are Porter's clever lyrics:

     Maybe, as often it goes

     Your Abie may tire of his rose.

     So baby, this rule I propose:

     Always have an ace in the hole!

The next song, "You Irritate Me So," is the antithesis of Porter's famous "You're the Top." I've assigned it to the appropriately acerbic Nancy Walker, who recorded it in 1959. On the stage it was a duet between Nanette Fabray and Jack Williams. I imagine the song worked better with two singers flinging Porter's lyrics at one another, but Walker is pretty good, if you can handle Sid Bass' Space Age pop arrangement. When Let's Face It! opened, Walker was appearing a few blocks uptown in Best Foot Forward, her first Broadway role.

Kaye and Arden up the creek with a paddle

In the show, Danny Kaye and Eve Arden sang "Let's Not Talk About Love," but only Danny appears on the Columbia record. (Kaye and Arden had a long affair, according to Kaye biographer David Koenig, but I'm not sure when that transpired.) The song is a specialty both for Porter's clever, topical lyrics, and for Kaye, who indulges his trick of singing complex words as fast as possible. The song was an attempt to replicate his show-stopper "Tchaikowsky" in Lady in the Dark. It works fairly well.

At the time, r(h)umbas set the fashion in dance rhythms, so Porter produced one of his own - "A Little Rumba Numba." Marguerite Benton, who appeared in several Broadway musicals of the time, was the primary vocalist on stage, but did not record the piece. So I've included the contemporary disc by cabaret's Hildegarde, who handles this attractive and unfamiliar song very well. Harry Sosnik's band makes a brave attempt at the rhumba rhythms.

The final Mary Jane Walsh song is "I Hate You, Darling," which presents a typical Porter conceit - "I hate you, darling, and yet I love you so." In the show, she was joined by Kaye, Vivian Vance and James Todd, but she is solo here.

"Melody in 4F" still from Up in Arms

Perhaps surprisingly, the show included two Kaye specialty songs not written by Cole Porter. "A Fairy Tale" and "Melody in 4F" were contributed by Danny's wife Sylvia Fine working with Max Liebman. 

"Melody in 4F" is largely an auctioneer's rapid-fire spiel punctuated by words sketching the travails of the draftee - "Oh the mailman!", "Hiya, doc!" and so on, ending in "1A!" (that is, draft eligible). Much of the effect depended on Kaye's verbal acrobatics and his visual punctuations, so you may want to watch the version he did for the 1944 film Up in Arms (available here). The download includes what was probably a radio aircheck that seems to have been captured shortly after Kaye left the show, to be replaced by José Ferrer, a much different personality to be sure. Danny took Sylvia's songs with him when he decamped. The show closed a month later.

The Pierre Hotel

To complete the set, we have two instrumental medleys from William Scotty and His Cotillion Room Orchestra. The Cotillion Room is presumably the swank venue in the Pierre Hotel on Central Park East. I haven't been able to find any information on Scotty. The actual Cotillion Room bandleader at that time was probably the well-known Emil Coleman. I don't think the name on the label was a pseudonym for Coleman; as far as I can tell, that maestro did not have a recording contract at the time. It may have been the pianist or another member of the ensemble. 

The recorded selections are "Ev'rything I Love," "You Irritate Me So," "I Hate You, Darling," "Ace in the Hole" and "Farming." The polished performances are in the overripe society-band style that the Liberty Music Shop favored. (This is the musical mode that was parodied by the Glenn Miller band in "You Say the Sweetest Things, Baby," recently featured here in the Orchestra Wives recordings.)

Let's Face It! was made into a film in 1943, sans the exclamation point and most of Porter's songs. Danny Kaye became Bob Hope and Mary Jane Walsh turned into Betty Hutton, but Eve Arden remained Eve Arden. From the songs above, only "Farming" and "Let's Not Talk About Love" were retained, along with "Milk, Milk, Milk" and the title song. I don't believe that Hope or Hutton recorded anything from the score; the recording ban was still in effect for most of the year - all of it for a few of the big labels. 

Some of these same recordings were reissued by the Smithsonian in 1979, but the transfers in my set are not from that LP. The Mary Jane Walsh numbers come from my collection and most of the rest from Internet Archive. The sound from the 78s is generally quite good. 

The Smithsonian LP included detailed notes on the Let's Face It! production by Richard C. Norton, which I've included in the download. The package also includes a substantially complete souvenir program, which dates from relatively late in the show's run, after Carol Goodner had replaced Eve Arden. Finally, there are three articles from the New York Times - a story on the opening, Brooks Atkinson's rave review, and a follow-up on the production's history. The latter reads as if it was ghost-written by producer Vinton Freedley's publicist.

Let's Face It! may not be one of Porter's best known scores, but the songs are splendid - characteristic of the composer, varied and worth remembering. The performances by the leads are all you could desire.

This post is the result of a request by old friend David Federman, who wanted to hear some records by Mary Jane Walsh. More to come, David.

Kaye toasts the ensemble

Buddy Clark with Dick McDonough and Nat Brandwynne

It's been a while since I explored the recorded legacy of Buddy Clark (1912-49), the great pop singer of the 1930s and 40s. He died at the height of his career, and at least some of his later records are well known. But his earlier efforts, while he was a radio crooner and band singer for hire on many pop records, are less often heard.

Today's post covers 23 songs split between the contrasting bands of Dick McDonough and Nat Brandwynne - 10 with McDonough's jazz outfit and 13 with Brandwynne's orchestra from New York's swanky Stork Club. Twenty-one of these were made in 1936; the two remaining come from the following year. These comprise Buddy's complete recordings with the two bandleaders.

All songs show Clark's usual mix of good voice, diction, intonation and cheer. He's invariably a pleasure to hear.

With Dick McDonough

Dick McDonough

Dick McDonough was a short-lived (1904-38) jazz guitarist and bandleader, perhaps best known for his duets with fellow guitarist Carl Kress.

McDonough recorded fairly prolifically for the ARC labels (Perfect et al) in 1936 and 1937. These dates always included some of the finest jazz musicians of the day, even though most of the sessions were devoted to the latest pop compositions.

Bunny Berigan

All the numbers with Clark feature the lead trumpet of Bunny Berigan, who had recently left Benny Goodman's band and was recording both under his own name and as a session musician. The first four songs also include clarinetist Artie Shaw, who had become a recording bandleader himself just a few weeks before McDonough's June 23, 1936 session, and pianist Claude Thornhill, who himself would start making records as a leader in 1937.

Clark is not identified on the label of any of these 10 sides; I am again indebted to the discography of Nigel Burlinson for helping me to identify his appearances.

The first song in the June set was "Summer Holiday," with music by Johnny Marks ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer") and lyrics by Gene Conley (known for his work on "A Cottage for Sale," recently heard in a Willard Robison compilation). This charming song was recorded by many artists of the day.

Next came another current tune, "I'm Grateful to You," by the prolific songwriters J. Fred Coots (another Christmas maven - "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town") and Benny Davis.

McDonough reached back to 1921 for his next offering, the jazz standard "Dear Old Southland." Turner Layton was the composer - leaning heavily on the melody of "Deep River" - with lyrics by Henry Creamer.

From 1922 and the same writing and recording team came "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," which had been touted as "a Southern song, without a mammy, a mule or a moon." This number has a intricate McDonough solo, also a tenor saxophone break, probably by Larry Binyon, and a short clarinet contribution, likely from Artie Shaw. For this side particularly, Buddy adopted a New Orleans accent reminiscent of Connie Boswell. Not terribly convincing, but then he was born in Boston.

Adrian Rollini

Moving on to an August 4 date, the first number was "It Ain't Right" by Bob Rothberg and Joseph Meyer, a song associated with jazz violinist Stuff Smith. The McDonough version has a robust bass sax solo from Adrian Rollini.

McDonough then recorded a relatively new song (from 1931) but already on its way to becoming a standard - "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" from Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, first done by Cab Calloway. McDonough again solos on this one.

For his August 5 session, McDonough began with "When the Moon Hangs High (and the Prairie Skies Hang Low)" from bandleader Ted Fio Rito, whose best known song is "I'll String Along with You." Buddy promises his beloved that "down that old, old trail we'll go" and "we can harmonize with the songs of the West."

"Midnight Blue" was much more suited to McDonough's style, particularly to forthright trumpeter Bunny Berigan. The song was advertised as "the hit song of the New Ziegfeld Follies of 1936." The 1936 Follies had a score by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin, and starred Fanny Brice. The show went on hiatus during the summer and when it returned had additional numbers by other hands, including Joe Burke and Edgar Leslie's "Midnight Blue," which was introduced by James Farrell and Jane Pickens.

It's interesting to note the amazing talents employed by the 1936 Follies. The show was choreographed by Robert Alton with ballets directed by George Balanchine. Scenic design and costumes were by Vincente Minnelli, with additional costumes by Raoul Pène Du Bois. The orchestrations were by Robert Russell Bennett, Conrad Salinger, Hans Spialek and Don Walker. The cast included Brice, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker, Judy Canova, Gertrude Niesen and the Nicholas Brothers.

We move from the prairies and the Follies to the Pacific for "South Sea Island Magic" by Lysle Tomerlin and Andy Iona Long, best known for leading the the Hawaiian group Andy Iona and His Islanders. This piece was also recorded by Bing, who would do a Hawaiian-themed movie, Waikiki Wedding, the next year. (Songs from that film are here.)

To close out the McDonough set, we have the first of three songs from pianist-songwriter-personality Oscar Levant. "Afterglow" is one of his better efforts, done in collaboration with Al Stillman and Buck Ram. Buddy's reading is straightforward, but he does well by this worthy tune.

With Nat Brandwynne

Nat Brandwynne was a very young (25) bandleader when he made these recordings with Clark, although he had notable experience with Leo Reisman's orchestra, as part of a duo-piano team with Eddy Duchin that started a fashion for such setups. Brandwynne went on to several decades of success, primarily in Las Vegas, where he was making albums as late as the 1970s backing Diana Ross.

Nat Brandwynne

Clark's first four songs in this set date from April 1936. "It's You I'm Talkin About" is a peppy number from Florida Special, a B comedy with Jack Oakie taking a train trip. The tune comes from the noted Hollywood writers Mack Gordon and Harry Revel.

For his next number Buddy tells us "There's Always a Happy Ending" in every talking picture he sees. It's a likeable Siglar-Goodheart-Hoffman number also recorded by Rudy Vallee and by Chick Bullock with Jack Shilkret.

"Lazy Weather" is one of the many paeans to indolence of the time, perhaps designed to comfort the unemployed. This one was a product of Irving Kahal and Oscar Levant. Buddy's competition in the market was the young Perry Como in his first recording session with Ted Weems' band.

I wouldn't call "The Glory of Love" a standard, but it has been a hit more than once, first in Benny Goodman's recording with a Helen Ward vocal. The writer was Billy Hill, who otherwise specialized in buckaroo numbers like "The Last Round-Up," "Wagon Wheels" and "Empty Saddles."

Moving on to a May session, Clark and Brandwynne were the first to record "Take My Heart," a good song from Fred Ahlert and Joe Young. The bandleader's moaning saxophones are to the fore on this one, along with his ringing piano and Buddy's heartfelt singing.

"Long Ago and Far Away" is a Leo Robin-Ralph Rainger number from 1936's Three Cheers for Love. It predates the better known "Long Ago (and Far Away)" by Kern and Gershwin, which came from the 1944 film Cover Girl. Also from the 1936 film is "Where Is My Heart," not to be confused with "Where Is Your Heart," the song from 1952's Moulin Rouge and one of the big hits of that year. The Robin-Rainger tunes didn't do as well as their later namesakes, but are enjoyable to hear even so.

A July 1936 set of four songs begins with "Until Today," the final Oscar Levant song of this post, written with J. Fred Coots and Benny Davis. It was a new composition, recorded at the same time by Vincent Lopez, Ted Weems-Perry Como and others, I'm sure.

"Without a Shadow of a Doubt" is one of the best songs in the collection, even though I haven't been able to uncover much about its provenance. The writers are George Whiting, Nat Schwartz (aka Nat Burton) and J. C. Johnson.

Another fine song is "If We Never Meet Again," which Louis Armstrong wrote with Horace Gerlach, and recorded himself in 1936. Armstrong got the royalties, but Dick Stabile ended up with his photo on the sheet music.

Walter Hirsch and Lou Handman wrote "Bye Bye Baby" (not the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes song - or the Four Seasons epic for that matter). It's a bouncy piece that Clark handles well - although you should hear what Fats Waller and a kazoo make of it.

The 1936 sessions with Brandwynne were Brunswick productions, but the team moved on to Perfect for the final two songs in this collection, dating from March 1937. Unlike the Brunswick sides, Clark is unidentified on the labels for this coupling. "To a Sweet Pretty Thing" was a product of Fred Ahlert and Joe Young - not one of their best known songs, but a nice way to spend a few minutes.

The last item is "I Dream of San Marino," an idyll of lost love in an exotic location - one of seemingly dozens of such songs covering everyplace but Newark - this one neither better nor worse the mean.

These records were all remastered in ambient stereo from Internet Archive originals. The sound is good for the time, clearly displaying the contrasting styles of the bandleaders and Buddy's stylish vocals. 

'I Married an Angel' - The Early Recordings

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart formed a wildly productive partnership - from 1925 to 1940, they opened a show on Broadway in every year except 1934, and usually more than one. One fertile period was 1936-38, when their productions were On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, I'd Rather Be Right, The Boys from Syracuse and I Married an Angel.

Not long ago, I explored the early recordings from Babes in Arms. The subject of today's post is a lesser hit, but still a popular show: I Married an Angel, which ran from May 11, 1938 to February 25, 1939. Its score is not as bountiful as Babes in Arms, but it has its moments, and there were interesting recordings from the time, which I've gathered for this post.

Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers

The contrived but amusing plot is from a play by the Hungarian writer János Vaszary. It involves the complications that ensue when banker Count Willy Palaffi (Dennis King) marries an angel (Vera Zorina), whose unvarnished honesty becomes a business and social problem for him.

The production involved some of the finest talents of the 20th century theatre - director Joshua Logan, choreographer George Balanchine (Zorina's husband at the time) and scenic designer Jo Mielziner, with Rodgers and Hart writing the book as well as the music.

One reason why the score is less impressive than Babes in Arms among other Rodgers and Hart shows is that the pivotal character, played by Zorina, was a dancer, not a singer. Even so, most of the 10 original songs in the score merited a recording, and a few can still be heard today.

Vera Zorina and ensemble

Let's examine the score, in running order.

Wynn Murray

The first song is Count Palaffi's "Did You Ever Get Stung?" which is nor heard today outside of a few cabarets. No member of the cast recorded it, but Rodgers and Hart veteran Wynn Murray did do so. (She had appeared in both Babes in Arms and The Boys from Syracuse.) Her accompaniment is by the Walter-Bowers Orchestra - cabaret legend Cy Walter and duo-piano partner Gil Bowers. Murray and the band are lyrical at first, then "get hot," in the musical fashion of the time.

Palaffi's "I Married an Angel" was not recorded by a Broadway cast member either, but it did merit a disc from Nelson Eddy, who played the Count in the 1942 film version. That production kept the main songs from the stage score, but added much more music, primarily by operetta veteran Herbert Stothart. He was well suited to providing songs for Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, in their last film together.

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

For this number, Eddy's singing was tuneful, but not especially colorful or flexible. For contrast, I've added a contemporary recording by the more relaxed Buddy Clark. Unlike the latter, Eddy includes the verse - a plus for his version. I believe this song still gets an occasional performance today - I was familiar with it, anyway.

Eddy returns for "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," a beautiful song with a tricky melody that he tosses off effortlessly. He again scores points by performing the verse, which adds greatly to the song. 

I could not resist adding a much different interpretation to the end of the playlist, even though it is from 25 years after the musical's run on Broadway. This is the remarkable version of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" from Barbra Streisand's debut LP. (No verse, though!)

Audrey Christie and Charles Walters

We now come to the only member of the original cast to merit a recording (actually, two). The fortunate artist is Audrey Christie, then a singer and dancer, later a film actor. Her first number is "How to Win Friends and Influence People," a title pinched from the 1936 best seller by Dale Carnegie. 

Christie isn't a great singer, but she does exude energy, essential for this lively number. In the show, he sang the piece with Charles Walters. On record, she is backed by Walter, Bowers and ensemble, again for the Liberty Music Shop label. 

The enduring hit from the show is the eloquent "Spring Is Here." Despite its quality and staying power, no one from the cast recorded it, to my knowledge. So I have again turned to Buddy Clark for a contemporary recording. To it, I've added an unexpectedly terrific version from cabaret singer Eve Symington, issued by the invaluable Liberty Music Shop. Cy Walter leads the band without Gil Bowers, who must have missed his train. Symington includes the verse; Clark does not.

Eve Symington

A parenthetical note about the unfamiliar (to me) Symington: born Eve Wadsworth, she married businessman Stuart Symington in the 1920s, and embarked on a career as a singer. On this evidence, she was quite a good one, but her career was short. It was at about this time that she and her husband moved to St. Louis, where he became the head of Emerson Electric. He later became a well-known US Senator - as Eve Symington's father had been. I've posted three of her other recordings on my singles blog.  

Wynn Murray returns for the clumsily risqué "A Twinkle in Your Eye," not one of the best songs from Rodgers and especially Hart. Murray, Walter and Bowers do their best.

The Roxy

Audrey Christie then performs her second song from the score, "At the Roxy Music Hall." The Roxy was a 6,000-seat behemoth of a movie theater on W. 50th Street. I had no recollection of the place until reader hkitt42 reminded me that it's referenced in the title song of Guys and Dolls. Oh, yeah - "What's playing at the Roxy?"! In this earlier number, Christie assures us, "Oh come with me, you won't believe a thing you see!" and "Don't be shy if a naked statue meets your eye!" among other marvels. It's a fun piece and Christie is the right person to sing it, but the song is now recherché considering that the Roxy has been dust since 1960.

Cy Walter and Gil Bowers

The playlist is completed - save for the Streisand reprise of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" - by a two-sided medley from Walter and Bowers and their pianos. It includes "Spring Is Here," "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," "I Married an Angel" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

The download includes a restored version of the souvenir program along with production stills, a few Jo Mielziner scenery sketches, and two reviews from Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times. The program and stills are cleaned up from originals on the New York Public Library site, and the resolution is not as fine as one might desire. Most of the recordings were cleaned up from Internet Archive transfers. The Liberty Music Shop items were not well recorded; I've done my best to help them out.

Carol Bruce Special - Music from Film, Transcription and Radio

Over time, we have been examining the recordings of actor-vocalist Carol Bruce, from her debut on the Broadway stage to her solo recordings of the 50s. I've had the help of vocal connoisseur Bryan Cooper for this series - including today's three-part epic. 

For this post, we'll hear from Carol in songs from her second film musical, on the radio with Buddy Clark just after her great success as Julie in the 1946 revival of Show Boat, and on an Army-sponsored transcription from 1950.

Behind the Eight Ball

Bruce was one of the leads of 1942's Behind the Eight Ball, in quick succession to Keep 'Em Flying of 1941, meaning she went from the Scylla of Abbott and Costello to the Charybdis of the Ritz Brothers. Here's the IMDb precis of Eight Ball:

"The shooting and murder of two guest stars at the Shady Ridge Summer Theatre, operated by Joan Barry [that's Carol], threatens to close the musical 'Fun For All.' To bolster the show, Joan induces Bill Edwards [Dick Foran], who shares joint ownership with her, of the farm the theatre is located on, and Sheriff McKenzie, to hire the Jolly Jesters [aka Ritz Brothers]. They steal the show and, along the way, uncover a spy ring and a bullet-shooting clarinet." Actually, it sounds engagingly goofy.

Carol Bruce and Dick Foran

Besides Carol, Foran and the Ritzes, the movie featured trumpeter Sonny Dunham and his band in their only feature appearance. Dunham was an even-more blaring version of Harry James.

Thanks to Bryan's stellar collection - and his willingness to share its treasures - we already have had on the blog Bruce's studio promos from Keep 'Em Flying. In that set, Universal managed to issue a recording of the Gene de Paul - Don Raye masterwork "You Don't Know What Love Is," even though it was dropped from that film. The great song did then show up in this Ritz Brothers epic.

In today's post, Bryan has uncovered Carol's other recordings from the Eight Ball soundtrack, where she is accompanied by Dunham's band. These come from a rare Universal glass transcription disc (at right) that Bryan recently acquired.

The first of the two songs is "Golden Wedding Day," which had been a 1941 hit in a much different instrumental version by Woody Herman, with drum solo by Frankie Carlson. The song is thought to date back to 1887, when Jean Gabriel-Marie composed it as "La Cinquantaine." I suspect the clever English lyrics - which Bruce handles beautifully - are by Don Raye.

"Golden Wedding Day" leads directly into the Raye-De Paul "Wasn't It Wonderful?" which is very accomplished except for its strong resemblance to a famous movie duet of a few years before. It was as if the producer showed up at the door and instructed the songwriters, "Hey, give me something just like 'Thanks for the Memory'." Carol's fresh reading is perfect.

A 1947 Melody Hour with Buddy Clark

Our next rarity is a April 1947 Melody Hour radio program where Carol guested with the great Buddy Clark and bandleader Percy Faith.

Carol had just completed a year on Broadway as Julie in the highly successful revival of Show Boat. This show, appropriately, gives her the opportunity to perform one of her Show Boat specialties, the famous "Bill," and she is all that one could want in the song (and, I am sure, in the part).

Carol Bruce with Buddy Ebsen and Max Showalter in Show Boat

She also is given the chance to do a number then on the pop charts, the awful "Managua, Nicaragua," which should have been left to Freddy Martin and Guy Lombardo.

Al Gallodoro

For his part, Clark is his sunny and polished self in "I've Got a Pocketful of Dreams," "Old Devil Moon" (from the current Broadway hit Finian's Rainbow) and "There's a Small Hotel." Faith leads a few instrumental numbers, including the concluding showpiece for alto saxophone, Jimmy Dorsey's "Oodles of Noodles," with the remarkable virtuoso Al Gallodoro.

The sound on the broadcast is quite good, but the lossless Internet Archive transfer of the transcription did have several skips, which do not affect Bruce's numbers.

Songs by Carol Bruce (Voice of the Army Transcription)

The third part of our set comes from my own collection. It's one of a series of 16-inch transcription discs sent to radio stations by the U.S. Army to promote recruitment. This entry in the "Voice of the Army" series comes from early 1950, and gives Bruce a chance to perform her other feature from Show Boat - "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man."

The musical backing is by Johnny Guarnieri, who made his name a decade before with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and here is leading his own quintet. Its members probably included George Walter (trumpet), Charles Di Maggio (clarinet, sax), Leo Guarnieri (bass) and Frank Garisto (drums), who recorded with Johnny at about the same time.

Johnny Guarnieri

Guarnieri's many-noted style would not seem ideally suited to Bruce and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," but they work together smoothly. Johnny's also good in his own numbers, including the peppy "Toot-Toot-Tootsie" and "El Relicario."

Carol's concluding numbers are "Somebody Loves Me" and "It Had to Be You," which show off her versality and which she handles beautifully. Both songs date from 1924, and Bruce's vocal shadings are appropriate to that era.

The sound from this transcription - a product of my new turntable - is very good indeed. The radio station KWIK - then in Burbank CA - apparently didn't care for the program, with the program director scrawling "NG" across the label in grease pencil. The station must have preferred the Peter Lind Hayes program on the other side (which I've not transferred).

Thanks again to Bryan for his contributions to this enterprise!

Carol Bruce appearing on an early television program performing one of her numbers from Show Boat

  

The Young Buddy Clark, Plus a Glenn Miller Bonanza

Today we take a deep dive into the early recordings of Buddy Clark, a favored singer around these parts, and an even deeper dive into the Glenn Miller catalogue, the latter courtesy of our friend David Federman. 

For Clark, we have his complete 1934-36 output with the Lud Gluskin orchestra - 25 songs in all. The Miller trove includes both volumes of the his "Limited Editions" - 1950s sets of commercial recordings and airchecks that haven't been reissued in that form.

Buddy Clark with Lud Gluskin (1934-36)

Buddy Clark

Buddy Clark was just 23 when he first entered the recording studio in 1934. Although his mature manner was not fully in evidence at that point, it was only a matter of months before he was sounding very much like the Buddy of his 1940s hits.

Clark was a singer for hire in those days, and appeared with several bandleaders on their records during this early period - Freddy Martin, Eddy Duchin, Xavier Cugat, Joe Moss, Ruby Newman, Nat Brandwynne and Archie Bleyer. He even made a few records under his own name for Melotone. But most of his sessions were with Lud (Ludwig) Gluskin, one-time partner with Jimmy Durante, and then a Paul Whiteman drummer who decided to remain behind in Paris following a European tour. Gluskin became a popular and much recorded bandleader there, until returning to the states circa 1934.

Gluskin called the American ensemble his "Continental Orchestra," presumably a nod to his European popularity. I haven't been able to discover who was in the band - or even if it had a existence outside the studio, but I will say that the musicians are experts and the arrangements are pleasingly elaborate in the mid-30s style - bouncy two-beat, chalumeau-register clarinet, fruity saxes, rat-a-tat or tightly-muted trumpets, strings, harp and ringing piano figures. Also as was the practice back then, the singer is limited to a chorus or two in the middle of the arrangement.

Blue shellac, blue label

At first, Gluskin and Clark recorded for Columbia, back in its blue shellac and blue label days. Their initial date was in October 1934, when they took up two songs from a Broadway revue called Continental Varieties. On the stage, Lucienne Boyer sang both "Speak to Me with Your Eyes" and the very popular "Hands Across the Table" in French. As he often did throughout his career, Mitchell Parish was on hand to provide English lyrics, in this case for the Jean Delettre music. Those are the versions that Clark sang.

At this early stage, Buddy had adopted some of the more dramatic mannerisms of his contemporary Bing Crosby. He soon was to moderate them (as did Crosby), but there is no doubt who was his inspiration.

Lud Gluskin

Buddy's next assignment, in November, was the title song of the film Sweet Music, where it was introduced by Rudy Vallée. Harry Warren and Al Dubin were the authors.

Calling All Stars, from whence came an ode to Gigolo Joe ("Just Mention Joe") was a short-lived Broadway revue produced by Lew Brown, with a cast that included Gertrude Niesen, who I believe introduced this song. As they often were, Gluskin and Clark were surprisingly persuasive in this Latin number. Indeed on that same November date, they recorded an early Raymond Scott number called "Tia Juana." The backing of that song was another Jean Delettre-Mitchell Parish outing, "Dancing with My Darling."

By January 1935, Clark was fully recognizable as the singer who was to become popular in the 1940s. The first recording on the January date was one of Oscar Levant's tunes, "Pardon My Love," with words by Milton Drake. But the prize of the session - and one of my favorites from this collection - was "It's You I Adore," by William Livingston and J. Russell Robinson, who also wrote "Margie," "Singing the Blues" and "A Portrait of Jennie."

Clark and Gluskin moved right back into the Latin repertoire with "The Rhythm of the Rumba," bringing along Joe Host as a faux-Cuban for the occasion. "Host" was actually Joe Hostetter, ex-Glen Gray trumpeter. "Rhythm of the Rumba" and its disc mate, "The Magic of You," were written by Ralph Rainger for the film Rumba, starring George Raft. I suspect you can see Raft, who was a dancer, do the r[h]umba in that film.

That January session closed out Gluskin's contract with Columbia. He and Clark were on to Brunswick for new recordings starting in September 1935.

The first song they set down was "Rhythm and Romance" by George Whiting, "Nat Schwartz" (Nat Burton) and J. C. Johnson, which also was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald. Its backing was the far more famous "Red Sails in the Sunset," with music by "Hugh Williams" (Wilhelm Grosz) and lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy, which emanated from Broadway's Provincetown Follies. Bing had the bigger hit version, but Buddy's was a good one.

The next coupling came from the 1935 musical, Here's to Romance, which starred operatic tenor Nino Martini, for a short time also a crossover star in films. First was the title song, backed with "Midnight in Paris."

Better remembered than either of those tunes was "Moon Over Miami" by Joe Burke and Edgar Leslie. These days it is mostly known for being used in the 1941 film of the same name, but it was written in 1935, and recorded by Gluskin in December. Buddy's reading is very fine. The flip side did not have a Clark vocal, unusually.

On the same date, Clark and Gluskin set down two songs from the film King of Burlesque, introduced by two very different singers - "I've Got My Fingers Crossed" by Fats Waller and the wonderful "I'm Shooting High" by the equally wonderful Alice Faye. These Ted Koehler-Jimmy McHugh songs are well suited to Clark's optimistic style.

We move on to an April 1936 session that included four songs, three of them English. "She Shall Have Music" and "My First Thrill" came from the Jack Hylton film She Shall Have Music. The writers were Maurice Sigler, Al Goodhart and Al Hoffman.

Another bandleader who became famous in England (although he was actually American) was Carroll Gibbons. His contribution to this set is "On the Air," written with James Campbell and Reginald Connelly. The lyrics are best suited to broadcast use, but the song is pleasantly melodious and perhaps appropriate for the performers - Clark was often on radio and Gluskin would soon became CBS music director. The B-side is "Sunshine at Midnight" by the eminent lyricist Edward Heyman and the talented bandleader Matty Malneck.

Clark's final session with Gluskin was in November 1936. "Rainbow on the River" comes from the film of the same name, with songs by Paul Francis Webster and Louis Alter, whose work has appeared here before. The song was written for the 10-year-old Bobby Breen, who had a brief vogue. It was backed by "You're Too Good to Be True" by Bud Green and Jesse Grier.

For their final recording, Clark and Gluskin again turned to the English film industry, plucking two songs from Head Over Heels, both introduced by Jessie Matthews - "Head Over Heels in Love" and "May I Have the Next Romance with You?" The songwriters were Americans Mack Gordon and Harry Revel (the latter was born in England).

The sound from these 78s is generally exceptionally vivid, showing both Clark and Gluskin's band to good effect. The source materials are from Internet Archive, cleaned up (at times laboriously) by me.

Special thanks to friend of the blog and discographer Nigel Burlinson, whose Buddy Clark discography was invaluable in researching and dating these recordings. The discography is enclosed in the download; the Gluskin recordings are in red.

Glenn Miller - The Limited Editions

Our great friend David Federman has finished a very worthy project - reassembling the two Glenn Miller "Limited Editions" that came out in 1953 and 1954, which have never been reissued in their original form.

The Limited Editions were both five-LP sets covering 1939-42: the first included commercial recordings and broadcasts; the second was entirely airchecks. They show the Miller band at its commercial zenith, before World War II intervened, and eventually ended Miller's life in 1944. All your favorite performers are on hand: Ray Eberle, Marion Hutton, the Modernaires and Tex Beneke. 

David justifiably calls it "a Glenn Miller treasure trove." He writes, "Miller was the first hero of my musical life after I saw the 1954 biopic of his life. I was 12 and Miller was like a Damascus Road." Strangely, I had the same reaction to the bandleader at about the same age, but the occasion was the release of his two movie soundtracks.

One note - for Vol. 1, if the performance date is preceded by a "B", it is taken from a broadcast; if "R," it is a studio recording. 

"This offering is both a labor and a gift of love," David tells us. His work is much appreciated. Links are in the comments.

Buddy Clark at Christmas

My friend Ernie and a few other kind folks let me know that the Internet Archive uploaded quite a few Carnation Contented Hour radio shows with Buddy Clark, one of my favorite singers. Among the shows was a Christmas program dating from December 20, 1948. It was the final Christmas of Clark's life: he was to die in a plane crash the following October, at the peak of his popularity.

Today's post combines a cleaned-up version of the Carnation show with bonuses of a Clark Christmas single and a duet with Doris Day, both from shellac.

The Carnation Contented Hour

Carnation has made condensed milk products for well over 100 years, and sponsored the Carnation Contented Hour on network radio from 1931-51. The hour was "contented" because Carnation's milk came "from contented cows," whose emotional health apparently was rigorously monitored. Also, Carnation optimistically called baby-feeding time "the contented hour."

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Carnation's ads generally plugged the radio show, at least in the fine print. This was common back when advertisers sponsored complete shows. Another Carnation ad below is themed to Christmas, and depicts cute kids who were as interested, improbably, in Carnation's gelatinous "Christmas Tree Salad" as they were in the gifts under the spruce. "Jiminy Christmas!" they exclaim. "Presents ... and Santa Claus ... and exciting things to eat!"

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Ken Darby

For the radio show at hand, Clark was assisted by the Ken Darby Singers and the Ted Dale Orchestra. Darby even then was a well-known vocal arranger. His singers had backed Bing Crosby on the original 1942 "White Christmas" single and the 1947 remake. Darby was to go on to win three Academy Awards for his arrangements.

The program mixes holiday fare with other items. Clark sings "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night" and "White Christmas." Darby and singers perform the tiresome "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Dale's crew presents "Winter Wonderland" and "London Bridge." I don't believe the latter is the Eric Coates composition with the same name, but I could be wrong. In any case, the arrangement shows off quite a Coates influence.

NBC's caricature of Clark didn't look a thing like him

In addition to the Christmas numbers, Clark performs "My Darling, My Darling," a song from Frank Loesser's current Broadway show Where's Charley? Buddy's duet with Doris Day was then on the market. (Their Columbia 78 is one of the bonus items mentioned below/)

The sound on the show is quite good, after some finagling, except for rustle during the first few minutes.

Bonus Singles

Clark recorded only two Christmas songs for commercial distribution: a coupling of "Winter Wonderland" and the "Merry Christmas Waltz," both done for Columbia in June 1949 with Ted Dale's band. I posted this single way back when, but I've included a new version in the download.

As mentioned above, I've also included Buddy's commercial recording of "My Darling, My Darling," to go with the radio performance.

The download also includes a Radio Album article about Clark's family finding a new home on the West Coast. Production of the Carnation Contented Hour had moved from New York to Los Angeles before the 1948 season.