Mary Healy Sings "Star Dust"

Mary Healy

My friend Bryan Cooper has come up with another rare gem for us - the soundtrack recording of Mary Healy singing "Star Dust," from the 1940 film of the same name. This makes a wonderful addendum to his previous contribution of the commercial recordings that Healy made from 1938-40 together with soundtrack recordings from Second Fiddle. You can find those records on my other blog.

Healy played a singer in Star Dust, which starred John Payne and Linda Darnell. The title song is her big number in the film, and Bryan has transferred it from a studio disc. The sound is excellent.

The song "Star Dust" dates from 1927. Composer Hoagy Carmichael wrote it and recorded it as an instrumental. Mitchell Parish added words in 1929, but Wikipedia tells us the song didn't really become popular until a few years later via a ballad instrumental from bandleader Isham Jones. I've included both the original Carmichael record and the Isham Jones version as bonuses in the download.

For those who worry about such things, the song was originally called "Star Dust" but Carmichael's Gennett record labelled it "Stardust" and over time the compound name has become the more frequently used. I am calling it "Star Dust" here because the film's name is Star Dust, and because the sheet music, Carmichael and Jones spelled it that way.

The Carmichael record comes from YouTube and the 78prof. The sound is OK, but the combination of a low-bit rate and noise reduction has led to some digital hash in the sonic background. The Jones disc was remastered from a lossless needle drop on Internal Archive.

Thanks again to Bryan for his continuing contributions!