Astaire and Rogers in Songs from 'Carefree'

This post is a companion to a Fred Astaire extravaganza I've posted on my main blog, involving the three Chrysler Corporation LPs issued to promote Astaire's 1959-61 television specials sponsored by Chrysler.

For this piece, we will step back 20 years to the heyday of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and one of the terrific musicals they made together. Carefree, from 1938, was graced by the songs of Irving Berlin, and while it's not his best score, it does introduce one of the finest melodies ever written for Astaire - "Change Partners."

Fred's commercial recordings are well known to those with an interest in his career. Today's post gives me the opportunity to collect the four sides he made for Brunswick, adding a single that Ginger did for Victor. It also allows me to feature a picture label with Fred's smiling face floating just to the left of the spindle hole.

Astaire was a wonderful singer, and "Change Partners" is one of the best things he ever did. Rogers was not such a wonderful vocalist, and her versions of "I Used to Be Color Blind" and "The Yam" are strained. They are, of course, worth hearing, not least because of the very 30s arrangements played by Hal Borne's band. Ginger adopts a husky tone reminiscent of Libby Holman, yet with a touch of Mildred Bailey's phrasing.

Ray Noble

Astaire also does "Color Blind" and "The Yam," far more convincingly, and includes the verse to the first item. His accompanist is the distinguished English bandleader Ray Noble, whose troupe is, as always, immaculate. Noble was an actor as well - appearing with Astaire and Rogers in 1937's A Damsel in Distress. That film was based on a story by P. G. Wodehouse, and Noble made his screen persona here and elsewhere into a Bertie Wooster-type character. He was good at it, too, as you will hear in "The Yam Explained," where Fred attempts to give Ray a dancing lesson. Noble also was a songwriter, with credits for "Love Is the Sweetest Thing," "Goodnight, Sweetheart" and "The Very Thought of You," his signature song.

The download includes many lobby cards and stills from the film. The 78s were cleaned up from versions found on Internet Archive. The sound is excellent.