Gordon MacRae on Apollo

Most recently we have heard from vocalist (and future film star) Gordon MacRae in his early Musicraft recordings, dating from 1945. Today we examine two 78s he made for the Apollo label in 1947, just before he joined Capitol, where he did his best-known discs.

Apollo was only a few years old at the time, and was known primarily for gospel and R&B releases, although it also had a pop line. The catalogue featured a few releases by the young Dean Martin, made at about the same time as MacRae's efforts for the label. All this was shortly before Apollo was to sign its biggest star, Mahalia Jackson. 

MacRae's selections for the label were all songs that had achieved some popularity at the time, three on the charts and one on Broadway.

Gordon MacRae

His first coupling was "Heartaches" b/w "If I Had My Life to Live Over." The former, written by Al Hoffman and John Klenner, dated from 1931 but had been revived in 1947 as an instrumental by bandleader Ted Weems.

"If I Had My Life to Live Over" is another oldie, written by Moe Jaffe, Larry Vincent and Henry Tobias in 1939. Larry Vincent and the Feilden Foursome revived it in 1947 with some success. Vincent was the owner of the Pearl label, which primarily issued party records.

MacRae includes the verse on both the above songs.

"I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)" was a new song that Savannah Churchill wrote and recorded for Apollo. It was to hit number one on the R&B charts. MacRae's effort was presumably a cover for the pop market. (This is not the same song as "I Wanna Be Loved," a 1933 effort by Johnny Green and Eddie Heyman that may be more familiar.)

The backing for Savannah Churchill's composition was "Old Devil Moon," a great song by Burton Lane and Yip Harburg from the current Broadway hit Finian's Rainbow.

MacRae is in good voice and generally does well, although he seems uncomfortable with "I Want to Be Loved." The singer displays more of a Bing influence here than on the Musicraft sides, where he sounded more like Dick Haymes.

Leading the band on both records was tenor saxophonist Jerry Jerome, who had played with Glenn Miller, Red Norvo, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. The backings on the first two songs were lush in the manner of the time, including strings. The arrangements on the second coupling were less elaborate, with the chart for "I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)" an odd amalgam of R&B and Dixieland. Jerome was presumably the tenor soloist on that number.

Jerry Jerome had an usual physique