Julie London's Bethlehem Recordings

Singer Julie London made literally dozens of LPs for the Liberty label, but before them she recorded four songs for Bethlehem.

London was a protégé (and later wife) of singer-songwriter-pianist Bobby Troup, who brought her to both labels and accompanied her with his quintet. Her success with Liberty was immediate - her version of "Cry Me a River" became famous for her hyper-cool vocals.

The Bethlehem sides have a similar approach - and appropriately "You're Blasé" is one of the selections. Also on the bill are "A Foggy Day," "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "Don't Worry 'Bout Me."

These recordings come from a March 2, 1955 session, per James Harrod's informative article, Bobby Troup on Record, 1948-55. The backing musicians were Troup's usual accomplices (Bob Enevoldsen, bass, Howard Roberts, guitar, and Don Heath, drums, augmented by the excellent Buddy Collette on flute. (Collette became one of the founding members of the Chico Hamilton Quartet at about the same time.)

Bethlehem issued the four London songs on singles, on the EP shown above, and on an LP called Bethlehem's Girl Friends, where she shared the grooves with Carmen McRae and Chris Connor. My transfers come from the LP. The songs also appeared on a variety of budget labels after the demise of Bethlehem. 

These recordings weren't a success in the market, but London's first Liberty disc, "Cry Me a River," was, very much so. Parenthetically, my two favorite recordings of "Cry Me a River" take opposite approaches - the cool disdain of Julie London, and the anger and disgust of Barbra Streisand's 1963 version - which led off her debut LP, which made her even more famous than London. This fine song was Arthur Hamilton's greatest hit; London's was the first recording.

This post is a companion to a survey of Troup's Bethlehem recordings, new on my main blog.

More Bobby Troup Obscurities

Blog follower lafong has come through with three more Bobby Troup rarities to add to the five I posted a few days ago.

These include two more songs on the Bullet label, from circa 1948, that composed the first Troup 78 to be released. Bobby couples the standard "Bye Bye Blackbird" with a love song to his dog "Heidi." Both are smoothly performed by the "Bob Troup Trio," with an unidentified guitarist and bassist.

An excellent article on the Jazz Research site speculates that the two accompanying musicians were Al Viola and Lloyd Pratt. They were working at the time with Page Cavanaugh, who shared management with Troup. Viola and Pratt joined Troup's backing combo a few years later.

The third song is a 1949 Count Basie release on the RCA Victor label called "Bran' New Dolly," another Troup composition. The very basic arrangement of this diverting song was by Don Redman.

The three items do come from relatively low bit-rate sources. This shouldn't affect enjoyment too much, although for the Bullet sides you may notice some background artifacts on headphones.

Thanks to lafong for this contribution!

 

Bobby Troup Obscurities

Here are five early singles from singer-pianist-songwriter Bobby Troup, including his first record - well, one side of it, anyway.

That first record came out on the small Bullet label in 1948, coupling the oldie "I Found a Million Dollar Baby" with Troup's own "Baby, Baby All the Time." I pulled the former song from Internet Archive, but the latter was nowhere to be found. Too bad - "Million Dollar Baby" is a fine performance.

Troup was 30 in 1948, but had achieved success as a songwriter even before he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania back in 1941. His tune "Daddy" (still one of his best known numbers) was made into a hit by Sammy Kaye. The following year, Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra did well with his "Snootie Little Cutie," but by that time Troup had enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Bobby Troup

Postwar, Nat Cole had a hit with perhaps Troup's best known song, "Route 66." Cole continued to record his work, including "Baby, Baby All the Time."

But Troup was a performer as well as a writer, so he made the occasional record with the bands of the time - Freddie Slack, Jerry Gray and Vic Schoen.

In 1949, Slack had him duet with Phil Gordon on Carl Sigman's "What Ever Happened to Ol' Jack" in a cringe-inducing jive manner similar to Johnny Mercer.

Jerry Gray had him in for two 1950 sessions that produced good performances of "The Lonesomest Whistle" and Summer Stock's "Dig-Dig-Dig Dig for Your Dinner," with smooth support from the Crew Chiefs. That group had been associated with Glenn Miller's AAF Band, and in fact many of the musicians who played on these Gray sessions were Miller vets. Decca had brought in Gray as its entry in the Miller-soundalike band sweepstakes, but Gray's resulting sides were generally not as Milleresque as the Ralph Flanagan's band of the same period.

Vic Schoen was best known as the bandleader for the Andrews Sisters. He had Troup take part in a late 1950 session to sing "Walking with the Weary Blues," a standard lament undermined by a stiff arrangement.

Throughout these five sides, Troup is in better voice that he was several years later, when he developed a tendency to croak, whether as a hip affectation or as a vocal necessity.

Still, I think he was one of the most interesting singers (and writers) of the postwar period. Years ago, I posted a few of his LPs on my other blog. I've now refurbished and augmented those transfers and have included them in a new post.