The Vocal Side of Leroy Anderson

Although Leroy Anderson is renowned as a composer of light orchestral music, seven of his compositions were given lyrics by Mitchell Parish - and one has become a holiday standard.

That standard is, of course, "Sleigh Ride," recently heard on this blog in the excellent version by Johnny Desmond. This post covers the rest of the Anderson-Parish vocal arrangements, save for "Belle of the Ball," which as far as I can tell has never been recorded. (Correction: my knowledge was incomplete. Reader JAC tells me that William Dazeley and Kim Criswell recorded it for the Anderson collection conducted by Leonard Slatkin for Naxos.)

I should mention in passing that Anderson also wrote music for the 1958-59 musical Goldilocks, with lyrics by Walter and Jean Kerr and Joan Ford, but those songs aren't covered here.

Eileen Barton

The first three recordings in this post come from 1951, one of the composer's most fruitful years. First we have "The Syncopated Clock," in a charming account by Eileen Barton, with the band directed by the estimable Neal Hefti, still in his 20s and writing charts for Count Basie.

Barton was recording for the small National label at the time. "The Syncopated Clock" was one of that company's last releases before folding. Eileen had enjoyed a number-one record the year before with "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake," originally on National and then picked up by the larger Mercury label. Barton moved on to Coral after National closed. You can hear a bit of her on that label here.

Mary Mayo never had a big hit, but she was well-known as a studio singer. Her Capitol version of "Serenata" makes use only of the gorgeous B section of Anderson's composition. Mary was one of several vocalists who specialized in ethereal vocalise, popular at the time, which she employs in the second chorus of "Serenata." (Others known for this technique were Loulie Jean Norman and Sally Sweetland, the latter of whom will be the subject of a main blog post in the near future.) The conductor of "Serenata" is Mayo's husband, Al Ham.

Mary Mayo and Florian ZaBach

Florian ZaBach was best known as a violinist, but on his record of "The Waltzing Cat" he introduces the song by singing at least the first part of Parish's lyrics, shakily but effectively. His fiddle and the band then indulge in the "meows" that populate the song. ZaBach had done well with another novelty, Paul Nero's "The Hot Canary," so varying the species made good sense.

Vico Torriani

Swiss singer-actor Vico Torriani presumably makes some use of Parish's lyrics in his c1952 recording of "Blue Tango" (a huge instrumental hit for Anderson), but I can't be sure because he sings in German. It's a good record; Torriani was popular for a long time.

A vocal version of Anderson's "Forgotten Dreams" unexpectedly turned up on Ed Ames' 1965 LP, My Kind of Songs. Ames' impassioned singing is just right for this lovely song. Marty Manning's arrangement features the plink-plunk piano accompaniment that was popular at the time, a cliché that has not aged well.

Ed's singing does redeem the record, though, and shows just how well Leroy Anderson's compositions work with vocals - as do all these selections.

This post is a companion to a two-part series on my main blog devoted to all of Anderson's 1950-54 recordings. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is forthcoming.

LINK to singles

Desmond, Dale and Cornell Promote Their Wares

Alan Dale, Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond

Coral Records had three fine crooners on the rolls in 1953, and so decided to merge their talents and hopefully their audiences by having them record the 1926 Ben Ryan chestnut, "(The Gang that Sang) Heart of My Heart." Probably responding to the publisher's stimulus, Decca (which owned Coral) had the Four Aces do the same, and the two versions battled it out on the airways and record charts. Jack Pleis provided the orchestral backing on both records.

The three Coral artists were Alan Dale, Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond, who despite the Anglo names were all of Italian descent, being baptized Aldo Sigismondi, Luigi Francisco Varlaro and Giovanni Alfredo De Simone.

Coral decided it had to do something different to promote the record to disc jockeys, so it prepared two promotional tracks, one by the trio and one by labelmate Eileen Barton that DJs could program to intro the cut. The trio's cut is amusing, but Barton sounds ill at ease.

These promos were on one side of the 78; the other was devoted to touting the flip side of the commercial 78, "I Think I'll Fall in Love Today," an good new song by the duo of Robert Allen and Al Stillman.

The "I Think I'll Fall in Love Today" promo was a complicated bit in which the DJs were to engage in rhythmic colloquy with the trio. The promo record went so far as to have Eileen Barton provide an example of how this was to be done. Honestly, I wonder if anyone actually used this contrived bit.

Eileen Barton

The combination of two or more top artists on one record was becoming more common in 1953 and 1954, although the phenomenon was not new. Typically it involved female-male combinations such as Jo Stafford with Frankie Laine or Gordon MacRae, or Margaret Whiting with MacRae or Jimmy Wakely. Same-sex couplings were less common, although there were pairings of Lisa Kirk with Fran Warren, and Rosemary Clooney with Marlene Dietrich, among others.

A June 1954 Billboard article (in the download) notes the phenomenon, mentioning Dale-Cornell-Desmond along with Dale-Desmond-Buddy Greco, and a quartet encompassing Jane Russell, Della Russell, Connie Haines and Beryl Davis. The latter contingent had some sticking power. Jane, Connie and Beryl recorded a gospel LP for Capitol in 1957 called The Magic of Believing. The following year Coral issued a record called Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord by the four of them, with Rhonda Fleming replacing Della Russell on some songs. The Coral LP was largely a repackaging of earlier single releases.

The download includes both the promo record and the commercial release of the Dale-Cornell-Desmond materials.