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.