Pat Friday's Decca Recordings

In my earlier post on singer Pat Friday, I mentioned that I had been unable to locate her Decca recordings of 1940. My friend Bryan Cooper, an authority of music of the era, has come to the rescue with transfers from his collection, which I am very pleased to present here.

Along with the Enterprise 78s previously shared, these are the only commercial 78s that the singer recorded, although off-air dubs of some radio programs survive.

Decca matched Friday with stodgy staff conductor Harry Sosnik for one session on February 16, 1940, with four titles resulting.

The first single coupled "I've Got My Eyes on You" with the elaborately titled "Would'st Could I But Kiss Thy Hand, Oh Babe." Cole Porter wrote the former for Fred Astaire and Broadway Melody of 1940. The Porter song is taken too slowly and seriously. Astaire certainly couldn't have danced to this tempo.

Pat Friday

On "Would'st Could I," Sosnik livens things up a bit, and Friday copes well with the antique lingo. The tune was written and recorded by Will Osborne. No offense to Will - and I am no expert on archaic languages - but I wonder if "would'st could I" was ever appropriate grammar. If there are any 500-year-old people out there, would'st could thou enlighten us?

The second coupling was "You, You Darlin'" and "The Gaucho Serenade." The former song comes from a film titled Tear Gas Squad, which could not have been a musical. But it did star Dennis Morgan, who could sing after a fashion, and I assume he introduced the number, which was recorded quite a few times in the 1940s. Friday's reading is very effective.

"The Gaucho Serenade" was written for the film of the same name and its star, Gene Autry. Here the singer and conductor did not agree on the tempo. She seemed to think it too fast, and I agree with her.

Decca's sound is good, enhanced by Bryan's fine transfers. Many thanks to him for bringing these elusive records to light.

A Tribute to Pat Friday

Although she was virtually unknown, Pat Friday is my favorite among the vocalists who appeared with Glenn Miller during his abbreviated career - except she never actually "appeared" with him. Friday dubbed Lynn Bari's singing voice for both of Miller's films - Orchestra Wives and Sun Valley Serenade - resulting in superior versions of "I Know Why (and So Do You)," "At Last," "Serenade in Blue" and "It Happened in Sun Valley." But she never otherwise sang with Miller's band.

I got to know the soundtrack recordings from the album that appeared on 20th Century-Fox records in about 1960. Friday's vocal quality and command appealed to me then, and they still do now. I did a deep dive into the Sun Valley Serenade soundtrack recordings a few years ago on my other blog.

Capitol News, February 1945

Helen Patricia Freiday, born in Idaho in 1921, first came to notice as a vocalist on Bing Crosby's radio show, which led directly to the Miller dubbing assignments. She was a modest person, who seemingly did little to promote her great talent, but nonetheless became a regular on the Roy Rogers and Victor Borge radio programs, while making a few records for Decca and for the small Enterprise label. She also appeared on radio with Jack Webb, pre-Dragnet. Webb apparently adopted her surname for his Sgt. Friday character in Dragnet.

I haven't been able to locate the four Decca sides, but Internet Archive yielded needle drops of six songs made for Enterprise in about 1946. One of those records is her commercial recording of the Lecuona-Ruby song "Mi Vida," which she dubbed for Vera-Ellen in the film Carnival in Costa Rica. The version on the film soundtrack was among the 24 Lecuona recordings recently featured on my main blog.

Also in the Enterprise collection are fine recordings of the standards "Don't Blame Me" and "It Had to Be You," with backing by the veteran Bennie Kruger. The leader's sax obbligato is far too prominent in "Don't Blame Me." Krueger also provides the accompaniment for "Mi Vida" and its flip side, "Too Late for Conversation." For the latter song, Friday's singing voice is in a much higher key than usual. I have included a repitched version of the song, but it's just as unconvincing.

The other songs are "Pin Marin," a good novelty number which Friday handles with just the right amount of personality, and the effective torch song "Tonight I'm Alone." Here the backing is by the Song Spinners, an organ and accordion combo.

The UK Glenn Miller site has an illuminating interview with Friday, where she recounts her brief career. She seems to have left the music business behind in about 1950 for a career in finance. Little detail is provided, but it seems as though she and her husband did very well. She died in 2016.

Billboard ad, August 31, 1946

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