To the Moon with Raymond Scott

A moon landing was 20 years off when this children's record was recorded in 1949, but space travel was already in the public consciousness and had been for some time. So it was no real novelty for the fledgling Young People's Records to concoct the idea of a disc telling the tale of a trip to the moon, and contracting composer-arranger Raymond Scott to score the proceedings.

It's a curiously casual trip - not with the astronauts we are accustomed to, but a gaggle of space tourists, who seemingly had chosen the voyage in preference to, say, a bus trip to Detroit. They seem shocked by the hub-bub when they return - "What's all the cheering about?"

Raymond Scott was a perfect choice for composer - his off-center approach to arrangement seems just right for this retro-futuristic fantasy. You will hear echoes of the compositions that even then were beginning to be used as cartoon backings - "Powerhouse," "The Toy Trumpet" and the like.

The stentorian announcer is Ralph Camargo, a radio actor and voice-over artist. The Gene Lowell Chorus sings and its members presumably interject the few spoken remarks needed. At one point, a fellow wants the captain to turn the rocket around because he forgot his wallet. The captain's reply: "You won't need your wallet here, a thousand miles from the atmosphere." This was in the days before they charged for everything on air voyages.

Longtime blog supporter David Federman says he had this record as a young fellow, and is looking forward to hearing it again. I hope he and all of you enjoy it.

Raymond Scott

A couple of minor notes. "By Rocket to the Moon" first came out on Young People's Records in 1949, then was reissued by its successor, the Children's Record Guild, about 1953. My transfer comes from a clean CRG pressing.

Those interested in Raymond Scott are invited to head over to the main blog, where I have refurbished an early 10-inch LP that collected some of Scott's 1930s output, including "Powerhouse" and "The Toy Trumpet." The post dates from the early days of the blog, but I have now remastered the sound and it's much improved.

Lisa Kirk's Sole Columbia Recording

This is a companion post to the selection of 24 single sides by the great singer Lisa Kirk that can be found on my main blog.

Here we have her sole recording for the Columbia, done in 1956, a few years after she left RCA Victor. It contains two songs from a CBS television production starring Kirk. The label at right identifies the program as A Heart to Call My Own, but that is a mistake. It actually was The Human Touch, broadcast on April 15, 1956.

The teleplay, which appears to be lost, was almost literally "ripped from the headlines," as they said back then. Kirk played a New York night club singer, which she was in real life. After her character, Ruth Elliott, becomes the subject of a scurrilous article in a Confidential-style scandal magazine, she threatens a defamation lawsuit. Elliott then is offered a juicy Broadway role contingent on dropping the suit. The drama turns on the choice of following through with the suit or taking the role.

Lisa Kirk in full nightclub mode

Such plots were not uncommon at the time. It has some similarities, for example, to Sweet Smell of Success, a 1950 Ernest Lehman story that would become a film in 1957.

The Human Touch contained at least two songs, coupled on this single. "A Heart to Call My Own" by lyricist William Engvick and composer Alec Wilder, is the better of the pair, even though it contains a fairly conventional waltz melody by Wilder standards. The other song is "A Smile and a Ribbon" by Kirk's husband Bob Wells and Mark McIntyre.

The backings are by Columbia stalwart Percy Faith. I like Faith, but these arrangements can best be described as characteristic. The sound is excellent.

Bob Stewart on Embassy and Metro

Vocalist Bob Stewart appeared seemingly out of nowhere about 25 years ago, billed as one of the last of the great saloon singers. The first time I saw one of his CDs, I remember thinking to myself, "Bob WHO?"

It turns out that Stewart did have an earlier career, although it was an obscure one - and he really was quite a good singer.

This post brings together what are probably his two earliest recordings, both from 78s in my collection.

I believe the earlier of the two recordings, on the Metro label, dates from 1948. On it, Stewart is backed by a vocal group called the Victorians. The idea here was apparently to combine a singer who sounded a lot like Sinatra with a group that sounded just like the Mills Brothers. It all works surprisingly well, and the two innocuous songs are most pleasant - assuming you can tolerate the heavy surfaces on my well-worn copy.

I have not been able to find a date for the other record, which is on the Embassy label. The cover above may fool you into thinking the Embassy recording is an LP - it is not, and I was deceived myself when I picked it up years ago. It is a promo 78 sent to disk jockeys with a cardboard sleeve detailing Stewart's career, which to that point had entailed several big band stints and service as a plumber.

While the Embassy folks claim that their single was Stewart's first, I believe this record postdates the Metro 78 by a few years. On Embassy, the singer (to my ears) betrays the influence of Eddie Fisher, who did not become popular until 1950. However, I will admit that it is possible that the Embassy release comes from as early as 1948 - I found evidence of a record company by that name being founded in that year.

M-G-M promo

Whatever the dating, again this is a fine record, this time with pristine surfaces. The songs again are generic efforts, but Stewart and a backing group do well by them. One of the songs, "If I Had My Way," is basically "You Tell Me Your Dream, I'll Tell You Mine," an 1899 song that had been revived in 1939.

Now, because the singing styles on the two records are different, it is possible that there were two different crooning Bob Stewarts, although I think that is unlikely.

Stewart went on to tape a dozen or so songs for M-G-M in 1954, and had a least one single on Dot in 1957. But his most notable recording was a very good 1956 LP on Dawn with Mat Mathews, which has been reissued. After those efforts, nothing until his reemergence in about 1990.

This post is the result of a request from some time ago - sorry about the delay!

Copland for Children

Young People's Records (YPR) was a prolific and innovative postwar enterprise that lasted until it was dissolved during the 1952 Red Scare - only to have virtually its entire catalogue quickly resurface under the Children's Record Guild imprint.

YPR had the misfortune of being branded as a Communist-influenced organization during those tortured days, and many of its artists were likewise identified as sympathizers, such as folk singers Pete Seeger, Tom Glazer and Oscar Brand, as was YPR founder Horace Grenell.

The composer Aaron Copland also was in that category, although that is immaterial to his presence as the subject of this 78-rpm single, "The Music of Aaron Copland for Young People." This takes the form of a mother (radio-television actor Adelaide Klein) playing excerpts from the composer's music for her daughter (Madeline Lee), to a script by Raymond Abrashkin, YPR's staff writer.

Adelaide Klein

There isn't much you can say about a composer in the space of six minutes while playing his music, so the narrative confines itself to such passages as the daughter exclaiming that the excerpt from A Lincoln Portrait "feels like" Lincoln. (At this remove, it's probably more appropriate to say that our impression of the assassinated President "feels like" A Lincoln Portrait.)

The musical excerpts also include Appalachian Spring, El Salón México and Billy the Kid. All are well played by members of the New York Philharmonic led by Walter Hendl.

The dating of this record is uncertain, although I believe it comes from the late 1940s. YPR was founded in 1947, and Hendl was associate conductor of the New York band until 1949.

Walter Hendl

The sound from this early vinyl pressing is excellent. I mentioned YPR's record of innovation; the early use of vinyl was one facet, but more important was its mail-order subscription approach to marketing. It's said that YPR had a million subscribers at one time. I think this is wildly unlikely - I have encountered relatively few YPR records over a lifetime of collecting. Also, apparently one reason YPR went under is that libraries and other institutions cancelled their subscriptions during the Red Scare. These cancellations would not themselves have been a significant issue if the company truly had a huge subscription base.

YPR intended to produce a series of recordings about composers, but as far as I can tell, only this record and one devoted to Igor Stravinsky were ever completed.

I don't collect children's records (and didn't even when I was a tot), but I do have one other interesting item from the YPR/Children's Record Guild catalog - "By Rocket to the Moon" accompanied by the music of Raymond Scott, which I will share sometime in the future.

A 1934 Christmas Party with the Men About Town

My great pal Ernie (who is busily uploading Christmas music on his blog) expressed an interest in this particular record, which I happened to have, so here it is for one and all.

Now, I know Ernie, being a record collector, really wants the shellac item rather than the digital replica, but perhaps this will suffice.

It is a two-sided Decca 78 from 1934 called "Christmas Party," and it joins together holiday tunes familiar and not so, all under the auspices of the mysterious "Men About Town," which puts me in mind of a bunch of fellows in top hats and tails. Except that one of the most prominent party attendees is clearly a woman, who takes the lead during a good part of the vocalizing.

Not much can be found about the Men About Town and their female accomplice, but I think I have solved the mystery of at least the main protagonists on the record. The male lead is very likely Frank Luther, who at the time was equally prominent as a hillbilly and dance band vocalist, and who would later go on to dominate the children's record industry. The female voice is undoubtedly Luther's wife, Zora Layman, who is credited on the label of a Men About Town record from a few months earlier.

Frank Luther

Zora Layman

Under their own names Luther and Layman would go on to record a similar medley, "Christmas in Song," for Decca in 1939. (I should mention that the Men About Town also laid down a two-sided "Christmas Day" medley at the same November 1934 session in New York, and that both singles appeared on the Montgomery Ward label as well as Decca. I don't have the "Christmas Day" 78.)

As for the other voices on the "Christmas Party," my guess is that they are J. Donald Parker and Phil Dewey, who had recorded with Luther under the name the Melody Three. Parker and Dewey earlier used the "Men About Town" appellation with Will Donaldson.

I picked up this record many years ago hoping it would be at least a little ribald. Sorry to disappoint, but it is entirely sober, but pleasing nonetheless.

Christmas with Clark Dennis

Capitol had a sterling roster of vocalists in the late 40s - among the men were Nat King Cole, Johnny Mercer, Gordon MacRae, Andy Russell, Matt Dennis and Jack Smith. The label's moguls added radio tenor Clark Dennis to the rolls in 1946, and he quickly scored a chart success with the oldie "Peg O' My Heart."

That was to be the high point of Dennis's relatively brief recording career, which mainly consists of the three dozen or so sides that the crooner laid down for Capitol from 1946-50.

I believe this is the sole Christmas single he recorded during that time, although he was well suited to the genre. Evidence is his impassioned rendition of the "Cantique de Noel," which here is backed by a worthy version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" combined with "Joy to the World."

Clark Dennis

The busy studio keyboard artist Buddy Cole contributes what is optimistically described as "orchestral accompaniment." To my ears it sounds like harp plus the tones of Buddy's mighty Wurlitzer. (Does anyone hear any other instruments?)

The initial release of this coupling was in 1949; my copy is a reissue from about 1952. The sound is good.

Dennis, who earlier had vocal stints with Ben Pollack and Paul Whiteman in addition to his radio assignments, was about 40 when these recordings were made. He died in 1992.

Kay Starr with Charlie Barnet

Kay Starr first achieved popular success as a vocalist on Capitol records in the late 40s, but before that she was a band thrush (as Billboard termed them) with Joe Venuti, Glenn Miller, Charlie Barnet and a few other ensembles, making some records with Miller and Barnet.

Her Miller sides aren't that memorable. Starr was a temporary replacement for Marion Hutton and the material and arrangements were not well suited to her. She is, however, recognizably "Kay Starr" on this 1944 date with alto saxophonist Charlie Barnet.

The 78 couples two Doris Fisher-Allan Roberts songs that were actually big hits - but for other artists. And to make it worse, those hits were on Barnet's label, Decca. "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" was a success for Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots (principally Bill Kenny) and "You Always Hurt the One You Love" was a blockbuster for the Mills Brothers.

Kay Starr with Charlie Barnet

Both those competing sides have a panache that the blustery Barnet band cannot match. Charlie's boys start out forte and end up forte, never really swinging along the way. But then I've never been much of a Barnet fan. The sound is fairly good, though.

Starr soon became a single act and eventually moved along to Capitol. My other blog is featuring records she made for that concern from 1947-49.