André Previn on V-Disc

Following up Buddy Clark's V-Discs, here are several of the special Armed Forces discs recorded by the young André Previn in 1946.

Previn was nothing if not precocious. This wasn't even the 17-year-old's first recording session. That was with the Sunset label when he was 16. At the time he was already working at the M-G-M studio as an arranger while building a reputation as a jazz pianist. The download includes a 1945 Capitol News article on the young artist.

On the four V-Disc numbers, Previn is accompanied by an unknown rhythm section, although the speculation is that it includes Red Callender on bass and Irving Ashby on guitar - the pianist was recording with them for Sunset at about the same time.

On the first song, "I Cover the Waterfront," Previn is seemingly under the spell of George Shearing - even though Shearing had yet to emigrate to the US from England. On the other songs, he perhaps betrays a Teddy Wilson influence, along with the Art Tatum touches familiar from his slightly later Victor recordings.

Young André Previn with a fan

This post is a companion to a new item on my other blog, which presents a large number of Previn's 1947-53 RCA Victor recordings. [Note (July 2023): These V-Disc recordings are now available in ambient stereo.]

A quick follow-up to my Buddy Clark post: reader Max pointed out that I overlooked one of Clark's V-Discs, a great version of the Carmichael-Mercer "How Little We Know" made in 1945 when the singer was Cpl. Buddy Clark. Check the comments to that post for a link.

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Buddy Clark on V-Disc

The great but short-lived vocalist Buddy Clark recorded four songs for V-Disc that aren't found among his commercial recordings, at least in the same form. This post collects the four.

"How Are Things in Glocca Mora" is an alternate take to his 1946 Columbia record. The backing was by frequent collaborator Mitchell Ayres.

Buddy did "Peg O' My Heart" for Columbia, but this version for V-Disc was taken from an aircheck of a Contented Hour broadcast from May 1947. Percy Faith provided the accompaniment

The third item is one of the most unusual of all V-Discs. It was taken from a 1946 Columbia session that represented his first attempts at "Isn't This Better than Walking in the Rain."

Buddy Clark

Here for a V-Disc subtitled "Fluffs at a Record Session," we have a mash-up of two breakdown takes. In the first one, Buddy flubs the melody and makes up his own, invoking Dick Haymes and "Bingie Boy" in the process. In the second, he launches into a broad Jolson imitation. He ends with a plaintive "What the hell am I doing?"

The final item has a spoken Clark introduction - a feature of many V-Discs - followed by a reading of "You're Too Dangerous, Cherie" (an English-language version of "La Vie en Rose"). It was sourced from an October 1947 Contented Hour broadcast.

These are not my transfers, but I did work over the sound, and it's good, except for a high frequency roll-off and a bit of noise in the final item.

This post is a companion to a new survey on my other blog of some of Clark's Okeh, Columbia and Varsity records.

ADDENDUM - Sharp-eyed reader Max pointed out that I overlooked one of Clark's V-Discs, and it's a good one - a wonderful version of the Carmichael-Mercer "How Little We Know" made in 1945 with an excellent Army orchestra when the singer was Cpl. Buddy Clark. I've added a link to a repitched and remastered version in the comments. Thanks, Max!

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Vic Damone's 'Haunted Heart'

Here is a quick supplement to my recent post about the 1948 musical Inside U.S.A. It is Vic Damone's take on the big ballad from that show, "Haunted Heart."

Our friend David Federman asked for this version, saying it is his favorite of the beautiful Dietz-Schwartz song. To me, the prize goes to Buddy Clark, but I won't argue the matter. Both are wonderful - as is the Perry Como single. (The Buddy and Perry versions are in the Inside U.S.A. download.)

Damone is backed by Salvador "Tutti" Camarata on "Haunted Heart." Toots had already dispensed with his first name on record labels, styling himself as "Camarata," a la Liberace. Regardless, he was a fine arranger.

The flip side is "Tell Me a Story," an OK pop tune of the day also recorded by Sammy Kaye. Leading the band is Mitch Miller, then the A&R head of Mercury before moving the Columbia a few years later.

The young Vic Damone

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More Fiedler: Where Is Your Doo-Wacka-Doodle

I just had to bring you one more Arthur Fiedler record, this one a promo 78 from 1953. My reasons:

1. It has a RED promo label! (Sorry for the outburst; I am a record nerd.) RCA promos of this vintage always have white labels. I have to assume it was because Fiedler and the Pops were Red Seal artists.

2. The "A" side (at least it's the "A" side for me) is "The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)," which Fiedler later re-recorded in stereo for his Music from Million-Dollar Movies LP, available via my other blog.

3. The arrangement for "Where Is Your Heart" is by blog favorite George Siravo. I never would have guessed he did this Pops arrangement, which is different from his usual style (and quite wonderful).

4. RCA flubs almost every aspect of the information on the label, attributing the music to lyricist William Engvick and the words to composer Georges Auric, and misspelling Siravo's name. (They did get Fiedler's right.)

And now for the down side, also known as the flip side.

It is a tune called "Doo Wacka Doodle," written by Lou Singer, whose greatest hit was "One Meatball," so you know what to expect. This side is attributed to "Members of the Boston Pops Orchestra," and one can speculate that the other musicians refused to participate.

The Billboard ad at left suggests that Fiedler "swings" these tunes, but "Doo Wacka Doodle" is the antithesis of swing, and "Moulin Rouge" is a lush instrumental. Copywriters should listen to the records they promote.

Not my transfer, but I did work it over and the sound is good. Highly recommended for the "Where Is Your Heart."

Breaking Batons in Boston

Our friend and benefactor Ernie returns to the blogs with this unusual EP from 1954 called Fiedler's Folly. It includes four musical parodies as made popular by the Boston Pops and their longtime conductor, Arthur Fiedler.

Despite what the cover may suggest, far from getting mad about these things, Fiedler himself commissioned the parodies or at least the arrangements from Pops staff arranger Peter Bodge. The conductor used them to liven up his programs.

The best known of the four items is probably "The Glow-Worm Turns," based on an operetta tune by Paul Lincke. The Johnny Mercer revision of "Glow Worm" had been a hit for the Mills Brothers in 1952, and would have been very familiar to a 1954 audience. As is his pattern with these numbers, Bodge works in everyone from Richard Strauss to Johann Strauss in his arrangement.

Fiedler plays an RCA 45 - one of his own?

Also overly familiar to the contemporary Bostonians would have been basic material in the "Cry Parody," which is Bodge's deconstruction of Johnny Ray's histrionic 1951 single, "Cry."

Perhaps the most elaborate number is "Low-Tide," a take-off on Robert Maxwell's 1953 hit, "Ebb Tide." The sea setting provides Bodge a pretext to toss in The Flying Dutchman, seagulls, "Yo Ho Blow the Man Down," "The Sailor's Hornpipe" and similar material.

The fourth piece is Alec Templeton's "Mozart Matriculates," which weaves in "From the Halls of Montezuma" on muted trumpet.

The brief program is enjoyable; just don't expect a laff riot. Genteel titters were more the fashion in mid-50s Boston. Ernie's transfer is excellent, and I thank him once again for thinking of us!

Betty Jane Bonney on Victor

Reader Max recently asked me if I had a copy of Betty Jane Bonney's "How Little We Know" (the Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer tune, not the later Carolyn Leigh-Phil Springer effort). I did not, but after Max located a raw transfer on Internet Archive, I became interested in the singer, and decided to present all six of her 1945 Victor recordings.

These sides were made when Bonney was about 20 years old, but by then she had already cycled through the bands of Les Brown, Jan Savitt, Jerry Wald, Frankie Carle and Charlie Spivak.

Victor was pleased with their new signer, giving her a hefty promotional push with ads in and a cover of Billboard and cooperative ads with local record shops. She received so much attention that Victor's biggest female star, Dinah Shore, reputedly became annoyed. That could be why Bonney's Victor career was notably short lived - at most two sessions.

After her Victor contract expired, Bonney made an elusive record for the Gem label and later, Rainbow Records. She also appeared in the stage musical High Button Shoes.

Then in 1950, she made a new start by changing her professional name to Judy Johnson. She joined Sammy Kaye's band, and made a few Columbia records with the swinging-and-swaying one. M-G-M brought her in for several numbers, mostly duets with Bill Hayes, and she even may have made a brief return to RCA Victor, although it's not clear to me that is the same singer. She was often seen on American television in years to come.

While Bonney didn't fulfill her early promise, these records are very well done. The backings, mostly by the young Russ Case, are smooth. While these are not my transfers, I did remaster all of them, and the sound is good. I may present some of her Les Brown, Sammy Kaye and Judy Johnson-Bill Hayes material at a later date.

June 23, 1945 Billboard ad

Let's Boogie with the Grand Dame of the Harpsichord

I've featured harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe on my other blog performing music of 20th century composers. Today we hear her in 20th century music of a different type - boogie-woogie.

Although Marlowe became famous for her dedication to contemporary classical music, she started her career as a radio and cabaret artist who entertained with a variety of material, including transposing the then-popular boogie styles from piano to harpsichord.

Although she soon defected to the baroque repertoire, Marlowe's earliest discs offer such fare as "My Dog Has Fleas" and "The Village Blacksmith" along with classical-goes-pop novelties like "Haydn Seek" and "Mr. Mozart Meanders."

Her earliest records (dated to late 1939 or 1940 by my friend Nick Morgan) included several boogie-woogie piano pieces, and were made for the miniscule General label. This post has two of the three discs in that set (the second newly uploaded in June 2023).

On the first record we have Meade "Lux" Lewis' "Honky Tonk Train" and Jimmy Yancey's "Yancey Special" (spelled "Yancy" on the label). Here, the latter number is attributed to Lewis rather than Yancey.

The second record starts with "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith. For the flip side, it veers to Raymond Scott's then-new Mozart pastiche "In an Eighteenth Century Drawing Room."

The "grande dame of the harpsichord" also boogied

Marlowe handles this material with aplomb. She is just as home here as in Scarlatti or Rieti. I believe Marlowe was using a large Pleyel harpsichord at the time, with stops and pedals that would not have been found on a baroque instrument. She makes liberal use of the pedals to produce some of the railroad effects in "Honky Tonk Train."

These recordings come from crackly uploads found on Internet Archive, but sound good in newly applied ambient stereo. The discs were part of a three-record set that also included Alec Templeton's "Bach Goes to Town" and Irwin Hellmer's "Boogie Woogie Rhapsody." I don't have transfers of those two numbers, alas.

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