“The Very Thought Of You”
Red Nichols And His World Famous Pennies; King Harvey, vocal
(Bluebird B 5548-A) July 18, 1934
This recording is from the collection of Matt From College Station who let me digitize it for Radio Dismuke. I think it is a very pleasant version of a song famously recorded by Al Bowlly with the Ray Noble Orchestra in England. When the Ray Noble recording was released in the United States, it quickly climbed to the top of the Billboard music charts. The song has been recorded by a variety of artists over the decades and is regarded as a pop standard.
I was not able to find biographical information about vocalist King Harvey other than he was a guitar player and vocalist for both the Herbie Kay and Red Nichols bands.
While preparing this posting, I saw that Ricky Nelson, son of 1930s bandleader Ozzie Nelson, revived the song in 1964 with a big-selling rock and roll version. I thought that was interesting because King Harvey’s voice strikes me as being similar to Ozzie Nelson’s.
I am currently working on a few other recordings from Matt’s collection, some of which I will share in future postings.
– Dismuke