“Washboard Blues”
Casa Loma Orchestra; Connie Boswell vocal
Brunswick 20108 mx BX 11520 March 16, 1932
“Four Indian Love Lyrics”
Casa Loma Orchestra
Brunswick 20108 mx BX 15211 March 16, 1932
Here are two “concert-style” recordings the Casa Loma Orchestra made for a 12-inch Brunswick 78 rpm record. 12-inch records were more expensive than the standard 10-inch size and were primarily used for classical music, which had a greater need for the extended playing time.
Recordings by popular artists were only occasionally issued in the 12-inch format. They were usually devoted to either medlies of songs from popular theater productions or to “concert-style” recordings that aspired to be more “highbrow” and “respectable” than typical jazz and dance band fare. Some recordings from this genre were innovative and interesting, though many often come across, in retrospect, as being at least somewhat pretentious.
This record is interesting because its extended playing time allowed one of the 1930s top female vocalists, Connie Boswell of the Boswell Sisters, to showcase her talent on “Washboard Blues.” The song was composed in 1925 by Hoagy Carmichael and had already been recorded by a few bands when Carmichael himself appeared on vocal and piano on a similar 12-inch “concert-style” recording the Paul Whiteman Orchestra made in 1927 – a recording that is in Radio Dismuke’s playlist.
Though the Casa Loma recording is quite different, those familiar with the Whiteman version, arranged by Bill Challis, will notice some similarities. Boswell herself was co-arranger of the Casa Loma version along with Gene Gifford, who was the arranger for most of the band’s output during this period. This was Boswell’s only recording with the Casa Loma band.
“Four Indian Love Lyrics” is an instrumental medley of songs that British composer Amy Woodforde-Finden wrote for a collection of poems by Laurence Hope, a pseudonym used by British poet Violet Nicolson, published in Britain as The Garden of Kama and in the United States as India’s Love Lyrics. The songs featured in the medley are “Kashmiri Song,” which is the most famous of the songs and one of only two songs ever recorded by film star Rudolph Valentino, as well as “Less Than The Dust,” “The Temple Bells,” and “Till I Wake.”