“South Sea Rose”
George Olsen And His Music; Ethel Shutta, vocal
(Victor 22213-B) November 3, 1929
“What Do I Care”
George Olsen And His Music; Ethel Shutta, vocal
(Victor 22213-A) November 3, 1929
From the Edward Mitchell collection, here is a record by George Olsen and His Music with the vocal on both sides provided by Olsen’s wife, actress Ethel Shutta.
“South Sea Rose” is the title song from the 1929 comedy film South Sea Rose, an early all-sound film of which no known copies have survived. This recording will be the second version of the song in Radio Dismuke’s playlist – the other is by the A&P Gypsies, from another record in Eddie Mitchell’s collection that he let me make a transfer of for the station a few years ago.
“What Do I Care” comes from the 1929 musical stage production Harry Carroll’s Revue at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood, California. Harry Carroll was the composer for several Broadway productions and for his own musical revues that appeared on the vaudeville circuits throughout the 1920s.
For his 1929 revue, Carroll secured a long-term lease of the Music Box Theater and renamed it Harry Carroll’s Music Box Theatre – apparently with the intent of staging productions there on an ongoing basis. An advertisement for the production boasted an “all-star cast of 70,” including “40 wonderful girls.”
Carroll’s venture was not successful. The show closed after five weeks, and Carroll was forced to sell his beach house in Santa Monica to pay for the production’s debts.
“What Do I Care” was more successful than the show that originated it. In the months after the production closed, several artists recorded it. Carroll, Jesse Greer, and Raymond Klages shared the song’s composer credits.
This recording will be the second version of “What Do I Care” in Radio Dismuke’s playlist – the other being by Adrian Schubert’s Orchestra, issued under the pseudonym of the Imperial Dance Orchestra.
Hollywood’s Music Box Theatre still stands and is now called the Henry Fonda Theatre. At some point, its facade was “modernized”/uglified and either replaced or covered with metal paneling that looks similar to the side of a shipping container. However, its interior still has many of its 1920s-era details.