Here are a few recordings recently added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist. You can find brief background information about them below the audio links.
“Talkin’ To Myself”
Rex Gordon’s Aces; Norman Wallace, vocal
(Champion 15576 A) September 17, 1928
“If It Aint Love”
The Nitecaps, vocal
(Columbia 2648 D mx 152170) April 11, 1932
“Down Georgia Way”
Jack Purvis And His Orchestra
(Parlophone R698 mx 403893) April 4, 1930
“With You”
Sam Browne, vocal
(Edison Bell Radio 1357 mx 89792) July 1930
“Just One More Chance”
Hit of the Week Orchestra; Scrappy Lambert, vocal
(Hit of the Week 1158) July 1931
Here are a few of the recordings recently added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist that particularly impressed me for one reason or another.
“Talkin’ To Myself” is a catchy and infectiously happy recording with a very nice archetypal late 1920s “hot dance” arrangement. Rex Gordon’s Aces was a recording pseudonym for another pseudonymous band, the Carl Fenton Orchestra.
Carl Fenton was initially a pseudonym used on a prolific output of recordings by the in-house Brunswick studio band led by the company’s music director Gus Haenschen. The widespread distribution of the records resulted in a demand for in-person appearances by the non-existent band. The job of fronting the “Carl Fenton” band in public was assigned to Ruby Greenberg, who was a violinist for Harry Reser’s band and had participated in the ensemble used for Carl Fenton recordings. When Gus Haenschen left Brunswick in 1927, Greenberg purchased the rights to the Carl Fenton name.
This version of the Carl Fenton Orchestra recorded many dozens of sides between 1927 and early 1930, including the one here, under a variety of pseudonyms for Gennett and its subsidiary label Champion. In 1932, Greenberg legally changed his name to Carl Fenton, which he kept for the rest of his life.
“If It Aint Love” comes courtesy of the collection of Matt From College Station, on what I suspect is a rather rare record.
The Nitecaps (sometimes billed as the 3 Nitecaps) were a vocal trio consisting of Ray Kulz, George MacDonald, and Jimmy Noel. The group, which had previously worked for Ted Lewis’ band, joined up with the Paul Whiteman orchestra in early 1932 to replace the King’s Jesters vocal quartet that had recently left the Whiteman organization. Whiteman subsequently renamed the Nitecaps to the Rhythm Boys, the same name as the band’s earlier and most famous vocal trio, which consisted of Harry Barris, Al Rinker, and Bing Crosby.
“Down Georgia Way” also comes from Matt From College Station’s collection on a British pressing of a multi-racial recording session that trumpet player Jack Purvis led for the American OKeh label. While there had been previous multi-racial recording sessions, in 1930, they were still rare occurrences. You can read about Jack Purvis’s erratic and troubled life at this link.
“With You” is an Irving Berlin composition introduced by Harry Richman and Joan Bennett in the 1930 film Puttin’ On The Ritz. This version, with the song’s full lyrics, is performed by Sam Browne, one of the top British vocalists of the 1930s. He recorded over two thousand sides and accompanied most of the prominent British dance bands of the era.
“Just One More Chance” is a Sam Coslow/Arthur Johnston composition that was first recorded by the Abe Lyman orchestra but made famous by Bing Crosby, who performed in a 1931 musical short feature, One More Chance.
The recording here is from a single-sided cardboard Hit of the Week disc I played during Radio Dismuke’s New Year’s broadcast a few months ago.
Hit of the Week was an attempt to revive Depression-era record sales by basing its business model on the magazine industry. Like magazines, the records were sold at outlets such as newsstands and drug stores. They offered popular songs of the day at a low price, with a new release hitting the newsstands every Thursday. The records were paperboard laminated with a resin material called Durium, which the label’s parent company, Durium Products, was named after.
Other than a tendency to curl, Hit of the Week records have managed to hold up surprisingly well over the decades. While their fidelity did not match the improvements that Victor and Columbia were making during the same period, Hit of the Week records, with their laminated surface, usually play back very nicely with far less surface noise than conventional shellac records of the period.
On this recording, you will hear an opening announcer touting another of the label’s technological achievements – a longer playing time of up to five minutes, compared with approximately three minutes per side for a conventional 78 rpm record.