Background information about the recording can be found below the audio selection.
“Now’s The Time To Fall in Love” & “After The Ball
Phil Spitalny’s Music; Paul Small, Eton Boys vocal
(Hit of the Week A-2-3 mx 1188) December 1931
Here’s a Depression-era “cheer up” song made popular by Eddie Cantor, who introduced it in the 1931 film Palmy Days and sang it as the theme song on his weekly network radio program.
The recording is from a single-sided cardboard Hit of the Week record and is followed by a shorter “bonus track” featuring a waltz that was a big hit in the 1890s.
Hit of the Week was an attempt to market inexpensive records, sold at retailers such as newsstands and drugstores, featuring the popular songs of the moment during the early years of the Depression.
A few months before this record was released, Hit of the Week expanded the playing time of its discs from approximately three minutes, the standard for 10-inch records of the era, to around five minutes. Sometimes the company would take advantage of the extra playing time by adding a second track. To avoid paying extra royalties, the second track always consisted of a song that was either in the public domain or otherwise not copyrighted.
Phil Spitlany, whose photo appears on the blank back side of the record, was one of the better-known bandleaders who recorded with Hit of the Week regularly. In the band, you can hear xylophonist Sammy Herman, who is prominently featured throughout “Now’s The Time To Fall In Love.” If the “let’s pretend the economy is wonderful” lyrics don’t cheer one up, the xylophone passages will likely do so.
Paul Small worked as a freelance studio vocalist and can be heard on countless popular recordings by most of the major early 1930s record labels. Here he is joined, without any credit given on the label, by the Eton Boys, a male quartet that had become famous through vaudeville and on network radio.
The second track features the 1891 waltz composition “After The Ball.” I find it an interesting pairing with a “cheer-up” song, given that its full lyrics, though not included in the recording, were well-known at the time and are about a tear-jerking tragedy. It is a pretty song, but quite the opposite of cheerful.
