Jack Shilkret And His Orchestra & Chick Bullock – 1936

Here are two recordings featuring vocals by Chick Bullock, who, in the 1930s, was the go-to in-house vocalist on the various low-priced “dime-store” records produced by American Record Corporation (ARC).

The pressing here is on the Romeo label, which was sold through the S. H. Kress dime store chain. Other pressings of the same record were also issued on ARC’s Banner, Oriole, Perfect and Melotone labels.

“I’m A Fool For Loving You” is a 1936 composition with music by Pete Wendling and lyrics by Sam M. Lewis.  The best-remembered recording of the song was made that same year by Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra for Victor.

“A Melody From The Sky” is from the 1936 film The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.  Louis Alter composed the music, and Sidney D. Mitchell wrote the lyrics.

Bullock began making recordings for ARC in early 1930.  For a period in 1931 and into 1932, he also recorded with Victor.

Over the next decade, Bullock recorded over 500 sides, sometimes accompanying name bands and, more often, the ARC in-house studio band.

In some instances, Bullock also appeared on ARC’s flagship label, Brunswick, which it had operated since late 1931 under a licensing agreement with Warner Brothers Pictures, which had acquired the label in 1930.

For some of his appearances on Brunswick, Bullock was chosen to provide English-language vocal accompaniment for the well-known Cuban band, Antobal’s Cubans.  On the label, he was credited as “vocal chorus by Chiquito Bullo,” a pseudonym that I regard as utterly cringeworthy, to the point of being hilarious.

At one point in the early 1930s, while he was under consideration for a film role with Paramount Pictures, Bullock suddenly developed a disfiguring and irreversible eye condition that put an end to his film career before it had even started.  It was believed that the eye condition was the result of him having worn the chemically harsh face makeup that was widely used when Bullock worked in vaudeville during the 1920s.

For this reason, the remainder of Bullock’s musical career was limited to radio appearances and records, and the very few publicity photographs in which he appeared are profile shots.

After ARC discontinued its line of dime-store labels in early 1938, most of Bullock’s recordings appeared on its remaining low-priced label, Vocalion.  The use of that label had been part of the same Warner Brothers licensing arrangement that allowed it to use the Brunswick name.

Bullock remained after the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) purchased ARC in late 1938 and revived the Columbia label as its flagship.  CBS took its name from the fact that for part of 1927 its owner was Columbia Records.  ARC acquired Columbia in 1934 after its owner was forced into bankruptcy and subsequently kept the label mostly, though not completely, dormant.

CBS soon phased out the Brunswick label in favor of Columbia and Vocalion in favor of the newly revived OKeh.  Thus, Bullock’s last recordings in the early 1940s were issued on the Columbia and OKeh labels, as well as on Conqueror, an in-house label for Sears & Roebuck whose contract CBS had inherited from ARC.

Bullock made his last recording in 1941. The musicians’ union strike of 1942, combined with wartime shortages of shellac used to manufacture 78 rpm records, effectively put an end to Bullock’s recording career. He relocated to Los Angeles, California, where he operated a real-estate business for many years.

Jack Shilkret was the younger brother of the more famous bandleader, Nat Shilkret, who was the long-time director of Victor’s in-house band.

Jack Shilkret made records for Victor in 1924 and 1925, prior to his brother Nat joining the company in 1926. Jack returned to Victor in 1935 and recorded about a dozen sides for its lower-priced Bluebird label.

In 1936, Shilkret recorded another couple of dozen or so sides for the various ARC labels, including the two featured here.  However, according to Brian Rust, on his ARC recordings he merely led a band of ARC studio musicians, not the band that he was leading at the time for his radio broadcasts.

For whatever reason, neither of these sides appear in either Rust’s American Dance Band Discography or the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR).   However, I was able to derive the April 9, 1936, recording date from the fact that the two matrix numbers immediately following those used on these recordings were for a Chick Bullock recording session on that date.

The DAHR listing credits the band on the sides for those other matrix numbers to Chick Bullock and His Levee Loungers.  But Bullock never had his own band, and the Levee Loungers were merely a pseudonym sometimes used for various bands that backed him on his recordings and radio broadcasts.  The logical conclusion is that Shilkret also led the band on the two sides that Bullock recorded immediately afterward which were credited to the Levee Loungers.

Shilkret’s 1936 records for ARC were his last recordings, at least as far as dance band records are concerned.  A series of low-priced long-playing records that were widely advertised during the 1950s included one featuring Strauss waltzes conducted by Jack Shilkret.  But I am not sure when it was made or whether the recordings were specifically made for release on LP or merely transfers of previously issued 78 rpm recordings.

The latest date on which I was able to confirm Shilkret leading a musical ensemble, through a very quick search, was a 1952 radio broadcast. There are also several 1957 mentions of Shilkret appearing in different venues as a solo pianist. He died in June 1964.