“I’ve Gotta Get Up And Go To Work”
Jack Payne And His Band;
Trio of Billy Scott-Coomber & 2 others, vocal; Jack Payne intro speaking
(Imperial 2918-A mx 6490-2) October 13, 1933
“Ah But Is It Love?”
Jack Payne And His Band; Jack Payne, vocal
(Imperial 2918-B mx 6491-3) October 13, 1933
Here are two recordings by Jack Payne And His Band, one of the more prominent 1930s British dance bands.
Both of these songs came from the 1933 American musical film Moonlight And Pretzels which was released in the UK under the title of Moonlight And Melody. The film included a couple of Great Depression themed songs, “I’ve Gotta Get Up And Go To Work” featured here, as well as “Are You Making Any Money?”
The Imperial label was founded in 1920 and purchased by the Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Co. Ltd in 1925. Crystalate owned several low-priced British labels. In addition to its domestically made recordings, Imperial records often featured pressings of imported American masters originally issued on the Banner label, the parent company of which, Regal Records, Crystalate eventually acquired an ownership interest in.
Crystalate discontinued the Imperial label in early 1934 in favor of its newly introduced Rex label. Crystalate sold all of its record and phonograph related business to Decca in 1937.
Jack Payne was one of the Imperial label’s top-selling artists which, no doubt, was the reason for the creation of a special picture label for his recordings.
“Home”
Buddy Lane & His Orchestra; Buddy Lane, vocal
(Crown 3232 B mx 1553 3) January 1932
“Masquerade”
Adrian Schubert And His Orchestra; Harold Van Emburgh, vocal
(Crown 3335 A mx 1759) June 1932
Here are two songs I only recently learned were featured in The Shining, a film I have yet to see but began hearing about back when I first started sharing vintage recordings online.
Over the years, I have heard from a number of people who have told me that hearing the 1934 British recording of “Midnight The Stars And You,” sung by Al Bowlly with Ray Noble And His Orchestra, in The Shining was what sparked their interest in 1930s era dance bands and vocalists such as Bowlly. (You can hear that recording on this YouTube upload). The late Rich Conaty used to say that the Ray Noble/Al Bowlly recording was the most requested song on his weekly radio program, The Big Broadcast.
Since its appearance in The Shining, the song has been featured in several other films and is now regarded as a classic – deservedly so, in my opinion. And it is the song people mention when discussing The Shining.
However, during the 1930s, at least as far as the United States is concerned, “Midnight The Stars And You” was not as well-known as the songs presented here, “Home” and “Masquerade,” which were also featured in The Shining.
A few other recordings of “Midnight The Stars And You” were made in England by Roy Fox, Harry Leader, Maurice Elwin and Fred Hartley. But the only version I can find any mention of being issued in the United States during the 1930s was a pressing of the Ray Noble/Al Bowlly recording on Victor. The only mention I can find of any 1930s American recordings of the song is one that Hal Kemp’s band made on a radio transcription disc that was not commercially issued until decades later during the LP era.
By contrast, “Home,” composed by Harry Clarkson, Geoffrey Clarkson and Peter van Steeden, was one of the top hits of 1932 and has been recorded by a long list of artists ever since. The version here will be the third that I have added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist and I have a few more that I have not yet digitized.
“Masquerade,” composed by Paul Francis Webster and John Jacob Loeb in 1932, was not among that year’s top hits, but the list of artists who have recorded it is also lengthy. The version here will be the fourth I have added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist.
I should emphasize that the recordings featured here are not the same as those featured in the film. The version of “Home” in the film was by Henry Hall and the Gleneagles Hotel Band, while the version of “Masquerade” was by Jack Hylton and his Orchestra. I don’t recall having either version in my collection but will keep my eye out for them in case I do.
Nor do I regard the versions presented here as more significant than any others. They were simply in a stack of records on the Depression-era Crown label that I had picked out to digitize and I remembered recently learning about the songs’ inclusion in the film.
Unfortunately, discographical information about Crown is not as complete as it is for other labels. Buddy Lane and His Orchestra is credited on several Crown releases but I was not able to find any information as to whether he was an actual bandleader/vocalist or merely a made-up recording pseudonym. My strong guess is it is a pseudonym as the only mention of a Buddy Lane I could find with regard to music other than recordings on Crown was a country artist in the late 1960s. Usually, one can find at least some mention of even the more obscure bands of the era as their engagements and/or broadcasts were often mentioned in the press. Smith Ballew made recordings for Crown under the pseudonym of Buddy Blue and His Texans due to a contract that gave another label an exclusive on issuing records under his actual name. But the Buddy Lane credited on the vocal sounds nothing like Smith Ballew.
Adrian Schubert was Crown’s in-house music director, and if “Buddy Lane” was, in fact, a pseudonym, there is a good chance that the band on some or all of the recordings issued under it was Schubert’s.
On “Masquerade” Schubert’s band is joined by Harold Van Emburgh on the vocal. Van Emburgh was mostly known as a vocalist who performed with several bands and also sometimes performed under the name of Harold Richards. A handful of sides on Crown are credited to Harold Van Emburgh and His Orchestra and, according to the biographical information that I linked to, he did have his own band around that same time. But it is conceivable that, even on those recordings, the band was the in-house group led by Schubert.
From the Edward Mitchell collection, here are two very jazzy instrumental recordings on a rare label of blues compositions that were also recorded by Bessie Smith and others.
Pianist, bandleader and arranger Fletcher Henderson was an important figure in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. As an arranger, he significantly influenced the evolution of jazz and popular music. When Benny Goodman came into the national spotlight and launched the swing era in 1935 with his spectacularly successful engagement and broadcasts from the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, he did so on the strength of arrangements that Henerson had written for the band.
Claxtonola records were sold by the Brenard Manufacturing Company of Iowa City, Iowa, owned by James L Records and Theodore O Loveland. The company was founded in 1892 and, by the early 1910s, had become notorious for operating a scam that induced retail merchants such as jewelers and pharmacists to purchase pianos as part of a promotional scheme with an alleged guarantee to increase the merchant’s business. (You can read how the scam worked in this .pdf document of an article from the April 1, 1912 issue of Grocery World And General Merchant.)
In 1918, the company began selling phonographs and records under the brand name Claxtonola, once again as a dubious money-making opportunity targeting small-town merchants.
In exchange for becoming the exclusive Claxtonola “agent” within their town for three years, the merchant agreed to purchase an exorbitantly-priced phonograph through installment payments to be used as a “store display” along with a minimum of twelve records. The merchant also agreed to provide a list of names and addresses of nearby potential prospects the company claimed it would reach out to through its direct marketing and salesforce.
I do not know to what degree merchants purchased records beyond the initial twelve for sale in their stores or to what degree records were sold through contact with the prospects the merchant provided. Regardless, the nature of the scheme undoubtedly contributes to the label’s scarcity today.
Brenard Manufacturing neither manufactured nor recorded the records. All of the label’s recordings come from masters leased from small, independent labels such as Paramount, Gennett, and Black Swan. I have seen information that leads me to suspect that the company contracted with Paramount to press the records, but I am not certain.
The company’s owners were also connected with a label called “National Record Exchange.” This involved a scheme where agents would place ads in their local newspapers promoting ten-cent records through a “record exchange.” Customers would send ten records to the exchange, and for one dollar plus shipping, they would receive ten different records in exchange.
Other than what was described in the local advertisements, I have no information on how the “exchange” worked or how the brand-new records the company issued fit into it. My hunch is that becoming a local agent likely required purchasing a certain minimum of the new records. Records on the National Record Exchange label are even more difficult to find than Claxtonoloa records.
By the late 1920s, Brenard Manufacturing stopped selling phonographs and records but continued with the same scheme to recruit merchants as exclusive local agents for the company’s radios.
When the Federal Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order in 1936 for a lengthy list of deceptive trade practices, the company’s owners had also been operating similar schemes that involved targeting merchants as local agents for the sale of refrigerators, oil burners, and air conditioners. Among that list of deceptive practices was the owners’ companies representing themselves as being “manufacturing companies” when, in fact, they manufactured nothing and merely contracted out to others.
The Claxtonola label featured a variety of musical genres. But many of their issues are of jazz and blues recordings that their original labels had made to market to black record buyers. In some cases, copies on their original labels are also hard to find.
I don’t know if the appearance of such recordings on Claxtonoloa was due to any particular effort by Brenard to target merchants in black communities or if they merely issued whatever masters they could obtain at the lowest possible price.
Both sides on the record here were recorded by Paramount and originally issued on Paramount 20235. But, since Paramount leased its masters to companies besides Brenard, these recordings were also issued on the Grey Gull, Radiex, Puritan, Harmograph, Famous and Oriole labels.
Additionally, since Fletcher Henderson was not bound by an exclusive recording contract, he was free to record under his name for any and all labels. Thus, the following month, he recorded both songs here for Vocalion, which were issued on Vocalion 14636, and he recorded “Gulf Coast Blues” for Columbia, which was issued on Columbia A-3951.
Among the members of Henderson’s band on these recordings was future bandleader Don Redman.
Bessie Smith recorded both songs on February 15, 1923 for her very first record, Columbia A-3844.
Trombonist Jesse Stafford was the associate leader and part owner of the West Coast-based Herb Wiedoeft band. When Wiedoeft was killed in a traffic accident in May, 1928, Stafford took over as the band’s leader and changed its name to the Jesse Stafford Orchestra.
The band’s success continued under Stafford’s leadership. Within two months of Wiedoeft’s death, the band was back in the recording studio for Brunswick, for which it had been making records since 1923. Stafford and the band also appeared in the 1929 talking picture Close Harmony.
In February 1926, the band landed a long-term engagement at San Francisco’s posh Palace Hotel. According to an article in the June 1929 edition of The Metronome, the hotel spent $5,000 on publicizing the orchestra during the first month of the engagement. (See images below) If that amount – the equivalent of about $90,200 in 2024 currency – is true, that is pretty remarkable as an indication of the size of crowds such bands could attract during the 1920s and how lucrative it could be for the more successful ones.
As with other bands, it was undoubtedly impacted by the onset of the Great Depression.
The band’s last recording session was in May 1930. However, two records made in 1931 were credited to the band even though it did not participate in the recording sessions. On May 19, 1931, two sides were recorded by the Art Kahn Orchestra, issued on Brunswick 6126 as Jesse Stafford and His Orchestra. Another recording session on August 18th, led by Bill Challis, resulted in two sides issued on Brunswick 6171 credited to Jesse Stafford and His Orchestra.
I do not know why the two records by other bands were issued under the Stafford’s name. The use of recording pseudonyms was extremely common back then. Perhaps Brunswick thought that issuing the records under Stafford’s name might have resulted in increased sales – though, if so, undoubtedly, Stafford would have had to have given his approval.
One possibility that occurs to me is based on the fact that both 1931 recording sessions took place in Brunswick’s main studios in New York City and the studio’s documentation initially indicated that band was to be the label’s in-house studio orchestra led by Victor Young. However, on both sessions, Victor Young’s name was crossed out and replaced by a handwritten notation indicating the bands as being led by Art Kahn and Bill Challis respectively.
My thought is that it is perhaps possible that, to save the expense of Stafford’s band having to travel to Brunswick’s Los Angeles or New York studios, Stafford might have sent the band’s arrangements to New York so that whichever local musicians were at hand could replicate the Stafford Orchestra’s sound.
Record sales were profoundly impacted by the Depression, leaving all record labels fighting for survival. And, even if Brunswick had been willing to pick up the travel expenses, the money the band would have made from the recording sessions might not have been enough to justify the amount lost by any missed live engagements or broadcasts during the trip.
I could not find through quick research how far into the 1930s or beyond Stafford’s band carried on. Because of slow record sales, there were several bands whose records sold well during the 1920s and continued performing well past the 1930s but stopped recording during the Depression and did not resume until the latter part of the 1930s decade, if at all.
Stafford died from a heart attack while playing golf in 1947 at age 54.
Before discovering this record in Eddie Mitchell’s collection, I was not familiar with either of the songs. But I noticed that one of the composers of “Feelin’ The Way I Do” was Neil Moret, one of several pen names used by Charles N. Daniels who had composed several very nice ragtime era songs such as “Hiawatha,” “Silver Heels,” and “Poppies.”
Test pressings were just that, a one-off pressing of a recording, usually ahead of it being issued, so that various record label staff members could listen to and/or evaluate it. Test pressings are always worth looking into because sometimes they contain alternative, non-issued takes of an issued recording or, in some cases, of a recording that, for whatever reason, was never issued.
In this instance, it is of a very nice recording of “Desdemona” by Sam Lanin and His Orchestra recorded on August 27, 1925 One can tell from the arrangement that it was made during the height of the “Charleston” dance craze. The recording was assigned a matrix number of 140868. On the label, it is listed as 140868-3, indicating it was the third take.
In those days, there was no such thing as “mixing” a recording. The entire musical ensemble gathered before the microphone or, before the advent of electrical recording, the recording horn and played it “live.” If one of the musicians messed up or there were technical issues, everyone had to start over again with another blank wax disc and perform however many takes were necessary to capture an acceptable recording.
Multiple discographies indicate that three takes were made of “Desdemona,” with the third take being the one that was ultimately issued on Columbia 447-D, which was coupled with the Lanin Orchestra’s recording of “The Promenade Walk” on the flip side. Since this test pressing is of that third take, its musical contents are identical to that of the issued record.
Despite not being one of the two unissued takes, the record is still interesting for the label that was attached to it. Many test pressings only have a blank label and, if one is lucky, it might have handwritten notations regarding song title, artist credit and perhaps a matrix number if it was not already stamped into the pressing. But, here, the label contains a pre-printed blank template that offers some insight into Columbia’s quality assurance and approval process.
Observe in the above image that there are spaces for approval and/or comments by various departments or individuals: the factory, the operator (whatever that might have indicated), a sub-committee, as well as the final outcome of that process.
If my interpretation is correct, it appears that the recording was given the OK by someone associated with the factory whose initials were H.O on August 31, 1925, four days after it was recorded. I have no way of knowing if, from there, that same test pressing was to be passed on to the other departments or if the relevant people in each department were provided with and signed off on their own separate test pressings. My guess is the latter, given that the recording was subsequently issued and there are no further notes on the label.
At the bottom is a place to note the matrix number of the recording they ultimately decided to couple with it on the flip side.
What I find interesting is that there appear to be options for indicating whether the recording will be on the record’s A-side or B-side. But during this period and previously, Columbia was one of the labels that did not show an A-side or B-side. The same catalog number appeared on both sides underneath the artists’ credits with each side’s unique matrix number listed in smaller font underneath the catalog number. My only guess as to why it might have been necessary for them to designate an A-side and B-side is that it was perhaps, for some reason, necessary to do so when setting up the stampers in the machinery that pressed the records.
Also of note is the circled letter W in the upper left-hand portion of the label. That same circled letter W can also be found stamped into the record’s run-out area, indicating that it was recorded electrically rather than acoustically. The W stood for Western Electric, which licensed the technology to both Columbia and rival Victor (Victor recordings made with the Western Electric system have an oval containing the letters VE stamped into the run-out area).
Columbia started making electrical recordings in April 1925. However, it was a few months before they fully phased out recording sessions using their old acoustical equipment for new releases on their flagship Columbia label. During this period, both Columbia and Victor kept quiet about using the new technology and held off announcing it to the public until the latter part of the year. This gave them time to build up a new catalog of electrically recorded releases and to sell off their inventory of existing records that would soon be regarded as obsolete.
Because Columbia had been conducting recording sessions with both the old and new technologies, it makes sense that, as a recording went through its internal review process, various people might want to see at a glance which technology was used without having to play the record.
“Desdemona” was composed by Maceo Pinkard, a black music publisher and composer whose most famous composition was “Sweet Georgia Brown,” which remains well-known as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.
One will occasionally come across test pressings of pre-World War II recordings made using the original masters or stampers in vinyl, which did not come into use until after the war. Sometimes, such pressings were made in preparation for reissuing a recording in a more modern format. I suspect that, in some cases, they might have been made by record label employees who had the ability to do so for their own personal enjoyment. Such test pressings are treasured for the significantly quieter surface that vinyl provides versus the shellac-based surface of the original pressings.
Van Dyke was one of several subsidiary labels of Grey Gull, a low-priced label based out of Boston. Records manufactured by Grey Gull are notorious for being made out of poor-quality material. Even in new condition, they tend to be noisy, and since they wore out quickly, it is not uncommon for them to turn up in almost unplayable condition. This particular record is in pretty decent condition compared to most records on the Grey Gull labels I have come across.
Grey Gull began recording electrically in 1926 and, as with the materials the records were made out of, the audio engineering and fidelity on their electrical recordings were often lower than average in quality.
The Van Dyke label was introduced late in Grey Gull’s existence and was only made between 1929 and 1930 when Grey Gull went out of business. Recordings on Van Dyke duplicated those issued on other Grey Gull labels, though the pseudonym used on the artists’ credit sometimes differed from label to label.
Despite the records’ often poor technical quality, many interesting recordings can be found on the Grey Gull labels. As a result of the company’s efforts to cut costs as much as possible, one can find songs that were never recorded or performed elsewhere.
Record labels were required to pay a per-copy royalty to the music publishers for every copyrighted musical composition they sold. To save on royalty expenses, Grey Gull often placed a well-known popular song for which it had to pay royalties on the A-side of a record and used a song written by one of its in-house composers on the B-side. Because such compositions were never published other than through the recordings, they were not available for the various bands of the era to perform, nor were they recorded by other record labels.
One of those in-house composers was trumpet player Mike Mosiello, who wrote “Blue Ridge Blues” and several other songs for the label. The band which performs it was Grey Gull’s in-house studio band, of which Mosiello was a member. In addition to Mosiello, that band typically included Andy Sanella, and Charles Magnante who were, on occasion, joined by Joe and/or George Hamilton Green and future bandleader Tommy Dorsey.
On this Van Dyke copy, that band is credited under the pseudonym White Way Players. However, on parent label Grey Gull, it was credited under the pseudonym of the Jazzopators.
“White Way” is a reference to “The Great White Way,” a then commonly used nickname for New York City’s Broadway theater district resulting from the area’s many impressive electrically illuminated advertising signs.
Several other songs over the years have shared the title “Blue Ridge Blues.” Musical compositions can be copyrighted, but their titles cannot.
“Lucky Me Lovable You” was composed for the talking picture Chasing Rainbows, which was filmed in 1929 but not released to theaters until 1930. The most famous song from that movie was “Happy Days Are Here Again,” which is still well-known. Because of the delay in the film’s release, all of its songs were already published, recorded and being performed on radio broadcasts well before it appeared in theaters.
The band on this recording is the California Ramblers issued here on Van Dyke under the pseudonym of the All Star Troubadours. On parent label Grey Gull, the recording was credited under the pseudonym of the White Way Serenaders.
The uncredited vocal here is provided by Smith Ballew who, in addition to being a successful early 1930s bandleader who later went on to star in several “singing cowboy” B-Westerns, worked on the side as a studio vocalist for most of the era’s record labels. In that capacity, he appeared on several hundred records issued between 1929 and 1935. If you tune in to Radio Dismuke it won’t be too long before you will hear his voice.
The California Ramblers did not record exclusively for any particular label; thus, their recordings can be found under various pseudonyms on many of the labels in existence during the 1920s and early 1930s.
This was not the only California Ramblers recording of “Lucky Me Lovable You.” They recorded a slower tempo arrangement on Columbia under the pseudonym of Ted Wallace and His Campus Boys, also with Smith Ballew on the vocal. They recorded another version under the pseudonym of the Golden Gate Orchestra for Columbia’s low-priced subsidiary labels Harmony, Diva and Velvet Tone, which, at the time, were still using the obsolete pre-microphone recording equipment that their parent label stopped using in 1925 when it switched over to recording electrically. Irving Kaufman provided the vocal on that recording.
I tend to include recordings from the Grey Gull labels that I might otherwise pass over for inclusion in Radio Dismuke’s playlist simply because many are somewhat obscure, even among collectors, and most have not been reissued in modern formats.
“It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken”
Ray O’Hara And His Orchestra; unknown, vocal
(Crown 3001 B mx 1061) November 1930
“Three Little Words”
Adrian Schubert And His Orch; Paul Small, vocal
(Crown 3601 A mx 1060) November 1930
Here are two recordings from the very first release of the early Depression-era Crown label. Sadly, my copy is not in the best of condition. However, I am using some new audio restoration software that enabled me to do a better job at cleaning it up than I previously would have been able to.
Crown was a low-priced label that mostly focused on mass-market, popular hit songs buyers might have heard on radio, in films or on the New York stage. At a time when most low-priced records sold for 35 cents, Crown records were priced at 25 cents and advertised as “two hits for two bits.”
The label was introduced in November 1930. However, since the Depression was still far from reaching its bottom, selling records became increasingly difficult, even at a low price, and the label ceased operations in February 1933.
Crown was produced by the Plaza Music Company, a wholesaler of sheet music and various music-related merchandise. Since 1921, it had been the exclusive sales and marketing agent for the Regal Record Company, which issued low-priced records on the Regal, Banner, Oriole, Domino, Jewel and other labels. This profitable arrangement ended in 1929 when Regal and all of its labels became part of the merger that formed the American Record Corporation (ARC).
The label was named after the Crown Music Company, a competitor that Plaza acquired after it became insolvent in June 1930. Starting in February 1932, Crown Records were pressed under contract by RCA-Victor, which, at the time, was beginning to experiment with introducing its own low-priced line of labels. But RCA merely pressed the records using masters provided by Crown.
It has recently come to light that, prior to contracting with RCA-Victor, Crown records were made using equipment that had previously pressed Edison records before Edison shut down its record and phonograph division in October 1929.
Most sources state Crown’s recording studios were in New York’s McGraw-Hill Building. Crown’s low-priced competitor, Hit of the Week, also founded in 1930, had studios in that building. But neither label’s releases recorded in 1930 and 1931 could have been recorded there as the building was still under construction.
What I have not been able to determine is whether the two rivals, by coincidence, just happened to have separate studios in the same building or if there was some arrangement that enabled them to share a single recording studio, perhaps through renting time from a third party that owned the facility.
Adrian Schubert, who is credited on this recording of “Three Little Words,” was the director of the in-house band for Plaza’s former Regal, Banner, Oriole and other labels and remained after the ARC merger until he moved back to Plaza in the same capacity in October 1930 shortly before the debut of Crown.
While this is the first Crown record to be issued in terms of catalog number, a few other records with higher catalog numbers were, in fact, recorded a couple of months before these sides.
As was common with the era’s low-priced labels, recordings by Schubert and other bandleaders were sometimes credited under various pseudonyms. Sometimes, these pseudonyms were entirely made up. In other instances, they were the names of actual musicians or bandleaders who might have had nothing to do with the particular recording session (but, undoubtedly, appreciated the enhanced name recognition).
I have not found any discographical information about this recording of “It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken.” But Ray O’Hara was an actual bandleader who was active in the New York City area throughout the 1930s and, at the time this was recorded, had a 10-month engagement at and radio air time from the Governor Clinton Hotel. There was also a bandleader by the same name in the 1920s who was prominent in the Chicago area and operated a band booking agency, as well as one who led a band in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1945. My assumption is they were all the same Ray O’Hara.
As was common in those days, vocal credits were not provided on the label for either side. However, discographical sources indicate that the vocalist for “Three Little Words” was Paul Small.
I could not find such information for the vocalist on the Ray O’Hara side. But, interestingly enough, in Adrian Schubert’s final recording sessions for ARC in July and August 1930 prior to moving over to Plaza/Crown, four sides credited a “Ray O’Hara” as the vocalist. Brian Rust, in his The American Dance Band Discography 1917-1942 speculates that the name might have been a pseudonym for one of the regular studio vocalists on ARC’s roster.
I was able to find and listen to copies of those Schubert/O’Hara ARC sides online and the vocalist on all of them sounds to me to be consistent with the vocalist on “It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken” – though I don’t have the best ear in the world at making such comparisons. The vocal on “It’s A Great Life….” also strikes me as sounding similar to Frank Luther.
The only other recording I can find mention of being credited to Ray O’Hara’s band was ten issues later on Crown 3011 of “You Are The Melody, I Am The Words.”
What remains a mystery to me is whether this recording was, in fact, made by the actual Ray O’Hara orchestra or whether it was made by Schubert and issued under O’Hara’s name as a favor to a bandleader new to the New York scene and just starting to catch on.
As for the two songs, “It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken” was introduced by Maurice Chevalier in the 1930 film Playboy of Paris.
“Three Little Words” was introduced by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the 1930 film Check and Double Check. In the film, the vocal to the song was performed by The Rhythm Boys (Bing Crosby, Al Rinker, and Harry Barris). However, they did not actually appear in the film. Instead, members of the Ellington band merely lip-synced to the lyrics.
Ellington and the Rhythm Boys also recorded the song for Victor (Victor 22528). I know for a fact that I have a copy of that recording, but for some reason, I have never added it to Radio Dismuke’s playlist. It is possible that I might have had a concern about the condition of my copy. But, if not, and its omission was merely an oversight, I will set it aside for digitization next time I come across it.
“Dinah”
Ted Lewis And His Band; Ted Lewis & Four Dusty Travelers, vocal
(Columbia 2181-D mx 149911) January 24, 1930
“The Lonesome Road”
Ted Lewis And His Band; Ted Lewis & Dixie Four, vocal
(Columbia 2181 D-mx 149758) January 10, 1930
Here are two recordings by Ted Lewis And His Band being added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist.
I played the recording of “Dinah” during the station’s recent New Year’s broadcast as it is my favorite version of the song I have come across to date. One of the things that impressed me about the arrangement was the vocal by a group listed as the “Four Dusty Travelers” – a group I had not previously heard of. Since the broadcast, I have been able to learn more about them.
The Four Dusty Travelers was a black vocal quartet comprised of members of the larger Dixie Jubilee Singers led by Eva Jessye who was the first black woman to achieve international fame as a choral conductor. The quartet was well-known in the New York City area thanks to local performances as well as a weekly broadcast over the radio station WOR that aired from August 1929 to April 1930. They also recorded an additional four sides for Columbia by themselves in October and November 1929, all of which were issued.
The same vocal quartet appears on the flip side “The Lonesome Road” but, for whatever reason, was credited as the Dixie Four.
According to the Discography of American Historical Recordings, the Four Dusty Travelers on these and these other Columbia recordings was comprised of Charles Emmett, William Emmett, Herbert Benson and Junior Dean. However, according to Encyclopedia of Black Radio in the United States, 1921–1955, the group consisted of Ray Yeates. Jester Hairston. James Waters and Viviande Carr.
I cannot explain the discrepancy other than to guess that the group’s membership might have changed over time or that a different subset of Dixie Jubilee Singers members might have been used on different occasions.
“Dinah” is a Harry Akst composition with lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young and was introduced by Ethel Waters in 1925. The song has been recorded many times by a variety of artists in the decades since and remains well-known.
“The Lonesome Road” was composed in 1927 by Nat Shilkret with lyrics by Gene Austin. Both recorded for Victor and, together, made a recording of it in September of that year issued on Victor 21098. Shilkret also recorded it with Willard Robison in 1929. The song achieved greater recognition when it was included in the 1929 film version of Showboat, a hybrid silent film with added sound scenes for theaters capable of playing them.
My copy of the record is not in the best of condition. As the included image shows, the label on both sides has significant damage. Columbia records from this period have a lead-out groove that was designed to trigger a stop mechanism to turn off the motor of wind-up phonographs or to trigger the record changer on players equipped with them. When played on a modern turntable, the stylus remains in that groove in an endless loop until the tonearm is removed.
But, as was the case when I played both sides of this record, sometimes the lead-out groove has a defect and the tonearm continues its forward motion and ventures onto the label. The damage on the labels leads me to suspect that the record was played on a wind-up machine and the stop mechanism wasn’t triggered until after the heavy steel needle had already gone into the label area.
The record’s playing surface also has quite a lot of scuffs. But, because of their laminated surface, records made by Columbia during the 1929s and 1930s often play better than their visual condition would suggest and I was pleasantly surprised that my software was able to clean these recordings up as well as it did.
“Smoke Rings”
Harry Leader’s Band
(Vocalion 3290 mx 19334) January 15, 1936
“My Sweetie Went Away”
Harry Leader’s Band; Jessie Robbins vocal
(Vocalion 3290 mx 19335) January 15, 1936
Here are a couple of recordings being added to Radio Dismuke’as playlist of a British band that remained active for many decades after the 1930s.
Much of the Harry Leader band’s 1930s output was on the bargain-priced Eclipse label, eight-inch records sold through the British branch of the F. W. Woolworth stores. In 1935 the band began recording for English Columbia. These sides were issued in the UK on Columbia FB-1357 and in the USA on Vocalion.
“Smoke Rings” was best known as the theme song for the Casa Loma Orchestra and was composed by one of its members, Gene Gifford. Casa Loma recorded the song for Brunswick in 1932 and again for Decca in 1937. Both of the Casa Loma recordings, in my opinion, deserve a place on any list of outstanding recordings of the 1930s decade.
The Harry Leader version is quite different but still enjoyable and features an extended guitar solo by Archie Slavin, a noted guitar player who worked with several British dance bands of the era.
“My Sweetie Went Away” was already an “oldie” when the Leader band recorded this version. The Lou Handman/Roy Turk composition was published in 1923 and many jazz and dance band recordings of it were made that year as well as a blues interpretation by Bessie Smith. Leader’s version is of arrangement updated to a style typical of mid-1930s British dance bands and, I think, is quite nice.
“That’s A Plenty”
Anthony Parenti’s Famous Melody Boys (Playing At La Vida)
(OKeh 40308-A mx 8895-A) January 22, 1925
“Cabaret Echoes”
Anthony Parenti’s Famous Melody Boys (Playing At La Vida)
(OKeh 40308-B mx 8896-A) January 22, 1925
Here are two recordings from the Edward Mitchell collection of a mid-1920s New Orleans band led by Anthony Parenti, who remained prominent in jazz in both New Orleans and New York City into the 1960s.
These were recorded during the OKeh label’s second field trip to New Orleans with their portable equipment to record local and regional artists. The recording sessions took place inside the Junius Hart Piano House at 123 Carondelet Street whose building still exists. Junius Hart was a music publishing company as well as the regional distributor of Kimball Pianos and OKeh records.
OKeh did not begin using microphones until 1926. But despite the old-fashioned acoustic recording horn technology, these recordings are still very engaging and enjoyable.
Parenti’s band performed at the Liberty Theater and, after the theater’s evening closing time, the band moved over to the La Vida nightclub at 1019 Iberville St in the Tango Belt district.
While the Lew Pollack composition “That’s A Plenty” has long been regarded as a jazz standard, it was originally published as a piano rag in 1914.
“Cabaret Echoes” was one of Parenti’s own compositions.
