{"id":1982,"date":"2025-05-07T14:40:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/?p=1982"},"modified":"2025-05-07T14:40:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:40:54","slug":"frank-black-and-his-orchestra-1927","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/2025\/05\/07\/frank-black-and-his-orchestra-1927\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Black And His Orchestra &#8211; 1927"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Brunswick3619B.jpg\" alt=\"Brunswick 3619-B label image &quot;A Million Miles (To Be A Little Bit Nearer To You)&quot; Frank Black And His Orchestra\" width=\"499\" height=\"490\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1983 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Brunswick3619B.jpg 499w, https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Brunswick3619B-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Background information about the recordings can be found below the audio selections.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 31px;\">\n<td style=\"background-color: #f2ebeb; padding-left: 40px; height: 31px; width: 628px;\">\u201cI&#8217;d Walk A Million Miles (To Be A Little Bit Nearer To You)\u201d<br \/>\nFrank Black And His Orchestra; Scrappy Lambert, vocal<br \/>\nAugust 10, 1927\u00a0 \u00a0 (Brunswick 3619-B)<br \/>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1982-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Id-Walk-A-Million-Miles-To-Be-A-Little-Bit-Nearer-To-You.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Id-Walk-A-Million-Miles-To-Be-A-Little-Bit-Nearer-To-You.mp3\">https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Id-Walk-A-Million-Miles-To-Be-A-Little-Bit-Nearer-To-You.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 13px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 13px; width: 628px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\"><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 31px;\">\n<td style=\"background-color: #f2ebeb; padding-left: 40px; height: 31px; width: 628px;\">\u201cHighways Are Happy Ways\u201d<br \/>\nFrank Black And His Orchestra; Scrappy Lambert, vocal<br \/>\nAugust 10, 1927\u00a0 \u00a0 (Brunswick 3619-A)<br \/>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1982-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Highways-Are-Happy-Ways.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Highways-Are-Happy-Ways.mp3\">https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Frank-Black-And-His-Orchestra-Highways-Are-Happy-Ways.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here is a record from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/2024\/01\/10\/update-edward-mitchell-78-rpm-collection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edward Mitchell Collection<\/a> of two songs that were well-known and recorded by several bands in 1927 but quickly forgotten.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI&#8217;d Walk A Million Miles (To Be A Little Bit Nearer To You)\u201d<\/em>, composed by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gerald_Marks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gerald Marks<\/a> with lyrics by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Al_Lewis_(lyricist)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Al Lewis<\/a>, is my favorite of the two.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Highways Are Happy Ways,&#8221;<\/em> composed by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Larry_Shay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Larry Shay<\/a> with lyrics by Harry Harris and Tommie Malie, was likely inspired by a &#8220;Highways Are Happy Ways&#8221; slogan used by the Standard Oil Company of Indiana on advertisements for its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.roadarch.com\/gas\/redcrown.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Crown gasoline<\/a> and on the road maps distributed by its gas stations.<\/p>\n<p>The vocals on both recordings are provide by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scrappy_Lambert\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scrappy Lambert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discogs.com\/it\/artist\/932773-Frank-Black-2?srsltid=AfmBOopKkrh8nWL2BgtuXeAl7LpfsfjauTgitXEpvl7DM1CzUkSScSxU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Frank Black<\/a> and His Orchestra recorded a couple of dozen or so sides for Brunswick between 1926 and 1928. Black himself was also prominent behind the scenes without label credit on many other recordings and on radio.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in 1926, he replaced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discogs.com\/it\/artist\/1700323-Ed-Smalle?srsltid=AfmBOoquXd_mp9w-qWAw1sNDYX2-0fg5-TNPseCg-doPm_siZpj7ybjn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ed Smalle<\/a> as the pianist accompanying the popular vocal group the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Revelers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Revelers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He also directed the Victor recording sessions for the Arden Ohman Orchestra while its stars, the piano duo of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Victor_Arden\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victor Arden<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phil_Ohman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Phil Ohman<\/a>, were busy playing the prominently featured piano passages.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">During the 1930s, Black was music director for the NBC radio network, where he conducted everything from classical music with ensembles such as the <span>\u00a0NBC String Symphony to popular music with the house bands of several NBC radio programs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RedCrownSmall.jpg\" alt=\"Vintage Red Crown gasoline advertisement from 1927\" width=\"240\" height=\"693\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1989\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RedCrownSmall.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RedCrownSmall-104x300.jpg 104w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">(From 1927 advertisement. Click<a href=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RedCrownLarge.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> here<\/a> to view larger image)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two recordings from 1927 by Frank Black and His Orchestra, <em>\u201cI&#8217;d Walk A Million Miles (To Be A Little Bit Nearer To You)\u201d<\/em> and <em>&#8220;Highways Are Happy Ways,&#8221;<\/em>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/2025\/05\/07\/frank-black-and-his-orchestra-1927\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":103,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1982"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1996,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions\/1996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}