Rodzinski Conducts Prokofiev

A while back, we had the first in a series of recordings made by the conductor Artur Rodzinski in the 1940s. That was a Rachmaninoff symphony; here he turns his baton to Prokofiev, with equally fine results. Again the orchestra is the New York Philharmonic, which Rodzinski directed when this recording was made, in October 1946. The location was Carnegie Hall. Columbia was able to achieve better results there than the typically congealed sound it produced in its 30th Street studios.

Next in this series will be a few of the recordings Rodzinski made with the Cleveland Orchestra earlier in the decade, before he moved to New York.

Buddy Clark, Part 2

I recently posted a Christmas record by the fine singer Buddy Clark, who died 60 years ago in a plane crash. My friend Scoredaddy requested more of Buddy's work, so here we go with three more singles. As far as I know, these have not been available since their original issue.

I chose the three singles because they are in a format unique to Columbia records in the late 1940s - the 7-inch, 33 rpm single - or Microgroove 33 singles, as they are sometimes called. When Columbia began issuing the first LPs in 1948, RCA Victor countered with a 45 rpm format. Columbia then issued 33 rpm singles to rival the RCA format as a successor to 78 rpm singles. The 33 single didn't last too long, and now is rarely found.

The label above is similar to the contemporary look that Columbia used for its 78s and its main elements would be adopted as well for 45s. On this record, Clark is here covering (and very well, too) a country song, Floyd Tillman's I Love You So Much It Hurts.

Below is the white-label promotional DJ version of the 33 single. I love the crew-cut, bow-tie DJ with his little turntable (not very level, is it?). No idea who Dick Meyer was - could have been the promo man, a DJ, or a later owner. Here Clark was billed below Xavier Cugat, one of the first popular Latin bandleaders.

I'll be back with a 10-inch LP from Buddy and Dinah Shore.

Note (September 2015): the download now also includes the microgroove single of "You Was" and "If You Will Marry Me," by Clark and Dinah Shore, in a new transfer.

Glasgow Orpheus Choir

The recent post from the King's College Choir got me thinking about other choral music I might feature, and this old HMV issue came to hand - a record I had not listened to.

The Glasgow Orpheus Choir was quite famous in its day, at least in Britain and to some degree the US. The ensemble lasted until the retirement of its founder, Sir Hugh Roberton, in 1951. These recordings were made, as far as I can tell, in the immediate post-war period.

The self-regarding notes from Roberton, included below, suggest that the choir was quite beloved, and that may be. However, its charms seem distinctly faded by the passing of the years. Sir Hugh's comments indicate that he was pleased that the choir disbanded upon his retirement. He doesn't mention that many of its members continued as the Glasgow Phoenix Choir, which continues to this day.

[August 2019 addendum: The choir was much better than I had recognized a decade ago. A new remastering shows off its quality. I've banded Roberton's annoying introductions so you can ignore them if you wish.]

Eartha Kitt

Another icon of the popular arts has passed away - Eartha Kitt, at the age of 81.

Kitt had a remarkable personality, which shows through every moment on this, her first LP on RCA Victor, from the early 1950s. It contains many of her most recognizable tunes, although not the inescapable Santa Baby, nor Monotonous, which she introduced in New Faces of 1952. That performance is on video (but not, it appears, on YouTube.)

I've included separately the Stan Freberg version of C'Est Si Bon, which manages to parody both Kitt's vocal mannerisms and the Henri Rene arrangement.

A Festival of Lessons and Carols, 1954

King's College Chapel in Cambridge is one of the most beautiful places on earth and has one of the best known Christmas ceremonies, the festival of lessons and carols on Christmas Eve, which is broadcast all over the world. The Choir of King's College has made several commercial recordings of the ceremony; one of the first is this 1954 recording, conducted by its then-director, Boris Ord.

The Choir, composed of boys and choral scholars from the college, is justly as famous as its Chapel, which, despite its name, is a vast edifice.

Perhaps because I have been privileged to have attended choral evensong in the chapel, I find this record to be both treasurable and memorable. When the Choir and organist Hugh McLean launch into the hymn While Shepherds Watch, the effect is truly magnificent.

This transfer is from the US Westminster pressing of the Argo original. The sound reflects the beautiful King's College Chapel ambiance - except for several of the lessons, which sound more like they were recorded in the King's College Closet. Odd, but not enough to spoil the overall effect.

Happy holidays to all our friends!

Page Cavanaugh, Part 3

A great musician died yesterday - pianist-singer Page Cavanaugh, whose work has already been featured here on two occasions. Page was 86.

Here is a fine example of his talents - an MGM album from the early 50s. The emphasis here is on the piano, and just as much on the guitarist, who may be Al Viola (no credits on this one).

I learned about Page's death from Bill Reed; please go to his blog, the People vs. Dr. Chilledair, to learn more about this fine artist.

NEW LINK

Morton Gould's Christmas

The records of Morton Gould are favorites of this blog's proprietor, so here is an LP of Christmas music he arranged and recorded in April 1949. This issue on a Columbia budget label is from the mid-50s.

Here Gould arranged suites of carols and hymns for orchestra, with orchestration reminiscent of Vaughan Williams at times. The sound is the usual muzzy product that came out of Columbia's 30th Street studios in New York, but listenable for the most part. The two final movements of the suite of carols are pretty congested, however.

Don't think this has been reissued, and I hope you enjoy. Much of it is quite beautiful, and beautifully played.

NEW TRANSFER FROM ORIGINAL 1949 ISSUE

Buddy Clark, Part 1

This blog is for 10-inch records and lately it seems like we've been featuring everything but. And today we have a 78, one by another of those artists who don't get enough recognition. He is singer Buddy Clark, who had several hits before dying in a 1949 plane crash at the peak of his career.

Clark's winning, unassuming approach is well suited to the familiar Winter Wonderland and the unfamiliar Merry Christmas Waltz, presented here. His style is reminiscent of the early Bing Crosby but he has a charm all his own.

I've been accumulating Clark 78s over the years, most of which have never been reissued. Although there generally is at least one collection of his recordings in circulation, these usually center on hits such as Linda, which is emphatically not his best work.

Hope you enjoy this seasonal specialty.

REUP - DECEMBER 2014

Digression No. 14

We've been writing about blogs that feature Christmas music, and one of the great sites for unusual items is Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else (often, mercifully, shortened to MY(P)WHAE). The other day, Lee, the proprietor, featured Vol. 1 of John Jacob Niles' Folk Songs of Christmas, a two-volume EP set from 1955 by the early folk revivalist. Reader reaction was good, and Lee said he wished he had the second volume.

Well, I do have it and sent it his way. It's now up on his blog if you want to stop by. The cover is below.

Alec Wilder's Hansel and Gretel with Barbara Cook

A while back we offered a selection of octets from the American composer and songwriter Alec Wilder (courtesy of Bill Reed). Today we have a musical that he wrote for American television back in 1958, with lyrics by frequent collaborator William Engvick.

The score contains one glorious and touching number, Evening Song (and its variant, Morning Song), which everyone should hear as performed here by the sublime Barbara Cook. The balance of the score is lesser Wilder, but Evening Song must be heard.

I don't mind telling you that I had a heck of a time transferring this badly mistreated pressing. But the results sound good - with the exception of a few skips in the Finale. Speaking of skips, I skipped transferring the second side of this record, which contains an indifferent performance of an orchestral suite from Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel.

One other note: the musical numbers are separated by narration from Red Buttons. You won't want to hear that more than once, so I have put it into separate tracks.

This is for Mindy of Mindy's Bright Lights of Broadway at Franklynot.

NEW LINK (JUNE 2014)

Seasons Greetings from Stoki

Back in the mid-50s, you could hang these season's greetings from Stoki on your tree, with a Christmas-themed EP inside. I'm not surprised this idea didn't spread to other conductors - can you imagine A Jolly Christmas with George Szell or Joy to the World from Fritz Reiner?

I hate to say it, but Stoki came to the party with stale goods - these items are excerpts from recordings that he made for RCA in the late 40s.

But the package is unique - I can't recall any other record sleeve that you can hang on a tree.

REUPLOAD - DECEMBER 2014

Digression No. 13

I really wasn't planning on posting so much Christmas music, but once you get rolling, it's hard to stop. There are many sites that specialize in this music; I've already mentioned Ernie of Ernie (Not Bert), who keeps up a frenetic pace throughout the month. Another is A Christmas Yuleblog, whether the Captain keeps coming with the tunes at a remarkable rate.

Two posts of 10-inch records over at the latter site have given me particular pleasure this season. One is Dragnet - The Christmas Story. (Jack Webb and Christmas? Who could argue with that?) The second is Christmas on the Range with Jimmy Wakely, the great western singer. The latter is a rare set that Wakely made for Capitol at about the same time that he cut the big hit Silver Bells with another fine singer, Margaret Whiting.

As a tribute to these indefatigable bloggers, here is a record that Wakely made circa the late 50s for his own company, Shasta. This exists in two different forms, one with the cover below, the other with a generic Christmas present cover that then could be customized with a sticker for corporate gift-giving.

NEW LINK

Ronnie Deauville, Part 2

I mentioned in the first post that singer Ronnie Deauville was in a serious traffic accident that left him paralyzed, then came down with polio. His story was told on the popular television program This Is Your Life, and this picture sleeve was designed to capitalize on that appearance. Amazingly, you can see the opening of the show via YouTube.

But the subject here should be Deauville's exceptional talent, which is shown in his outstanding performance of As Children Do, an obscure song that the singer makes his own. It is backed by the standard I Concentrate on You, in this Era records release from late 1957 or early 1958.

LINK

Christmas with Ferrante and Teicher

The piano team of Ferrante & Teicher has achieved a certain retro renown for the prepared piano hijinks (or hi-fivories, as they are called here) on their early albums.

This specimen is the first record they made for Westminster. Released in 1954, most of these items on this 10-inch LP were later recycled for a 12-inch record called Adventures in Carols, which has Santa riding a rocket on the cover. This version instead has reindeer assisting the duo-philanthropists by pouring sand into the piano and pulling out the strings so they could be plucked.

The pianists each laid down two tracks so there is much to hear. The musical results are interesting if a bit relentless, witty but also kind of tacky. Not really my thing, but the pianists and woodland creatures seem to be enjoying themselves. Perhaps you will, too.

LINK

The New Christmas Songs for 1952

In 1952, Coral Records wrapped up Christmas themed singles from some of its leading pop acts, put a red bow around them, and sent them to record stores in a 10-inch album. These were the "NEW Christmas Songs," as the cover helpfully points out, and were Coral's attempt to generate some holiday cheer (and sales).

Not sure how much success they had, and the only song on here that has had much shelf life has been the adaptation of "The Night Before Christmas" by Johnny Marks, who produced several Christmas hits, starting with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

But it's a good record nonetheless. I enjoy pop tunes with a holiday theme that haven't been heard over and over, and this is a good collection of them. The artists include some of Coral's finest, including the Ames Brothers, Don Cornell, Eileen Barton and Johnny Desmond.

One reason why record companies like Christmas albums is that they can bring them back on a yearly basis to generate new sales. Coral did that with this record in 1953, just with a slight modification of the cover. You can see the results over at Ernie (Not Bert), one of the web's leading purveyors of Christmas music.

Note (December 2023): this record has now been remastered in ambient stereo and has complete scans.

LINK

A Record for Christmas, 1953

Let's say it's a December day 55 years ago, and you're walking past Record Rendezvous on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland. You can't help but notice it - it's a big store and it's blasting Big Mama Thornton's version of Hound Dog at you. Compels attention.

Big Mama is not your style - and you are faintly annoyed by the store itself. After all, it sponsored Alan Freed, and he brought that raucous jive music to the Cleveland airwaves, and now all the kids are listening to it.

Let's go in anyway and see what we can find. Here's one that just came in today, the clerk tells you - Rosemary Clooney and her husband Jose Ferrer. Make a good present. OK, wrap it up - I can afford 79 cents.

The clerk pulls out a green Record Rendezvous bag, puts the 78 into it, adds some cardboard, and throws in some Capitol and RCA promo items. I like the looks of the Tawny promo. Better looking than Ferrer. What does Clooney see in him?

And what in hell does "you ain't nothin' but a hound dog" mean?

Well, that one's Christmas present down anyway.

LINK

[The file includes the Clooney-Ferrer single, scans of the promos - for Capitol's Background Music series, Jackie Gleason's Tawny, and Laugh and Learn children's series, and RCA Victor's newsletter, The Baton, for December 1953.]

Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick

If you were going to produce a film, would you contemplate using the title "Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick"? Not unless the movie was to feature adorable animated creatures, you wouldn't. But Paramount Pictures did use that title for a musical in 1952, and instead of animated leads, managed to get pop singer Dinah Shore and Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Merrill to star in it. Met honcho Rudolf Bing was so annoyed with Merrill for taking part in this undignified endeavor that the singer left the company for a time.

The title role of the film was played by Alan Young, who seemed to have a thing for barnyard epics, going on to star with Mr. Ed the horse on television.

The above commentary, I know, is not much of a endorsement for the soundtrack record, which is the subject of this post. Nonetheless, this is a sought-after disk, perhaps because it's rare and has a funny name to boot. Or maybe because of the melodious score, which came from the prolific team of Livingston and Evans. Although the score doesn't contain any tremendous hits, Shore and Merrill sing the tunes quite nicely and Alan Young is more than tolerable.

As the cover states, the record features the original cast - but the songs aren't directly from the soundtrack. RCA seems to have remade the score in its studios using label stalwarts Henri Rene and Hugo Winterhalter for orchestral backing.