Gould from De Groot and The Hague

This is an unusual record in that the concert music of Morton Gould was certainly not being recorded in Europe at that time (mid-50s). Whatever possessed Philips to program Gould's music with orchestral forces from The Hague, conductor Willem van Otterloo and pianist Cor de Groot, we can only be grateful, for these are remarkably idiomatic performances, beautifully played and nicely recorded. They make a fine addition to our ongoing series devoted to de Groot.

Interplay, the piano piece here, is also known as American Concertette. I believe it was introduced under the latter name, and acquired the former when it became a Jerome Robbins ballet. An early work (1943), it echoes Gershwin and Ravel to good effect, being quite memorable in its own right. De Groot sounds at home.

Spirituals for Orchestra was also an early work - it is from 1946 - and one that became very successful for Gould, who was all over American music during this period. He was on radio, making mood music records, conducting, composing concert music and writing a Broadway show. It was during this period that he was compared to another wunderkind, Leonard Bernstein, who was more outgoing, photogenic and aggressive than Gould, and ultimately became more famous. Was Bernstein more talented? Perhaps.

Billboard item

This Philips recording was issued in the US in 1953, occasioning the characteristic Billboard headline at right, "Morton Gould By Dutch Ork." Well, the Dutch ork, their Dutch baton waver and Dutch ivory tickler really wail on these American riffs!

The wildly inappropriate and completely unattractive cover on this American Epic pressing is by A.F. Arnold, a fairly well-known commercial artist of the time.

This post goes out to my friend Mel, one of the first supporters of this blog. Hope you like this one, Mel!

Eddie Fisher

Eddie Fisher, who died a few days ago, was just beginning his career 60 years ago with the release of his first big hit, "Thinking of You" (the Kalmar-Ruby song from M-G-M's 1950 musical, Three Little Words).

"Thinking of You" is the highlight of this, Fisher's first LP, which came out in 1952. The singer had already shown himself to be a big-voiced, accurate vocalist with a good sense of time and an individual timbre. He also had displayed a few stylistic tics, such as suddenly belting a climactic note.

As this LP shows, at this time RCA was having Fisher record the tunes of the day, such as "Sorry" and the country song "I Love You Because," almost always with the support of Hugo Winterhalter.

Billboard ad

Our second memorial offering for Fisher is the 1954 EP below, titled for its first song - "A Girl, A Girl." That song has Eddie giving out with some Prima-style Italianisms - "I'm just a fella / who wants to ring-a the bell-a". (It's-a dreadful.) The second song is more of the same, but on the other side we switch to German repertoire with "Oh! My Pa-Pa," a sentimental item that became an enormous hit for Fisher in the US and for trumpeter Eddie Calvert in the UK.

Fisher went on to have several more hits, but soon became more noted for his love live than his singing. First he married Debbie Reynolds, leaving her for Liz Taylor after her husband (and Fisher's best friend) Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash. Taylor later dumped Eddie for Richard Burton. This American La Ronde played out in endless gossip columns and movie magazine covers.

It's hard to say what was more influential in derailing Fisher's career - his personal habits or changing musical tastes and styles. But he was a prodigious hitmaker for a time.

I had a number of Fisher records as a juvenile record aficionado, and remember being fond of "Oh! My Pa-Pa." But my special favorite was Eddie's version of "Lady of Spain," which I believe was on a promotional EP put out in association with Fisher's hosting of the Coke Time TV show. I played that one incessantly. This suggests two things - that taste is not inborn and my parents were among the most indulgent of people.

Heinrich Schlusnus

This fellow possessed not only a penetrating stare but one of the finest baritones of the last century, here displayed in a program of lieder by Strauss, Schubert, Wolf and Brahms. He is Heinrich Schlusnus, a German who died in 1952 at the age of 64. That was several years before DGG issued this collection. Schlusnus was a well-known opera singer as well as outstanding interpreter of lieder.

I am indebted again to my friend Don (or Sacqueboutier), for letting me feature his high quality transfer and scans. I believe this is the first time I have presented lieder here. This is a excellent example of the art, and not one that is seen very often.

In addition to the program on the LP, Don has added his transfer of a DGG 78 of works by Beethoven and Handel.

Thanks again to Don for letting me feature this beautiful recording.

LINK

Just for You

Paramount had good results from the teaming of Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman in the 1951 film Here Comes the Groom, so they reunited the two for 1952's Just for You.

Crosby had great rapport with Wyman, displayed in their duet of In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening in the earlier pic. Just for You tried to recreate the magic with Zing a Little Zong - and nearly succeeded. Crosby - famed for his relaxed approach to singing - was becoming increasing stiff as the years went by, but always seemed more at ease in the company of other singers. Wyman is an excellent vocalist - not only can she carry a tune, she has a way of conveying her charming personality through her voice, which is not easy to do. She has three solo songs on this LP - more than Bing. None have been reissued, to my knowledge.

Bing is also heard in two songs with the Andrews Sisters, who are not in the film, and with the little-known but excellent Ben Lessy, who appears on the wonderful vaudeville-style duet On the 10:10 from Ten-Ten-Tennessee.

Crosby solos on the beautiful title tune. I have added another Bing solo as a bonus track - A Flight of Fancy, which was not on the 10-inch LP, but was the flip side of Just for You when it came out as a single.

The songs are by the estimable Harry Warren, who had been doing movie scores for 20 years by this time and would continue to do so for several more years. His lyricist on this occasion was Leo Robin.

The plot of Just for You has curious echoes of Crosby's personal life. Bing plays a widower in the film, which was made shortly before his wife's own death from cancer. The plot concerns Bing's estrangement from his son; Bing himself had difficult relationships with his own sons, notably Gary. And Crosby's son in the film conceives quite a passion for Wyman; Bing's son Dennis later married a showgirl that the elder Crosby had dated.


Mamie and Jane

If the oedipal theme doesn't achieve much tension, it's because the son, as played by Robert Arthur, displayed his attraction to Wyman mainly by being annoying. And Wyman, while a most attractive woman, was not a terribly sexy presence. By this time she had adopted an unbecoming hairdo similar to that of First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. It didn't do much for either of them.

In the film, Crosby was a Broadway producer, Wyman his star attraction, Carolina Hill. (She came from a sister act that also included Virginia, Georgia, Florida and Idaho. OK, I made that up.) Below, Bing rehearses Jane, adopting the pained look that was one of his specialties.

Believe it or not, this film is a favorite of mine!

REMASTERED VERSION

This Is the Final Farewell to Mitch, I Promise

I recently came across this 1952 Mitch Miller LP, and wanted to bring it to you even though I suspect it will elicit another chorus of groans from the people who think Mitch not only had the beard of a devil but cloven hooves as well.

But where else but on a Mitch Miller record could you hear Greensleeves presented in oom-pah style? No one else would dare - or, I suppose, care - to do so. On a Miller record, everything is beautifully done and imaginative, but with little if any regard for conventional good taste. The latter tendency he shared with musics that came later - the former, not so much. I have to admit that I do not require my listening material to be all that tasteful - but I sure hate it when it's dull and poorly done (like most rock music). I find records like this amusing and enjoyable, while others retreat in horror.

The excellent vocalists on these records are the Paulette Sisters, Peter Hanley and Burt Taylor, who were, I believe, Columbia contract artists.

The download includes two Columbia ads that promote this LP and the other pop materials that the label was releasing at the same time under Mitch's aegis. The ads are fascinating items, showing how repertoire was migrating from various genres into the pop realm in the restless search for new material. (Perhaps Mitch's oddest idea in this regard was to have Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra record It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.)

One of the ads contains a column by Mitch in which he praises Hank Williams (an M-G-M artist), noting that Williams compositions had recently become hits for Tony Bennett (Cold, Cold Heart), Jo Stafford and Frankie Laine (Hey, Good Lookin'), Rosemary Clooney (Half as Much) and Jo again (Jambalaya). This was written at the end of Williams' very short career - he would die only three months later, at age 29.

With a Song in My Heart

Here by request is With a Song in My Heart, with songs from the Jane Froman biopic of 1952. The movie starred Susan Hayward as the popular radio singer, who was severely injured in a wartime plane crash. The voice on the soundtrack and this LP is Froman herself, a contralto with an excellent voice and technique. This is in no way jazz singing, but it is nonetheless quite well done.

The arrangements are by George Greeley, who was also an excellent pianist.

The cover is in the garish style that Capitol favored back then, and I love it for its artlessness and complete lack of subtlety. This also has the "picture frame" surround that Capitol used for its 10-inch LPs when it also was putting the contents out as a 45 rpm box set. It could use the printed artwork on both packages. That's Hayward on the front cover, Froman on the back.

More Cor de Groot

After I posted Cor de Groot's recording of Beethoven's fourth concerto, my friend Fred of Random Classics told me he found de Groot's version of the fifth concerto on European Archive. So I thought I would go get that recording for you and post it here in a refurbished edition.

It's a beautiful rendition in vivid sound. De Groot benefits once again from the strong conducting of Willem van Otterloo, here leading the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague.

But that's not all (as they say in the ads). My newest blogger acquaintance, Satyr, has posted a couple of de Groot items on his excellent blog, 78 toeren en LP's - the Rachmaninoff second concerto, and Strauss' Burleske, transferred from 78s. Satyr has already posted many unusual and interesting items on his new site. He features Dutch musicians and composers, but not exclusively - the most recent post is of Sir Henry J. Wood. Please go visit him and leave a comment - the blog is in Dutch, but he speaks very good English.

The link to the Beethoven Emporer is below. My next de Groot post will be his recording of Morton Gould's Interplay, dedicated to my friend Mel, who requested it.

Southern Gospel on RCA

Throughout the early LP era, the major record companies were looking to broaden their business by expanding into genres that had previously been the province of smaller companies - and by borrowing the best material from these genres to provide potential hit songs for their mainstream artists.

Today I'll present a selection of items from the 1956-57 RCA Victor catalogue to illustrate some of the exceptional southern gospel acts that the label had signed in an attempt to broaden its artist roster, and the repertoire they were recording.

Blackwood Brothers

Like many pop genres, many southern gospel songs fit into a limited number of "types," and this first number quickly demonstrates two of them. The first is the upbeat "lesson" song, in this case "The Good Book," which was taken from a Producers' Showcase original television musical called "The Lord Don't Play Favorites," starring Louis Armstrong, Dick Haymes, Buster Keaton, Robert Stack and Kay Starr. (I am not making this up - TV was very different in the 50s.) The quite remarkable performance here is by one of the greatest southern gospel groups - the Blackwood Brothers Quartet. (Read more about their history here.) RCA had signed them as early as 1952, and in 1954 - in a bid to broaden their appeal - placed them on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts TV program, a contest program that the Blackwoods won. The flip side of this record (actually the second song on this promotional EP) was an example of a straight gospel song, "Give Us This Day."

I am very fond of the Blackwood's sound - it's flamboyant and garish, like much pop music since then, but also virtuosic and utterly sincere, unlike much of that same music. I've also included a second single of theirs that combines two songs by one of the best-known writers in the genre, Mosie Lister: "Then I Met the Master" (a famous record) and "The Touch of His Hand."

The Statesmen Quartet

The Blackwood Brothers often toured with the second group I'm presenting here, the Statesmen Quartet with Hovie Lister. That's Hovie, the group's leader and pianist, in the front in the photo at right. (Hovie and Mosie Lister were not related.) Just like the Blackwoods, the Statesmen appeared on (and won) the Talent Scouts program in 1954. They are represented in the playlist by another lesson song, "Practice What You Preach," which features their outstanding bass singer, Jim "Big Chief" Wetherington (far right in the photo). The other Statesmen song is "Brand New Star," a maudlin death song, another common song type. You can read more about the Statesmen here.

When the Statesmen Quartet appeared on Talent Scouts, they performed "This Ole House," a song by Stuart Hamblen, which became a tremendous pop hit in the version by Rosemary Clooney (with a mighty assist by the great bass Thurl Ravenscroft). A former cowboy star and country singer, Hamblen had turned to gospel music after a conversion experience at a 1949 Billy Graham revival on the West Coast - at a time when he was on the country charts with a song called "I'll Go Chasin' Women." Changing his act and life around completely, Hamblen soon had recorded one of his most enduring songs, "It Is No Secret (What God Can Do)" and was on the radio with a program called The Cowboy Church of the Air.

Hamblen at a Graham rally

One of Hamblen's biggest records was not issued under his name - it was "Open Up Your Heart (and Let the Sunshine In)," a 1955 hit for the Cowboy Church Sunday School, essentially the Hamblen family. Hamblen recorded the song at a very slow tempo, then sped up the master to make his daughter, who sang lead, sound much younger. As an extra added item, the download includes the issued version as well as a pitch-corrected version, so you can hear what it should have sounded like without the manipulation. (The original isn't my transfer and the sound isn't that good.)

Open Up Your Heart was a Coral record. Hamblen then moved on to RCA, where he and his family recorded his songs "Dear Lord, Be My Shepherd" and "Beyond the Sun," under their own names. These are the Hamblen selections in today's playlist.

George Beverly Shea

Our next artist also was associated with Billy Graham, and has appeared on this blog before, on the soundtrack LP from Graham's film, Oiltown, U.S.A. He is the beloved baritone, George Beverly Shea, who is heard here in the spiritual "Take My Mother Home" and the song "There's a Time," which was co-written and conducted by Charles Grean, who was an RCA A&R man.

Grean provides the segue to our next artist, the Johnson Family Singers, who have been featured before on this blog. He not only was the manager of Betty Johnson at one time, he was married to her. He also managed Jim Lowe, who wrote the Johnsons' first song in this set, "You Take Your Road," another one of those bouncy lesson songs. (This song contains one of my all-time favorite mixed metaphors - "You take your road and I'll take mine / And we'll all get to heaven at the very same time / The ladder doesn't matter / it's the way that you climb.") The final song in our set is the Johnsons' "May God Be With You."

Like Stuart Hamblen, the Johnsons had their own radio show for quite some time. The download includes examples of both programs.

The sound on these records is fairly good. They all were sourced from RCA's unique promo EPs, like the one depicted at top.

Johnson Family Singers