Dorothy Collins and Raymond Scott

Two of this blog's most popular posts were devoted to records by singer Dorothy Collins and proto-space age pop maestro Raymond Scott.

This entry ought to outdo them all, because it brings them together for "At Home With Dorothy and Raymond" (they were husband and wife). Coral Records helpfully labels them on the cover so there is no mistaking who is who.

Collins is similar to Peggy King in some ways - a skillful singer who appeared on a low-brow American television program (in Dorothy's case, it was Your Hit Parade), and today has a smaller reputation than her talents deserve. Collins in fact is more remembered for her 1971 appearance in Sondheim's Follies than she is for her 1950s recordings. A shame, because the early material is very fine.

Dorothy warbles; Raymond twiddles

Well, much of it anyway. In truth, Raymond Scott was perhaps not the ideal arranger for any singer. His tricky, idiosyncratic charts do nothing to set off the voice, which is here in a decidedly secondary role. Although top-billed, Collins only appears on half the numbers. The others are devoted to Scott's characteristic compositions, which are not markedly different from what he was producing in the 1930s. I enjoy listening to them, but a little goes a long way, and none of these items are as memorable as Powerhouse or his best-known works.

But I do like Dorothy, and will have to present more of her - these five songs just aren't enough.

This is presented by request. The sound is excellent.

Revisiting Schumann by Szell and the Clevelanders

This is the third anniversary of this blog, and as I have done on previous anniversaries, I am revisiting one of my old uploads, in the hope of improving my earlier effort.

This time it's one of the first recordings by George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra - here in a new transfer from a much better pressing (no skip in the first movement), in lossless format and with better scans. The only thing I don't like more is the cover. The earlier cover had a attractive buff background (same design).

Szell in 1947

Rereading my earlier commentary, I have to say I agree with most of it, so at least I am consistent with my opinions. Having redone the transfer, I would now say that the recording is more dry than dull. Here's what I had to say then:

"I prepared this 10-inch LP for upload some time ago but didn't follow through because the sound was opaque and because there is a skip in the first movement that can't be repaired.

"Then I heard a recording of a concert performance of Schumann's second symphony by these forces - and it was so good that I just had to bring this version of the fourth symphony to the blog.

"Columbia taped this edition of the fourth symphony in Severance Hall in November 1947. At that time, Szell and the Cleveland band were somewhat new to one another. Nonetheless, this performance displays many of the characteristics of the later performance I heard. Szell has everything under serious control and the orchestra follows his every move with precision and a kind of controlled passion.

"Everyone who listens to music likes to think about how they would perform a piece - and this is not the way I would do it, for sure. But it is a fascinating approach that I do enjoy."

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by during the past three years. It's been fun.

Peggy King

This, in my estimation, is one of the better pop vocal LPs of the 50s. And, as the cover will attest, it is by one of the best-looking pop vocalists of that or any other time.

So why isn't it better known? Many reasons, I suppose - changing tastes in music, the fact that Peggy King was never a jazz vocalist or worked with jazz musicians, and that she never had a major hit. It doesn't help that she was known as "pretty, perky Peggy King" at this time, and came to fame on the television show of Lonesome George Gobel, which was not overly sophisticated. I don't think she was taken seriously.

With Lonesome George

This album, her only LP for Imperial, was perhaps a pitch for a more mature image, starting with the extremely glamorous cover and extending into the elaborate arrangements by three talented practitioners of the art - Henri René, Jack Marshall and Pete King. Her singing - always quite sensual for someone with a gamine-like image - here takes on an even more charged aspect. Her rendition of the gorgeous title song by Jerome Moross and John Latouche is exceptionally fine.

After this, she made only two additional full albums, both for Stash in the mid-80s.

King could not have been too upset by being called "pretty, perky Peggy King" - it's the title of her official web site.

This is in response to a request. The mono sound on this LP is very good.

Libby Holman

It's no exaggeration to say that Libby Holman led a wild life. On Broadway at an early age, she became famous as a torch singer, introducing such songs as Moanin' Low, Can't We Be Friends and Something to Remember You By in her throaty contralto.

Early Libby

Later Libby

Pursued by lovers of both sexes, Holman married Smith Reynolds, the tobacco heir. Reynolds ended up dead after a wild party in 1932, shot through the head. Holman was charged with murder, although the charges were dropped. She later married actor Ralph Holmes, who committed suicide.

Holman's notoriety has faded from the days when movies were based on her misadventures (Reckless and Written on the Wind), but you can still find tales about her drinking and drub abuse, exhibitionism, hiring a stripper for her son's bithday party when he was six, and so on.

Despite the alleged excesses, she continued working and occasionally making records well into the 1950s. And although she achieved fame as a sultry pop singer, she re-emerged in 1942 as one of the early cabaret folk singers, in the company of Josh White, who has appeared on this blog before. From that point on, her sporadic records were a combination of blues, folk material and political material.

This particular record, on the small MB label, was issued in 1954 in conjunction with her one-woman Broadway show, Blues, Ballads and Sin Songs (Holman was not above trading on her own reputation, apparently). The cover is by the fairly well-known commercial artist Fred Koester, who also designed the similar theater program (below). I have no idea why he has depicted Holman as an ascending spirit wearing way too much makeup.

Holman was a commanding presence; unfortunately, she did not have the same command of singing. What we hear here is often out of tune and her approach to such material as Strange Fruit and the House of the Rising Sun is bombastic. There was nothing subtle about Holman, in life or in art. She committed suicide in 1971.

Robert Tear

I did not want the recent death of Welsh tenor Robert Tear to go unremarked. Although he has not appeared on this blog before, he was one of my favorite artists, with a particular affinity for English music.

While I am not in the habit of posting material that is in print, in this case I can think of no better tribute than Tear's performance of the quasi-folksong The Captain's Apprentice, here in Vaughan Williams' arrangement for voice and piano. This is one of the most doleful songs in the English language, sung by a sea captain whose cruelty had killed an impoverished boy who had been apprenticed to him out of penury. Tear's interpretation of this extraordinary (and extraordinarily beautiful) song is deeply affecting.

Robert Tear at a 1970s recording session

The Captain's Apprentice may remind you of the story of Peter Grimes. Britten's opera is based on a verse narrative by George Crabbe, which was modelled on a early 19th century broadside that told the tale of a cruel sea captain who had killed an apprentice and was tried in King's Lynn. This broadside also was apparently the source of the song that Vaughan Williams gathered in 1905 from a King's Lynn fisherman, and published in 1908.

The haunting Captain's Apprentice was a favorite of Vaughan Williams and appeared more than once in his orchestral music. The Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 makes use of the tune and another from Norfolk called On Board a Ninety-Eight, also gathered from a fisherman, and also based on a broadside from a century before. (You can find Adrian Boult's mid-50s recording of the Norfolk Rhapsody over at my friend Fred's blog, Random Classics.)

On Board a Ninety-Eight (that is, a 98-gun ship) tells the droll tale of a young man so bad that his parents gave him up to a pressgang looking for "recruits" to go to sea. (Pressgangs were paid bounties both to secure such "recruits" and also to round up deserters - goodness, what a time). This post also includes Tear's perfect performance of the song. This time, the unwilling sailor turns into a hearty tar who survives Trafalgar and getting an arm shot off, and eventually retires a pensioner.

The pianist on these recordings is Philip Ledger. Here is a link to a review in The Gramophone of the original 1978 issue.

Marge Dodson

Here by request from my friend flyingfinger is this unre-released LP from singer Marge Dodson. FF recently discovered her singing, flipped for her voice, and requested this, her first album, made for Columbia in 1959.

Marge in 1961

Although she made only three albums that I can trace, Dodson was well regarded in her day, and for good reason - she was quite a fine singer. There is little information available on her today, but I did ascertain that she continued singing in clubs into the 1970s.

On this LP of standards, she is accompanied by a good group led by obscure pianist Michael Colicchio. Dodson's husband Coleridge Perkinson takes over for Little Girl Blue.

The sound here is fairly good, although there is too much reverb on Dodson's vocal mike. My pressing has some vinyl noise in the background and some peak distortion on the singer's vocals on the first number, most of which I've been able to eliminate.

That is Marge looking glamorous on the cover.