Gordon MacRae - Capitol and M-G-M Singles

Gordon MacRae has appeared on this blog as often as almost anyone, but I've never focused on his singles output for Capitol, his longtime label. So today I have 12 single sides he produced for that imprint from 1949-1953, with a bonus of the only MacRae single issued on M-G-M.

MacRae joined the Capitol rolls in 1947, after leaving the foundering Musicraft label and following a brief stop-over on Apollo. (The majority of his Musicraft sides are available via this 2013 post.) The 26-year-old singer was still a year away from his first film role and his eventual popularity as a romantic foil for Doris Day and later as the leads in the movie adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein mega-musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel.

The early efforts in this collection continue to betray MacRae's influences - Buddy Clark on "Down the Old Ox Road" and Tony Martin on "Stranger in Paradise." One of the first recordings here - "Twenty-Four Hours of Sunshine" - has what sounds like a half-hearted Jolson imitation. (Or is it supposed to be someone else?) That tune was covered by any number of artists in 1949, as was its flip side, "The Wedding of Lili Marlene" (which is dreary in every version I've encountered).

1953 ad

Among the other selections are contemporary Cole Porter efforts, a good country song (Pee Wee King's "Homin' Time"), a tune from the Day-MacRae musical On Moonlight Bay ("Cuddle Up a Little Closer"). The semi-standard "Never in a Million Years" was a hit for MacRae influence Bing Crosby in 1937. It's one of the better items here, featuring a uncredited obbligato by a trumpeter who is almost certainly Capitol artist Bobby Hackett. Also good is the coupling of "Congratulations to Someone" and "How Do You Speak to an Angel," the latter of which comes from the 1953 Jule Styne-Bob Hilliard show Hazel Flagg. Dean Martin reprised it the following year in the Martin-Lewis vehicle Living It Up, inscribing it for his own Capitol single.

As for the M-G-M single, I have a confession. It is actually an old Musicraft master that M-G-M licensed and later included in a 10-inch MacRae LP that I have never encountered.

The bandleaders here include Frank DeVol, Van Alexander, Carmen Dragon, Carlyle Hall, Paul Weston, Axel Stordahl and Walter Gross.

All transfers are from original 78s. The Capitols originated in a radio station collection. The sound is good.

Capitol royalty: (standing) Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Gordon MacRae, Nat Cole; (seated) label co-founder Glenn Wallichs, Dean Martin, Stan Freberg