Early and Rare Capitol Singles from Margaret Whiting

When the great vocalist Margaret Whiting died five years ago, I devoted two posts to Capitol singles that had not heretofore been re-released in any form. Those records were drawn from old store stock 45s dating from 1949-56, and I promised a follow-up post devoted to my collection of her earlier Capitol 78s.

But soon thereafter that stack of shellac suffered water damage, and I never got around to cleaning up the remnants and seeing if they were still viable as subjects for transfer.

There things stood until recently, when reader punkinblue9 wrote to ask if I had four Capitol singles featuring the young Whiting that have never been reissued – “When You Make Love to Me,” “What Am I Gonna Do About You?”, “What Did I Do?” and “Dreamer with a Penny.” It so happens that they all could be found in my pile of soggy 78s, so I took it upon myself to see if the subjects could be scrubbed clean enough to derive acceptable transfers.

I was surprised to find that the results are more than listenable, thus this post containing the four songs requested, along with 10 more early and less-often-heard sides from Maggie’s Capitol oeuvre.

Whiting was among the first artists signed to that label, beginning her tenure in 1942. She was not even 18 years old when she first went before the Capitol mics, but she sounds remarkably assured from the beginning.

The first several songs in this set show her in the subsidiary role of band singer, with the records attributed to bandleaders Billy Butterfield and Freddie Slack, and Whiting credited in small type. As with many such big band records, the songs are in a danceable tempo and, at least with the earlier Butterfield sides, Maggie only comes in after one or more band choruses.

The first item is from a 1942 session in which Butterfield reaches back to 1930 for the DeSylva, Brown and Henderson song “Without Love.” You can detect the influence of Mildred Bailey in the 17-year-old Whiting’s singing here, but from then on, she was her own person.

The next song is “Silver Wings in the Moonlight,” a 1943 effort made popular by the wonderful Anne Shelton, whom I must feature here some day. Whiting sings the contrived lyrics backed by an out-of-tune Freddie Slack band. Sorry about the peak distortion, which was present on both of my copies of the 78.

Slack was better with rhythm songs, and moves on to a sort-of boogie woogie with the Don Raye-Gene de Paul product, “Ain't That Just Like a Man.” Whiting is fine, but Slack did this kind of thing better with Ella Mae Morse.

We return to Butterfield for the Cahn-Styne “There Goes That Song Again,” in a lumpy two-beat rendition dating from 1944. Maggie’s solo has to fight for attention with Johnny Guarnieri’s busy piano figuration.

A good version of “Someone to Watch Over Me” comes from Butterfield's Gershwin album, which otherwise did not make use of Whiting’s talents.

The singer moves up to equal billing with arranger Paul Weston for his 1945 version of Berlin's “How Deep Is the Ocean,” rendered in the hybrid big-band-with-strings style that was becoming popular, particularly behind singers. Maggie is supremely confident singing over Weston's gorgeous arrangement.

“Along With Me” (a beautiful post-wartime song from Harold Rome's Call Me Mister, which you can find on this blog here) has an uncharacteristically lush backing by former Miller arranger Jerry Gray. “When You Make Love to Me” is also in the hyper-romantic vein of the day, with Maggie backed by swirling strings, woodwinds and muted brass.

The balance of the sides were arranged by Capitol staffer Frank De Vol, a former big band hand comfortable in many styles.

“Beware My Heart” is a good but formulaic song from Sam Coslow. “What Am I Gonna Do About You?” is a lesser-known Cahn-Styne movie song from 1947’s Ladies Man.

“What Did I Do?” is a minor-key semi-blues from Josef Myrow, of all people, which Whiting does well. It came from film When My Baby Smiles at Me, and the small span of the melody may have been suited to stars Betty Grable and Dan Dailey, neither of whom had much range. The flip is the standard “Heat Wave.” On this one, the Capitol censors changed the words in Irving Berlin's couplet "She started a heat wave / By letting her seat wave" to "letting her feet wave," which doesn't quite work with the subsequent exclamation that “She certainly can can-can!”

“Dreamer with a Penny” posits the questionable premise that it’s better to be a dreamer than be rich with a worried mind, a common Depression-era conceit that was presumably comforting to the destitute. Nonetheless, it's a fine song by Lester Lee and Allan Roberts introduced in the 1949 revue All for Love, and especially well handled by Whiting. On the flip, De Vol could have breathed more life into “Forever and Ever,” a lugubrious hymn-like waltz.

The sound on these 78 is very good, with minimal surface noise.

For a bonus Whiting selection, you are invited to visit my singles blog for the story behind her 1951 tribute to longtime cowboy star Hopalong Cassidy, including a cameo by Hoppy himself, together with the theme music from the silver-haired cowpoke’s television show.