Portia Nelson Sings Bart Howard

Bart Howard made his living as a cabaret pianist, but he also was a talented songwriter. His "My Love Is a Wanderer" has been heard here in versions by Betty Clooney and Shannon Bolin, but I wanted to offer a more expansive selection of his songs. The best way to do that is via cabaret legend Portia Nelson (1920-2001), who devoted an entire LP to Howard's work, and included his songs on her other two albums. This post gathers those 17 recordings together.

You may never have heard of Howard (1915-2004), but you surely have heard his best known song, "Fly Me to the Moon." Nelson was among the first to record that song, under its original title, "In Other Words." It's on her 1956 LP Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Songs of Bart Howard, which forms the basis of today's post.

Bart Howard and Mabel Mercer

Bart Howard (born Howard Joseph Gustafson) left his Iowa home at age 16 to tour with a dance band. He made it to New York in the late 1930s as a café pianist. Café singer Mabel Mercer was the first to sing his songs, and he served as her accompanist from 1946-49.

Portia Nelson (born Betty Mae Nelson in Brigham City, Utah), worked in Hollywood studios as a young woman while singing in night spots on the side, encouraged by the likes of Jane Russell. The co-owner of Manhattan's Blue Angel (or perhaps it was a Columbia exec, sources differ) caught her act and invited her to New York, where she moved in 1950. There, she met Howard, who soon would become the pianist and music director at the Blue Angel night spot, where Nelson often performed.

Nelson quickly attracted notice of influential people. Columbia Records' Goddard Lieberson invited her to make her first LP, 1952's Love Songs for a Late Evening, while featuring her in the label's excellent series of studio cast recordings, including albums devoted to On Your Toes, Roberta and The Boys from Syracuse.

Let Me Love You

By 1956 Nelson was so associated with Bart Howard's songs that she recorded a whole album devoted to them - Let Me Love You - Portia Nelson Sings the Songs of Bart Howard. This came out on the New Sound label, which as far as I can tell, only issued two other LPs, one a classical recital, the other by a singer calling herself "the sweetheart of Sigmund Freud."

Ralph Burns

Fortunately, New Sound had enough wherewithal to employ the talents of the noted arranger Ralph Burns. His scores called for a rhythm section and harp on all numbers, adding flute on some songs, and on others a larger ensemble that included cellos, winds, bass, bongos and celesta. These subtle settings set off Nelson's scrupulous approach to Howard's songs.

Nelson's voice is best described as precise - in phrasing, intonation, rhythm and care for both the words and the melody. This is not a sound that you would hear today outside of a few cabarets. Describing this record in High Fidelity, Robert Kotlowitz wrote that she "has one of the coolest sopranos around, and she handles it with a fresh, probing intelligence." Down Beat reported that she "is a singer of controlled intensity and delicacy of tone, emotional maturity, and musical intelligence."

Let Me Love You includes Howard's best known numbers - the title song, the exhilarating "On the First Warm Day in May," "Let Me Thank You for a Wonderful Summer," "Let Me Love You" and of course "In Other Words." Nelson was one of the first artists to record this famous song. Kaye Ballard got there first - in 1954, when both she and Portia were in the Broadway cast of The Golden Apple.  Also in the cast was Shannon Bolin, whose replacement was the redoubtable Charlotte Rae.

It wasn't until the early 1960s that Peggy Lee, who had included "In Other Words" on her 1960 LP Pretty Eyes, convinced Bart Howard to change the title to "Fly Me to the Moon." Sinatra caught up to it in 1964 for his album with Count Basie, and he and the powerful Quincy Jones arrangement made it famous.

Nelson's recording of "In Other Words" includes the seldom heard verse.

Two Songs from Love Songs for a Late Evening

Also included in the download are the two Howard songs that can be found on Nelson's first LP, recorded for Columbia in late 1952. "Who Wants to Fall in Love" and "My Love Is a Wanderer" are among Howard's best and best-regarded songs,

Portia's backing on this LP and the album below was provided by the Norman Paris Trio, like the singer and composer well known for their work in the clubs of New York. The picture below was taken from an LP recorded at the Blue Angel backing Dorothy Loudon.

The Norman Paris Trio

Three Songs from Autumn Leaves

Nelson's final LP as a cabaret singer was 1957's Autumn Leaves, again with the Norman Paris Trio. Here the singer includes three of Howard's best songs, although they are less well known as some others - "One Look at You," "Alone with Me" and "Take Care of Yourself," a touching song in a sincere, affecting performance.

Autumn Leaves was the product of another short lived label, Dolphin, which specialized in cabaret performers - Nancy Walker, Jane Wilson, Elaine Stritch, Greta Keller, Julie Wilson and Hermione Gingold. Though the label was small, as with the New Sound LP above, the results are impressive in production quality and sound. (All three LPs, in fact, sound great.)

These recordings all come from my collection. I transferred the Dolphin songs from a 1970s reissue. The download includes scans from all three LPs, reviews and photos.

Nelson made only one other LP - the strange Lady Nelson and the Lords, a quasi-rock album from 1968. Portia does not sing on this one, rather plays the electric organ. The disc intersperses her own songs with the hits of the day - "Monday, Monday" and the like.

The decade of the '60s did represent a turning point, both for the singer and for Bart Howard. She moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as an actor, with some success. Her roles includes Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music, and Sarah in Dr. Doolittle. She was on television quite a bit, notably in All My Children. She also was an author, a writer of musicals, a vocal coach, and a stage actor in such productions as the original cast of the ill-fated The Baker's Wife.

When Howard perhaps unexpectedly became successful, he no longer had to play the piano in cabarets, being able to live on the significant income provided by "Fly Me to the Moon" and his other songs. Perhaps his last big success was "The Man in the Looking Glass," included by Sinatra in his autumnal LP of 1965, September of My Years.

Nelson's final recording was 1996's Portia Nelson: This Life: Her Songs and Her Friends, with Portia, Margaret Whiting, Ann Hampton Callaway, Amanda McBroom, Nancy Lamott and William Roy performing her songs. Quite a life!

Portia Nelson and Jane Russell