The Vagabond Alfred Drake, Plus Singles

This post presents Alfred Drake's sole operetta recording, Friml's The Vagabond King, dating from 1951, and adds nine of his lesser-known single sides from that period, including four Kiss Me. Kate songs not derived from the original cast album.

The site already has covered quite a lot of Drake's recorded output from mid-century - Roberta, Brigadoon, Sing Out Sweet Land and Down in the Valley, while avoiding his biggest hits, Oklahoma! and the Kiss Me, Kate cast album.

The Vagabond King

Friml's operetta was based on the legend of François Villon, as related in Justin Huntly McCarthy's book and play If I Were King. The musical version dates from 1925. It had a brief Broadway revival in 1943, and there have been a few Hollywood productions.

Drake's recording is from 1951, and while it is the only operetta he officially recorded (if I am not mistaken, which is always possible), he was not a stranger to the genre. His first appearances on Broadway were in the Civic Light Opera Company's 1935 repertory stagings of Gilbert & Sullivan, and his next New York role was in Benatzky's White Horse Inn. These all were in the ensemble, but he soon was to break out singing the title song in Rodgers and Hart's 1937 hit Babes in Arms, a piece that must have been wonderfully well suited to his powerful baritone. He wasn't to become famous, however, until 1943 and Oklahoma!

For The Vagabond King, Decca paired him with soprano Mimi Benzell, with mezzo Frances Bible also making a few appearances.

Mimi Benzell was the first and only vocalist with 'no time for applause,' if this 1952 ad is to be believed

Benzell (1918-70) was one of the many opera singers of the day who branched out into the popular arts. She was often on television and even had a nightclub act, along with a presence in the ads of the day. On this LP she seems one-dimensional, which may have been the idea, I suppose.

Frances Bible

Frances Bible (1919-2001) appeared with the New York City Opera for 30 years, and with several other US companies. Although she was quite accomplished, she never became widely known, probably because her career was confined to America.

Directing the orchestra is Broadway veteran Jay Blackton, who conducted many of the great musical productions of the 1940s through 70s, starting with Oklahoma! Blackton was an arranger, too, but I don't know if he handled the orchestrations for this recording.

This was one of a series of operettas the Decca released around mid-century, but the only one that featured Drake or the other vocalists appearing here.

1944-51 Decca and RCA Victor Singles

Drake primarily recorded for Decca during this period, starting with his appearance in Oklahoma! During that show's run, the US Army asked the Music War Committee of the Theater Wing for a song celebrating the infantry. Oscar Hammerstein chaired that committee, so he and Richard Rodgers produced "We're on Our Way (Infantry Song)," and Drake recorded it with Waring's Pennsylvanians. That was on June 1, 1944, a few days before D-Day.

While Drake was starring in Kiss Me, Kate on Broadway, in addition to the Columbia original cast production he also, strangely, recorded four of its numbers for RCA Victor, where he had signed early in 1949. "So in Love" and "Were Thine That Special Face" were solos, with Jane Pickens joining him for "Wunderbar" and "Why Can't You Behave." (He did not sing the latter in the show.) The backings are by old friend Lehman Engel.

Jane Pickens and Alfred Drake

RCA also had Drake do a bravura version of "Malagueña" during the same 1949 sessions, backed with the more placid "In the Spring of the Year," an Alec Wilder composition I somehow missed for my recent Buster's Unusual Spring compilation. Arranger Henri René unaccountably introduces Lecuona's "Malagueña" with what sounds like a cimbalom solo. (It works, though!) This was touted as the first vocal recording of "Malagueña," with lyrics by Marian Banks, but Jimmy Dorsey and Bob Eberly had done the song earlier in the decade with Bob Russell lyrics under the title "At the Cross-Roads." You can hear the latter in my Lecuona compilation from a few years ago.

Our final 78 comes from 1951. Decca had Drake revive two songs for this release. "The World Is Mine (Tonight)" is a George Posford song with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz, writing as Holt Marvell. Maschwitz is best known for "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "These Foolish Things." Nino Martini introduced the song in the 1936 film The Gay Desperado. 

The flip side was even older: 1911's "Till the Sands of the Desert Grow Cold" with lyrics by George Graff, Jr., and music by Ernest R. Ball.

The Vagabond King comes from my collection; the singles were cleaned up from lossless copies on Internet Archive. The sound in all cases is very good.

1949 Billboard ad

The Two 'Down in the Valley' Recordings

One of the first posts on this site was the Decca recording of one of Kurt Weill's last compositions, the 1948 folk opera Down in the Valley. But that was only one of two recordings of the work made in 1950. RCA Victor came out with a competing version that year.

Today's post includes the music from both 10-inch LPs: the Decca in a remastered version taken from the original album, and the RCA in a new transfer from a 1964 reissue. The latter combined Down in the Valley with another Weill work, the musical Lady in the Dark, which I featured several weeks ago.

The genesis of Down in the Valley 

Down in the Valley is a brief (45-minute) work built on several folk songs and designed for college and community forces. Weill and librettist Arnold Sundgaard had developed it in 1945 as a radio opera, but that production was shelved. In 1948, Hans Busch of the the Indiana University music school asked Weill if he could supply a work for his opera workshop. Weill was happy to comply - Busch was the son of his old friend and colleague, the conductor Fritz Busch - so he and Sundgaard reworked and expanded Down in the Valley for Indiana's use.

The opera was an immediate success with the public. The July 1948 production on the Bloomington, Indiana campus led to another a few weeks later in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. The latter was broadcast, leading to dozens of college and amateur productions in the next few years.

The producers of television's nascent NBC Opera Theatre took notice. The NBC troupe had begun its 15-year history in 1949 with a staging of Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief, commissioned by NBC radio in 1939. The Weill work became the TV Opera Theatre's second production, and was telecast on January 14, 1950. As far as I can tell, a kinescope does not survive.

Kurt Weill and Marion Bell in Bloomington

Conducting the televised opera was Peter Herman Adler, who was artistic director of the NBC Opera Theatre throughout its existence. The leading role of Jennie was taken by Marion Bell, who had been in the Bloomington production and previously was one of the leads in the original cast of Brigadoon. The male leads were William McGraw as Brack and Ray Jacquemot as the villain Bouché. Neither performer had illustrious careers, but both are excellent in the recording.

The competing LPs

Jane Wilson in 1946

RCA Victor was quick to capitalize on the interest Down in the Valley had excited, taking the television cast into the recording studio 11 days after the broadcast

Meanwhile, Decca took notice of the opera's popularity, and thought it might be a match for its newly acquired vocal star, Alfred Drake, who had appeared on Broadway several years before in the folk-based revue, Swing Out, Sweet Land. Decca had him record the work in April 1950. Taking the role of Jennie was Jane Wilson, who had risen to prominence on the radio with Fred Waring's troupe. The conductor was Maurice Levine, whom Weill had engaged to conduct Lost in the Stars on Broadway the year before.

Curiously, Weill stamped his imprimatur on the studio version rather than RCA's recording of the television production. He had supervised the Decca production until his death just three weeks before the recording session.

The two 1950 recordings of Down in the Valley were issued simultaneously, with both reviewed in the July 22 issue of Billboard. The critic there preferred the Decca version, but I vote for the RCA, which seems more settled, probably because it was based on an actual production. The sound on both is just fine.

The opera

As a work of theatre, Down in the Valley was more popular with audiences than certain critics, who disliked both the book and the music. They complained that Weill stitched the folk songs together with music better suited to Puccini than small-town Americans, and they felt that Sundgaard's story was pat and unrealistic. But neither Sundgaard nor Weill were aiming for verisimilitude.

Arnold Sundgaard

The story is a simple good guy vs. bad guy one, with a girl as the object of their dispute. Sundgaard, a veteran of the Federal Theatre Project, put an anti-capitalist spin on the plot by having the villain Bouché hold a lien on the family home. So the girl's father is eager to match her with him rather than her preferred suitor, Brack, even though the plot makes it clear that Bouché is no good. Poor Brack kills Bouché in self-defense, is sentenced to death, then escapes and spends his final moments of freedom with the girl, Jennie.

If that seems like a stock story line, it was meant to be. Sundgaard wrote, "Its unfolding as a tragic romance was intended to follow in extended form the shape and progression of a traditional ballad." A talented librettist and lyricist, Sundgaard worked with Douglas Moore, Alec Wilder and John Latouche in addition to Weill.

Score with Grandma Moses cover

The composer was proud of the opera, and just as proud of its success. He wrote his parents, "The critic from the [New York] Times is comparing my opera with the original Beggar's Opera, which was the source of English opera, and says that Down in the Valley will go down in history as the 'fountain head' of American opera."

Weill died thinking that he had reached a new peak in his career. Today we remember him much more for his German works and his American musicals than for Down in the Valley, which is considered a period piece - Weill's contribution to the then-popular strain of Americana.

I imagine the work is still performed today occasionally, but its popularity certainly has dimmed since these recordings were made. After the two competing LPs, to my knowledge only one recording has followed - a 1991 version from the German label Capriccio, which has issued all Weill's operas.

Follow @BusterBig10Inch

Kern's 'Roberta' with Alfred Drake

Jerome Kern's Roberta is not one of his best-known musicals, but it has been the subject of at least three recordings and two film versions.

This present LP, dating from 1944, was the first recording, and in common with all versions since the original show save the most recent, it is much altered from what was seen on Broadway in 1933.

Alfred Drake

My own interest in it flows from two sources: the presence of the great Alfred Drake and Kern's underrated score.

Roberta was legendarily troubled in its gestation, with Kern himself replaced as director during tryouts. The story is that its eventual commercial success relied on the popularity of one song, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." That strikes me as unlikely, but regardless, the show achieved enough renown that it was made into a film in 1935. Only four of its songs survived in that version, with two added - "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At." The latter, written for the film, is included on the LP at hand.

Perhaps reflecting the influence of librettist and lyricist Otto Harbach, an operetta veteran, the score for Roberta comes across on this record as a way station between operetta and musicals. Drake, who had a background in operetta, switches between the two approaches depending on the song. For "You're Devastating" and "The Touch of Your Hand" he adopts a "legit" voice. For "Don't Ask Me Not to Sing," he is more conversational. Either way, he is admirable.

Kathryn Meisle

Drake's confusion may be because he is singing songs associated with three characters. "Don't Ask Me Not to Sing," for example, was introduced by Bob Hope, fresh from vaudeville. Hope interpolated a number of musical impressions (e.g., Bing Crosby), missing here. "You're Devastating," in contrast, was the big song for Ray Middleton, a baritone with operatic experience.

Two other members of the Decca cast had backgrounds in opera or operetta - contralto Kathryn Meisle handles "Yesterdays," the song associated with the title character. Meisle had stretches with the San Francisco and Chicago Operas and at the Met.

Kitty Carlisle

Soprano Kitty Carlisle duets with Drake in "The Touch of Your Hand," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Lovely to Look At." She had been on Broadway in operettas and musicals, and in a few films (notably A Night at the Opera). She later was a panelist on the U.S. television show To Tell the Truth for 22 years.

The other singer in this performance is Paula Lawrence, who was on Broadway in One Touch of Venus when this was recorded. She had a long career and was much on television in later years.

Paula Lawrence

At the time of the recording, Drake himself was either nearing the end of his run in Oklahoma! or was preparing for Sing Out, Sweet Land, which opened at the end of the year.

I've expressed my admiration for Drake several times on this blog, featuring him in the Sing Out, Sweet Land original cast LP, a rare set of Brigadoon songs made for a small label, a promo record for a televised version of The Yeoman of the Guard and the original recording of Kurt Weill's last work, Down in the Valley. Those transfers can be found via this link.

I mentioned my belief that the score is underrated. It's not because of my fondness for "Yesterdays," beloved of every cabaret singer who ever cracked a note. Nor is it because of the score's big hit, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." I had my fill of that tune at a young age due to the hit rendition by the Platters' histrionic lead singer, Tony Williams. It's due to the other songs, notably "The Touch of Your Hand" and "You're Devastating," which to my ears are two of Kern's finest melodies.

The LP does not provide a credit for the orchestrations. They are not the original charts, which were by Robert Russell Bennett, although they are good. Harry Sosnik leads the band, and Jeff Alexander the well-drilled chorus. This version of Roberta was first issued on 78s (cover below). My transfer is from the 1949 LP.

Sing Out, Sweet Land

Sing Out, Sweet Land was an attempt to bring American folk music to Broadway in the waning days of World War II. Opening in late December 1944, it remained afloat for a little over three months before being sunk by its weak and contrived book.

The play was mainly an excuse for a lengthy parade of music whose connecting tissue was that it was American. The original playbill called it "A Salute to American Folk and Popular Music," and as such it presaged the crossover success of such artists as the Weavers later in the decade.

Burl Ives

While Alfred Drake starred in the show, fresh from his triumph in Oklahoma!, the breakout performer became Burl Ives. In this production, the big folk singer first presented a number of songs that became associated with him, including "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Blue Tail Fly."

Decca recorded the show - or at least some of it - in 1945 for an album  that first appeared on LP in this 1949-50 incarnation. The complete show must have seemed endless. The list of songs in the playbill (included in the download) goes on and on, with 13 separate scenes and locations. Drake is common to all as a character called Barnaby Goodchild, who runs afoul of the Puritans and somehow is consigned to wandering through history singing and such.

This idea came from playwright Walter Kerr, better known as a critic. In the program (also in the download), the author is at pains to say that this is not a pageant - but that's exactly what it is. I suppose it is an ancestor of the jukebox shows that have thrived on Broadway in recent decades.

Alfred Drake with Alma Kaye as "Little Mohee"

Much of the music will be familiar to anyone of my age and background. Most of this "folk music" came from commercial sources, although perhaps once of folk origin. "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," while certainly a hobo song, was recorded (and perhaps written) by Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock in 1928. "Blue Tail Fly" probably came from a minstrel show. "Little Mohee" will be instantly recognizable to many as being closely related to "On Top of Old Smoky" (later a hit for the Weavers) and "Birmingham Jail." The melody may go back to Elizabethan times. "Frankie and Johnny," although possibly based on older material, was first published in 1912 and recorded in 1924. (The notes to a Pete Seeger anthology, provided in the download, provide clues to the origins of these songs.)

Program cover

American composer Elie Siegmeister arranged the music, and managed to get his name on the record packaging 20-some times. Less fortunate was the great Juanita Hall, who has an important part on the record and presumably in the show. She barely rates a mention in the playbill and program, and her "Watermelon Woman" character became an unfortunate caricature on the LP cover.

Also in the cast is the delightful Bibi Osterwald, who sings the vaudeville hit "Casey Jones" with appropriate gusto.

Decca's sound is reasonably good, although something went wrong in the LP mastering of "I Have Been a Good Boy."

1945 Decca ad

Alfred Drake in Songs from Brigadoon

Alfred Drake is surely among the most famous personalities ever to appear in Broadway musicals. He never recorded the score of Brigadoon, however, except for this obscure two-record set of 78s from 1947. (I haven't found another recording, anyway.)

Drake was already one of the leading stars on Broadway when these  sides were cut. His performance as Curly in Oklahoma four years earlier had made him famous.

When Brigadoon opened in March 1947, Drake was appearing in the Duke Ellington-John Latouche version of The Beggars' Opera, which was called Beggars' Holiday. Later in 1947, the baritone joined a revival of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock.

Rainbow Records was new when it signed Drake for this set, contracting him for The Heather on the Hill, From This Day On, and Almost Like Being in Love. Joining him for the first two songs is the obscure Roberta Roberts. Another unknown, Bill Venturo, handles Come to Me, Bend to Me (and quite well, too). It's possible that Venturo is actually Bill Ventura, who later turned up as one of Mitch Miller's Sing-Along Gang. Rainbow doesn't bother acknowledging anyone but Drake on the cover.

As you can see, the cover itself is garish and cheap looking, but the production is surprisingly good. Rainbow brought in Brigadoon orchestrator Ted Royal to lead the orchestra, and provided fairly good sound. The pressings are grainy, however, and my copy is certainly not mint.

I probably don't need to add that Drake is excellent. This is most enjoyable.

Yeomen of the Guard with Barbara Cook and Alfred Drake

Today we have a very unusual item - a promotional record made for a 1957 televised presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard, with a cast that included Alfred Drake and Barbara Cook, fresh from Candide.

I'm no expert on G&S, but I have not seen this record noted elsewhere, including the on-line Gilbert & Sullivan discography. (The Yeomen page has a very good article on the production.)

The record is a 7-inch EP issued by the NBC publicity department. My copy does not have a cover, and I doubt it came in one.

These songs are not excerpts from the televised production itself, which probably was transmitted live. These were pre-recorded with piano accompaniment in place of the Franz Allers-led orchestra that was featured on the Hallmark Hall of Fame program.

The sound is good, and reveals fine performances by Alfred Drake, Barbara Cook and Bill Hayes, and a soggy one from Celeste Holm.

NEW TRANSFER

Weill's Down in the Valley with Alfred Drake

Here is one of Kurt Weill's less well-known efforts. It was one of his last compositions, and he was preparing to supervise this 1950 recording when he died.

Despite this being a 10-inch record, it contains the complete "ballad opera," which lasted only about 45 minutes. Weill intended it for performance by amateurs. Nonetheless, the lead in this version is Alfred Drake, hardly an beginner. It's a superb performance. All the more odd, then, that this version is not in print and may never have been reissued since its initial publication. However, a rival recording from RCA Victor has been out at least twice. It too is in my collection, but although I haven't heard it for some years, I don't think it is better than this one.

The story involves an evil, rapacious capitalist who is killed in self-defense by Drake's man of the people, who then is sent off to meet his fate at the hands of the state. A period piece that makes liberal use of familiar tunes like "Down in the Valley."

The basic sound here is pretty good, but my pressing must have been owned by either a Weill lover or a stalwart of the Old Left. It was beaten down as Drake's proletariat character. But my remastering has it sounding pretty good.

Note: I have now combined both the Decca and RCA recordings in one updated post.