Christmas with the Postwar Bands

The Ray McKinley Band

Interest in America's big bands tailed off in the postwar years, but the most popular bands were still active in the recording studio. And of course they produced that staple of the music industry, the holiday release, whether covering an old favorite or introducing the latest work from one of America's tunesmiths.

In today's post we'll look at 14 of these seasonal specialties. The recordings include both the newest songs and perennials revisited by the upcoming bands.

We'll concentrate on the postwar years, but let's start with two items from the late-war era.

Charlie Spivak

Charlie Spivak's band is largely forgotten, even though he was prominent and popular for quite a period. In 1944, he came out with the new song "A Wonderful Winter (For You and Me)" by Marty Symes and Al Kaufman. It went nowhere on the charts, but still it's a pleasant outing in the hands (lips?) of trumpeter Spivak and singer Jimmy Saunders. Alvin Stoller is the drummer in this band - he will appear at the end of this post in an unfamiliar role as vocalist in a Billy May number.

In early 1945, Les Brown's band was covering a good song with a holiday (or at least winter) veneer, "Sleigh Ride in July." Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke wrote the piece for Dinah Shore to introduce in the film Belle of the Yukon. The popular version of the song was by Bing Crosby, but Brown's Gordon Drake does it well, too.

Les Brown, Jack Haskell

The following year, Les came back with a two-sided Christmas offering. One side was the new "Christmas Song," presented by his popular vocalist Doris Day. It was backed by "When You Trim Your Christmas Tree," a worthy outing by Doris' male counterpart, Jack Haskell. I may have shared this item a long time ago, but it's worth a revisit. In later years, Haskell had a fair amount of success on television.

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" has become one of the most popular songs of the season. (Second Hand Songs lists 1,295 versions!) The first recording was by Bing in 1943, and there was a well-received release by Perry Como three years later. In 1947, the song was taken up by vocalist/bandleader Eddy Howard, who had a big hit the previous year with "To Each His Own." Eddy was not without his vocal mannerisms, but his reading of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is sincere and affecting.

Eddy Howard, Ray McKinley

Ray McKinley had a long career as bandleader, and before that was a noted drummer-singer with Jimmy Dorsey and Will Bradley. McKinley was a close friend of Glenn Miller, co-led the Miller AAF Band following Miller's disappearance, and later fronted the Miller ghost band. Even so, the arrangements for his own postwar band betrayed little Miller influence, being done by the noted Eddie Sauter and Deane Kincaid. There is an extensive survey of McKinley's postwar recordings on this blog, but today we'll just sample one - a new song for 1948 called "Little Jack Frost Get Lost" by Al Stillman and Segar Ellis. Ray is the vocalist, and manages as usual to be stylish even though he had very little range.

An Amos Milburn recording session

Johnny Moore's Three Blazers had a hit in 1947 with "Merry Christmas, Baby," with a vocal by Charles Brown. In 1949, another piano-playing singer, Amos Milburn, tried to duplicate this success by pretty much duplicating the song, rearranging the title into "Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby." It's a basic blues number, but tuneful and well done. The label credits "Amos Milburn and His Chicken-Shackers," not because they had opened a restaurant, but because they had recently enjoyed a chart success with "Chicken Shack Boogie."

Harry Prime

Ralph Flanagan led one of the first and most successful Miller-clone bands. In 1949 RCA Victor was giving him a big push on its Bluebird budget label, including his Miller-esque disc of "White Christmas," with an sonorous vocal by Harry Prime. Victor issued a series of promos at the time, including a Flanagan intro to this record. You can find it on my other blog. The bandleader also has been a frequent visitor on this site.

Freddie Mitchell

Tenor sax playing bandleader Freddie Mitchell could and did turn anything into a boogie, particularly after his 1949 success with "Doby's Boogie," named in honor of Cleveland Indians outfielder Larry Doby. For the holiday season that same year he came out with the "Jingle Bell Boogie," which works much better than you might expect, particularly if you have a taste for rip-roaring tenor saxes and plinkety-plunk upright pianos. The other side of that disc was the "Auld Lang Syne Boogie," which I uploaded several years ago. Sixteen more Mitchell sides (including "Doby's Boogie") can be found here.

Ray Anthony, Ronnie Deauville

Peter De Rose and Carl Sigman penned "A Marshmallow World" in 1950. It's a winning song, and while never a huge hit, did attract the attention of some heavy hitters, including Bing and Vic Damone. Our entry will be the version by the Ray Anthony band, another part-time Miller clone outfit that was very popular for years. The vocal here is by Ronnie Deauville, a particular favorite of mine. I devoted several posts to him and his sad story in the early days of this blog.

Louis Jordan

"May Every Day Be Christmas" is a sentiment that has long been a popular with songwriters (and others). This 1951 iteration is by alto saxophonist and vocalist Louis Jordan, one of the greatest hitmakers of the postwar era. Here he fronts a big band plus organist Wild Bill Davis. The earnest results are quite a contrast with such jaunty Jordan hits as "Five Guys Named Moe."

Tex Beneke and Cash Box ad

Also in 1951, Tex Beneke came out with a two-sided Christmas special - "The Santa Claus Parade" and "A Rootin' Tootin' Santa Claus." By this time, Tex had left the Miller scene behind and was making records for M-G-M without a trace of Glenn's trademark sound. These two are engaging novelties from the saxophonist-vocalist, whose other work can be found here.

Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan

As the 1950s wore on, bands tried to distinguish themselves by trying something different - in the case of Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan's band, it was to drop any pretense of playing for dancers, rather presenting themselves as a concert ensemble. The musical results were often exciting, but seldom commercial - not pop enough to be popular and not classical enough to attract the high-toned crowd. The band's 1952 Christmas issue is a good example of the Sauter-Finegan approach - a winning arrangement of the "Troika" movement from Sergei Prokofiev Lt. Kije Suite, called "Midnight Sleighride" by the arrangers. Prokofiev's piece has become associated with the season, and the band's sleigh bells point up that connection. The Sauter-Finegan Band has been featured here several times.

Billy May

Finally, Billy May's "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo" from 1954. This was one of May's contributions to the mambo mania of the time. Drummer Alvin Stoller does a knocked-out Perez Prado routine - instead of Prado's "ugh" he shouts "May!" and a number of other interjections, some I can even understand. The chart's slurping saxes were characteristic of May and well suited to this kiddie favorite.

May was another bandleader (his was a studio band) who had a Miller connection - he played trumpet in the band (as did Ray Anthony). Bill Finegan was a Miller arranger. As noted, Ray McKinley was in the AAF band and later led the Miller ghost band. Tex Beneke was in the prewar band and led the official Miller band postwar.

These selections were remastered from needle drops found on Internet Archive. The sound is generally vivid, as is often the case with old 78s (believe it or not).

LINK

Buster's Unusual Spring

If your heart doesn't go dancing at the thought of another spring-themed compilation, I hope this collection, "Buster's Unusual Spring," will at least start your feet tapping.

In these 28 selections, I've avoided the usual spring songs - "Spring Is Here," "It Might as Well Be Spring," and so on - in favor of more esoteric fare. Multiple genres are represented - pop, classical, jazz and country among them. I myself was unfamiliar with most of these numbers. The best known are probably "It Happens Every Spring" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" - and you will recognize a few classical melodies in new settings.

As usual, the recordings are discussed below in chronological order.

The first selection is the only acoustic recording in the set, and a late one at that - it's from 1926 and the technology-challenged Gennett label. Chic Winter (other sources say it's Winters) and orchestra offer the peppy "Spring Is Here" (not the Rodgers and Hart song). Winter(s) led a fancy outfit that was in residence at the impressive but long-gone Hotel Gramatan in Westchester County, north of New York City.

The following year, HMV had the incomparable John McCormack in London's Queen's Hall for a session devoted in part to settings by Granville Bantock of poems by Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng (the name itself is poetry) that were based on ancient Chinese texts. "A Dream of Spring" is from a work by the eighth century writer Ts'en Ts'an. McCormack sings with his usual penetrating intelligence, sympathy for the text, sweet tone and faultless diction.

Harry McClintock by R. Crumb

We abruptly switch genres from Sir Granville to the musings of Haywire Mac, the author of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Here, under the name of Radio Mac, the America folk singer Harry McClintock presents the "Hobo's Spring Song," done for Victor in 1929. Mac was a colorful character who was a member of the International Workers of the World and spent time as a union organizer.

Harold aka Scrappy aka Burt

Also from 1929, we have tightly-muted trumpeter Henry Busse with orchestra and the much-recorded vocalist Scrappy Lambert under the name Burt Lorin. They offer up "Like a Breath of Spring-Time," which makes me wonder when "springtime" became a compound word. The song comes from the lost film Hearts in Exile, which was issued both as a silent and a talkie. Presumably the song was more effective in the latter version. By the way, this song was also recorded by Dr. Eugene Ormandy's Salon Orchestra before the conductor went uptown.

From 1930, Waring's Pennsylvanians give us "It Seems to Be Spring," written for the film Let's Go Native. With a title like that, the movie had to be offensive in some manner, but the plot summary just sounds inane, as does the casting - Jack Oakie and Jeanette MacDonald. One hopes that MacDonald rather than Oakie introduced the song. In either case, they had to be better than the anemic Three Girlfriends who assist Fred Waring on the record.

"Spring in Manhattan" of 1934 is one of the earlier releases from the Liberty Music Shop label, which specialized in cabaret music. Most of its artists were familiar from New York nightlife, but here, despite the song's title, we have Los Angeles' Bruz Fletcher, who recorded very little but has a following even today. Fletcher's song comes from the album above.

Ray Noble

We now transport you from Manhattan to France for "Paris in Spring," which Mack Gordon and Harry Revel wrote for the film of the same name. Despite the titles of movie and music lacking the definite article, Al Bowlly sings "Paris in the spring." The South African vocalist had come to the US with English bandleader Ray Noble, who assembled a superb American band. The troupe began recording in 1935, including this fine song, here in a wonderfully polished and presented arrangement with a characteristic vocal by Bowlly, an exceptional singer. Noble was to stay in the States, but Bowlly moved back to England in 1937 and perished in the London blitz.

Ella and Chick

"I Got the Spring Fever Blues" is from 1936 and and the band of Chick Webb with the young Ella Fitzgerald sounding surprisingly like Connie Boswell with a touch of Mildred Bailey. Ella is great, and the band, led by the short-lived drummer Webb, is as well. In the ensemble are such luminaries as Taft Jordan, Teddy McRae and Sandy Williams.

Peg LaCentra

Another great band was led by Artie Shaw, here with one of his first recordings, also from 1936. At this early date Shaw was known as "Art Shaw." Some of you may be familiar with "There's Frost on the Moon (Spring in My Heart)," which turns up in Christmas compilations. Shaw already had started incorporating strings in his arrangements - unusual for a swing band at the time. One of the violinists here was Jerry Gray, later a famed arranger for Glenn Miller (who himself was a Ray Noble sideman and played trombone on the "Paris in Spring" date above). The success of the Shaw record, though, is largely due to the excellent singer Peg LaCentra.

Teddy Wilson

Moving to 1939, we hear the evocative song "Some Other Spring," from the band of pianist Teddy Wilson and vocalist Jean Eldridge. Billie Holiday fans will likely be familiar with her Columbia recording of this song. Although Holiday made many great recordings with Wilson earlier in her career, she had moved on by this point. Eldridge was a sensitive singer, but didn't have a strong voice. Wilson's piano is excellent, as always.

Fletcher Henderson

The fashion for adapting classical airs for swing numbers was in full flower when Benny Goodman and band decided to adopt Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" for a 1939 record with a Fletcher Henderson chart. I can't imagine the composer approving this version, but he had been gone for almost a century at the time. More than 80 years later, we can enjoy both Mendelssohn's piano piece and the Goodman-Henderson swing interpretation.

Earl Robinson and Paul Robeson

A very different "Spring Song" comes to us from the great Paul Robeson and frequent collaborator Earl Robinson, working with Harry Schachter. Robeson and Robinson had their biggest success with "Ballad for Americans" in 1939. "Spring Song," an anti-war ballad, was issued in 1941 during the run-up to the American involvement in World War II. Robeson and Robinson were Communists, a group that wanted to keep the US from waging war on Germany, which had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets in 1939. "Spring Song" was released shortly before the German invasion of Russia.

Jerry Mazanec

From 1942, Jerry Mazanec and his Bohemian polka band regale us with "Spring Awakening." I believe Mazanec was from Cleveland, but his more traditional approach soon was supplanted on Columbia records by the propulsive Slovenian band of that city's Frankie Yankovic, who became nationally popular after the war.

Larry Green led a Boston society band in the Eddy Duchin mold. He offers "Spring Is Really Spring This Year" (as opposed to being autumn, I suppose). It's a nice song and the leader's florid Carmen Cavallaro-style piano playing occasionally gives way for a good Gil Phelan vocal. This one comes from 1946; I have a Green LP on Vik from about 10 years later, but it tells us nothing else about him.

Charlie Spivak

The trumpeter Charlie Spivak was at the helm of a swing band for many years and many recordings, among them "Spring Magic" from 1946. You will immediately recognize the melody for this one. Alexander Borodin invented it for one of his string quartets. Alec Wilder rudely appropriated it without attribution for this pleasant tune with vocal by Jimmy Saunders and the Stardreamers. Several years later, Wright and Forrest borrowed the same melody for "And This Is My Beloved" from Kismet.

Old friend Johnny Johnston peeks in with "I Bring You Spring" with the assistance of the Crew Chiefs and bandleader Sonny Burke. This is a good tune with a sonorous vocal that wasn't included in my 2019 compilation of Johnston's recordings. It comes from 1947.

Hal McIntyre

That same year, excellent Hal McIntyre band featuring the sorely underrated vocalist Frankie Lester produced an M-G-M single of "Spring in December" - another song that features in holiday compilations. Some of Hal's later recordings have appeared here.

Fans of Frank Sinatra and Dick Haymes may be familiar with "It Happens Every Spring," which originated in the 1949 film of the same name. The tune is nothing special, but Mack Gordon's lyrics paint a charming American scene at mid-century. This interpretation is from the future talk-show host and media mogul Merv Griffin, working with Freddy Martin's band.

Bill Farrell

The talented but now-forgotten vocalist Bill Farrell sings "Spring Made a Fool of Me" with support from Russ Case. Farrell, supposedly discovered by Bob Hope, had been listening to two other Bills - Billy Eckstine and Billy Daniels - but his singing is nonetheless impressive. He recorded for a few labels circa 1950, then made a few albums for Dobre in the 1970s.

At the same time and also for M-G-M, Russ Case recorded instrumentals under his own name, including an inoffensive "Symphony of Spring," which is our next selection.

In December 1951, Mercury invited Paul & Roy the Tennessee River Boys (seems like there should be some punctuation in there) to Nashville's Tulane Hotel to set down their own "Spring of Love." Paul & Roy were in the Bill Monroe bluegrass mold, minus the banjo. Good stuff.

Early the following year, the popular Four Aces Featuring Al Alberts did "Spring Is a Wonderful Thing" for Decca. Al's vocal gyrations have never been a favorite of mine, and here he is at his most elaborately emotive.

Back to the country genre for the Maddox Brothers and Rose and their "The Time Is Spring." This comes from 1953 and a group that is always entertaining, here supplemented by guitarists Joe Maphis and Johnny Bond.

The Four Freshmen

The Four Freshmen and the illustrious arranger Nelson Riddle turned their attentions to Matt Dennis' excellent ballad "Love Turns Winter to Spring" for a 1954 release on the Capitol label.

Next, an obscurity - the multi-talented Ken Moore, who not only sang and played the piano on "Spring May Come," but wrote the piece and released it on his own Lucky label in 1954. Billboard called it "listenable after-hours wax" and so it is.

Kitty Kallen came out of a big-band background for a successful solo career, with her biggest hit being "Little Things Mean a Lot" in 1954. "Come Spring" is from the next year, about the same time that Kallen began having the vocal problems that impeded her career for several years. I don't know if this is why Decca turned the vocal reverb up to 11 for this record; I do know that the sound would be better without the intrusion.

Jimmie Rodgers

Bobby Troup's touching song "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" is perhaps better known as the reworked Beach Boys tune "A Young Man Is Gone," yet another James Dean homage that is beautifully sung but pointless. The Boys' harmonies were modeled on those of the Four Freshmen in that group's recording of the original. Here we have the excellent folk-oriented pop singer Jimmie Rodgers backed by Hugo Peretti. His rendition was on the flip side of his big 1957 hit "Honeycomb."

Our final selection will be familiar - perhaps overly so - to any fan of the cabaret singer set. It is "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," a wonderful Tommy Wolf-Fran Landesman song that is done perfectly by jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. This is taken from the singer's 1962 LP Rah, which I have featured in its unexpurgated version. (See the post for an explanation.)

Except for the final number, these files have been remastered from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive.

Hope your spring is going well; it snowed here today.

Let's Sing a Quasi-Irish Song with Buster

And now, to mark the upcoming feast of St. Patrick, I present an Irish-themed compendium that has nothing to do with that good saint and very little to do with Ireland itself. While each selection is Irish-related in some way, it is usually the Irish or Irish music through the lens of American or English composers and performers - with the notable exception of the great Irish tenor John McCormack. Apropos of its varied ingredients, I am calling this collection "Buster's Irish Stew."

As usual, I'll present the 32 selections chronologically, reaching back to the early years of last century for the oldest specimens.

Peter Wyper

Our first number, an "Irish Jig," comes from 1909 and the Scottish accordionist Peter Wyper. He was supposedly the first accordionist to make records, so now you know who to blame.

The following year, two of the big stars of the early recording scene, the Americans Steve Porter and Billy Murray, combined for the vaudeville routine "Irish Wit," with a snappy tune sandwiching fast-paced ethnic repartee.

American banjo virtuoso Fred Van Eps is next with his 1911 record of "Irish Hearts." Van Eps was the father of jazz guitarist George Van Eps.

Fred Van Eps at the recording horn

Vaudevillian Ada Jones was last heard on this site in a German dialect number; on this 1911 record she has been transformed into an Irish lass, telling her "German dunce" boyfriend that "You Will Have to Sing an Irish Song" to have a chance with her. Albert Von Tilzer ("Take Me Out to the Ball Game") was the songwriter.

Billy Murray turns up again in 1912 with a tune called "If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews," reminding us that "without the Pats and Isidores you'd have no big department stores," among other benefits provided by these two ethnicities. Presumably the Victor company hoped to sell these platters in both Irish and Jewish neighborhoods, and the department stores run by Pat and Isidore.

Cigarette card from 1914

The great John McCormack makes the first of several appearances in this collection with the traditional song "Molly Brannigan." The recording dates from 1913, although this pressing comes from 1920.

Among his other accomplishments, the American songwriter and singer Chauncey Olcott wrote two enduring standards - "My Wild Irish Rose" and "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." In 1913, Olcott recorded the first named for Columbia.

Olcott was an polished vocalist but no John McCormack, who did his own version of "My Wild Irish Rose" for Victor in 1914. The song dates from 1899, when it was heard in the Broadway play A Romance of Athlone. Coincidentally, McCormack himself was from that Irish town.

One of Australian composer Percy Grainger's most famous compositions was his setting of the Irish reel "Molly on the Shore," dating from 1907. Originally for string quartet or string orchestra, Grainger later obligingly arranged it for orchestra, wind band, and violin and piano, missing an opportunity to capture the big kazoo-player market. In this 1916 recording, American violinist Maud Powell is heard with pianist Arthur Loesser, the half-brother of songwriter Frank Loesser.

Maud Powell in 1914

John McCormack returns with Chauncey Olcott's other big success, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," in a 1916 recording for Victrola. The orchestral accompaniment is led by the immensely prolific Victor staff conductor Rosario Bourdon.

Two years later, McCormack was in a New York studio with the less-familiar "My Irish Song of Songs," which name-checks all the familiar Irish tunes of the time. Josef Pasternack, another Victor music director, leads the band.

Arthur Pryor in 1920

We skip ahead to 1923 for a two-sided medley from Arthur Pryor's Band, "Reminiscences of Ireland." One of the tunes is "Irish Washerwoman," which will turn up twice more later in the playlist. The Pryor Band first became famous under the leadership of Arthur's father, Samuel. Arthur took over its leadership after his father's death. A trombone virtuoso, Arthur had been in Sousa's Band for 12 years, rising to become its assistant conductor.

Bartlett and Robertson

Ireland has been the source of inspiration for many composers, none more so than the English composer Sir Arnold Bax. Among his many works with an Irish theme is 1916's "Moy Mell (The Happy Plain)" for two pianos. Performing in this 1927 recording are the eminent wife and husband duo of Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson. The two were closely associated with Bax's music, although he did not compose this work for them - it was written for Myra Hess and Irene Scharrer.

One of the leading chamber ensembles of the day was the Flonzaley Quartet, who recorded an "Irish Reel" in 1927 for Victor. The arrangement is by second violinist Alfred Pochon. The other side of the record (not in the playlist) was Pochon's arrangement of the spiritual "Deep River" - much different from the Flonzaley's usual diet of Beethoven and Haydn.

The Flonzaley Quartet

Perhaps the best known (and most parodied) sentimental song in the repertory is "Mother Machree" by the well-known songwriters Chauncey Olcott, Ernest Ball and Rida Johnson Young. Again, this was an American song of theatrical origin, coming from the 1911 Broadway play Barry of Ballymore. John McCormack is heard in his second recording of the piece, dating from 1927.

Mother Machree song card, c1939

Albert Sammons by
Alexander Akerbladh

Grainger's "Molly on the Shore" was popular with violinists, but not all used his arrangement. In 1928, the superb English instrumentalist Albert Sammons recorded Fritz Kreisler's version, which Grainger reputedly hated. No accompanist is named on the label and I haven't able to discover who the pianist might be.

Also in 1928, John McCormack recorded the wrenching ballad "The Irish Emigrant," written in the mid-19th century by Lady Dufferin and George Barker. This is a remarkable record, surely the best of this group.

"The Irish Emigrant" cigarette card

Moving on to 1936, we have the lighter-hearted "Laughing Irish Eyes" from veteran American bandleader Johnny Johnson, with a pleasing vocal by Lee Johnson. The budget label Melotone records issued this disc.

English violist Watson Forbes recorded William Alwyn's "Two Folk Tunes" in 1940 with harpist Maria Korchinska. The composer contrasts a Norwegian tune with an Irish air. Forbes was a distinguished figure, but he is not note-perfect here.

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears by Cecil Beaton

Last October I discussed John McCormack's recording of Yeats' "Down by the Salley Gardens" in the setting by Herbert Hughes. Benjamin Britten set the poem under the title "The Sally Gardens" in his first volume of Folk Song Arrangements. In this 1944 recording the composer accompanies Peter Pears.

Charlie Spivak

James Royce Shannon's "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" was written for a 1914 Chauncey Olcott show, Shameen Dhu. It did well at the time in Olcott's recording, and its popularity was renewed when it was included in Bing Crosby's 1944 film Going My Way. The playlist has a relatively unfamiliar instrumental version from big-toned trumpeter Charlie Spivak and his band.

In 1945, Boyd Neel took his orchestra into Decca's West Hampstead Studios for our final version of "Molly on the Shore," in Grainger's arrangement for strings.

The next year, comic Morey Amsterdam (last discussed here for not having written "Rum and Coca-Cola") decided to revive an old vaudeville song, "With His Wonderful Irish Brogue," which dates back to at least 1918. This was for the small Crown label.

Fred Lowery

"My Wild Irish Rose" returns in a version from Fred Lowery, probably the most recorded and popular whistler of all time. A big-band veteran, Lowery would achieve his greatest hit with "The High and the Mighty" theme in 1954. This one has the same eerie quality that helped make "The High and the Mighty" a success.

It wouldn't be an Irish-themed collection without hearing from Bing Crosby. I've included one of his lesser-known songs, "My Girl's an Irish Girl," the flip side of "Galway Bay," a 1948 coupling. Victor Young leads the band.

John McCormack died in 1944, and in 1948 another Irish tenor, Michael O'Higgins, put out the tribute song "When McCormack Sang Mother Machree" on the small American Beauty Recordings label. O'Higgins was a music professor at the University of Dublin.

Glamorous Freddy Morgan

In 1949, Spike Jones wreaked his usual havoc with "MacNamara's Band," featuring a decidedly inebriated sounding "I. W. Harper and The Four Fifths" on vocals. (I. W. Harper was a then-popular bourbon.) I believe "Harper" is actually Freddy Morgan. The conceit here is that MacNamara heard Spike's records and decided to imitate his sound, at which point the Irish deported him.

At long last, we come to our first version of "The Irish Washerwoman," a traditional tune played throughout the British Isles. Here we have Leroy Anderson's arrangement from his Irish Suite, written for the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. This recording dates from 1950. You can hear Anderson's own version of the Irish Suite via this post. I've newly remastered the sound both of that recording and its companion, a Fiedler collection of Leroy Anderson compositions.

The Pinetoppers

"The Irish Washerwoman" returns disguised as an "Irish Polka" in our next selection, dating from 1952. The artists were the country group The Pinetoppers, who were led by songwriter Vaughn Horton, the author of "Mule Skinner Blues," "Sugar Foot Rag" and "Mockin' Bird Hill," not to mention Louis Jordan's classic "Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie." The "Irish Polka" is attributed to "Paddy Hogan." My guess is Hogan was Horton under another name.

Perhaps fittingly, we close our collection with a song that has nothing whatsoever to do with Ireland or Irish music, but does lend its name to this collection. "English Muffins and Irish Stew" was a pop song by the well-known writers Moose Charlap and Bob Hilliard, here recorded by Brooklyn's Sylvia Syms. Unaccountably, it turns out to be a mock calypso!

The Cash Box, July 28, 1956

As usual with these collections, the raw material came from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive and refurbished by me. The sound is quite good - even for the records that are now 100+ years old.

A pleasant St. Patrick's Day to all from your one-quarter Irish blogger!