Lisa Kirk - More RCA Victor Singles

About five years ago, I presented 24 RCA Victor single sides from Broadway star Lisa Kirk, who had featured roles in Kiss Me, Kate and Allegro. Now I have 22 more from the same period, meaning that we've covered all or substantially all of her output for that label.

Here's some of what I wrote about her in 2017:

At least once before on this blog, I've proclaimed my allegiance to Lisa Kirk and the cause of seeking more recognition for her as a singer. The Broadway artist whose superb renditions introduced "The Gentleman Is a Dope," "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "Why Can't You Behave" ought to be more recognized as a master of the craft.

Before she became an RCA artist, Kirk came to public attention via her first Broadway appearance, in the 1947 Rodgers-Hammerstein show Allegro. In that show, she was the lovelorn nurse to the show's protagonist, Dr. Joe Taylor. Her version of "The Gentleman Is a Dope" is the high point of the cast album.

The next year she was cast in the important role of Lois Lane in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, in which she introduced "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "Why Can't You Behave" (as well as "Tom, Dick or Harry").

After that, Kirk was less seen in Broadway and more on television and in nightclubs, although in 1963 she replaced Janis Paige as a lead in Meredith Willson's Here's Love and in 1974 had a featured role in Jerry Herman's Mack and Mabel.

Kirk was with RCA from late 1949 to 1953. Today's selections are primarily from late 1949 through early 1951, with a few from 1952-53.

The first number in this group (and Kirk's first single) is "Charley, My Boy," an oldie from 1924 made popular by Eddie Cantor and revived in 1949 by the Andrews Sisters. Kirk has just the jaunty approach this piece needs. 

The flip side is "Shame on You," which was the greatest hit by Western Swing's Spade Cooley, back in 1946. I'm not sure why RCA wanted to revive it with a boogie-woogie beat and hand-clapping by the Three Beaus and a Peep, but here it is. Kirk's coy vocal doesn't work as well as Tex Williams' deadpan original. Henri René is the maestro here and on the majority of records below.

Billboard ad, March 11, 1950

"Dearie" was opportunity for a comic duet with another star RCA vocalist, Fran Warren, arguing about who's older. It's fun, although Kirk is the better actor. The B-side, "Just a Girl that Men Forget," is another battle of the divas, also enjoyable. Victor often paired Kirk with other singers - last time out we had Bob Haymes and Don Cornell. 

In "Sweet Promises and Good Intentions," the Three Beaus, a Peep and hand-clapping return for yet another light number. Nice tune, but it does not make the most of Kirk's talents. Its discmate, "Kiss Me," also lightweight, is better suited to Kirk's style, without any other voices or hand-clapping.

Speaking of Eddie Cantor, as we were a few paragraphs ago, he pops up for Lisa's next single, "The Old Piano Roll Blues" coupled with "Juke Box Annie (Doodle-Oodle-Oo)." Victor enlisted Sammy Kaye's orchestra for the backing. Kirk and Cantor are surprisingly compatible. "Juke Box Annie" was the plug side, and a hit in the various versions on the market. "The Old Piano Roll Blues" is fine, but it uses a strange sounding piano. But please, RCA, enough of the novelties!

Oh well, the quasi-gospel "Faith and Determination" was next on the recording docket, and the hand-clapping returns, although the Beaus and Peep have ceded the mic to the talented Honeydreamers. The flip, "Love Me a Little Bit" is a continental-style production, complete with accordion and violin. Very well done.

One of the stand-outs in the set is the little-known "Love Like Ours," taken from Dimitri Tiomkin's music for the Marlon Brando melodrama The Men. The words are standard-issue, but the material is well-suited to Kirk's abilities. The flip side is "I Didn't Slip, I Wasn't Pushed, I Fell," a popular item in 1950 that Lisa does nicely. (She should have slammed the studio door on the whistler, however.)

Kirk is outstanding in "Gotta See Ya Once More," although René's gimmicky orchestration is not entirely welcome. She reaches back to the '20s again (actually, 1918) for the coupling, "Ja-Da." Not sure why Victor kept having her record songs from a quarter-century earlier, but she is very good here, too, showing off her sense of rhythm. René's band provides a suitable Dixieland backing.

Finally, Victor handed her the sheet music for a standard! "I'm in the Mood for Love" is not a great song, but well suited to Kirk's strengths. The backing is another (and better) Jimmy McHugh item, "I Can't Believe You're in Love with Me," which is one of the best pieces in this collection. Kirk is splendid but the anonymous backing is just OK. She recorded six McHugh songs at the same time, presumably for an album, although I don't believe it was issued as such.

Her next song is another welcome respite from the novelties and the hectic pop screamers we are about to encounter. While not a standard, it is a good song by Ralph Freed, "I Thought of You Last Night," here in a sensitive performance backed by the excellent David Terry. On the pop charts, I believe that the Jeri Southern single did a little better.

The Freed number is backed by "Look Up," an attractive, hymn-like song by Joop de Leur and Harold Rome. I suspect that Rome's contribution was English lyrics to the Dutch composer's tune. Rome had done this for other songs, notably Henri Laurent Herpin's "(All of a Sudden) My Heart Sings." Kirk is completely convincing here.

Now on to the noisy numbers, staring with "Boomerang," a loud Leon Pober item that was making the rounds in 1952. This commotion was backed, appropriately, by "Hurricane," a Janice Torre-Fred Spielman storm front that passes over in a few minutes, thankfully. Kirk belts as required. Interestingly, the anonymous chart uses a figure that is identical to one that would resurface in the James Bond theme a decade later.

"Catch Me If You Can" features Lisa being coy with a backing male quartet. "Do you wanna?" she asks. "Yes, we wanna!" they reply. And so on. She even asks them if they wanna see her etchings. (Addendum - frequent commenter Boursin informs me that the vocalists are the Ray Charles Singers and the band is none other than the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra!)

This nonsense is backed with one of her finest records, which fully shows what she could accomplish with the right material. It is the rueful Bernstein-Comden-Green ballad "O-HI-O" from Wonderful Town, then (1953) on Broadway. It's superior material, and Kirk is exceptional in it. 

"O-HI-O" is sung by the character Ruth in Wonderful Town, one of the roles most associated with Rosalind Russell. I can't help but speculate that Kirk would have been right for the role as well. As it was, she ended up dubbing most of Russell's songs in the movie version of Gypsy a decade later.

The exigencies of the commercial market meant that talented singers like Kirk were assigned the current pop songs and novelties in a search for a hit. It often was fruitless for both artist and label, although it is fun to revisit the pop tunes from mid-century, and it always is a pleasure to hear from Lisa Kirk.

The previous Kirk recordings came from my collection. Most of these present records have been remastered from the massive Internet Archive of 78s, with the addition of a few from my collection and a few other lossy originals. The latter sound good, although with some sacrifice of detail and warmth.

Kirk models the Playtex company's products for a 1949 ad

The Eddie Cantor Story

Younger readers (if there are any at a blog that specializes in the music of 60 years ago) may not know who Eddie Cantor was. Well, son/daughter, he was a very famous entertainer in his day, was on Broadway, on the radio and later television, and made movies. This is his life story as told by the Warner Bros. in 1953.

That's Eddie on the cover, although he wasn't the star of the movie (the dreaded Keefe Brasselle was), but it's his voice on the soundtrack and on this record, doing his most famous numbers.

Forgotten today, Cantor was famous enough to have made records even into the stereo era. His contemporaries included George Jessel, Al Jolson, and Jimmy Durante, and who remembers them today?

It certainly has a colorful cover, done by Karlis or Karlin, who I believe did other covers from that era.