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