Rodgers and Hart's 'Too Many Girls' - the Early Recordings

For this latest in a series of early recordings from 1930s and 40s musicals, we return to Rodgers and Hart from Cole Porter. The subject is the pair's 1939-40 success Too Many Girls, a typically contrived college caper with a typically tuneful score.

Too Many Girls did not have as many hits as some Rodgers and Hart musicals, but it did boast one enduring favorite ("I Didn't Know What Time It Was") and several other songs that achieved some popularity or at least attracted the recording companies. This collection includes 10 selections, two of them in alternative versions.

From the stage production

The show, combined with the subsequent film, made stars of Desi Arnaz and Eddie Bracken. Marcy Westcott, the heiress on stage, turned into Lucille Ball in the film, and Ball and Arnaz turned into a famous couple. The two other main female roles were taken by Mary Jane Walsh and Diosa Costello on Broadway, Frances Langford and Ann Miller in the movie. (Walsh also can be heard here in songs from Cole Porter's Let's Face It!)

Arnaz, Bracken, Richard Kollmar (Richard Carlson in the film) and the wonderful dancer Hal Le Roy played football players who were hired to watch over the heiress while she was at Pottawattamie College. But none of those performers were asked to make records - nor was Marcy Westcott - so it fell to the cast's Mary Jane Walsh and Diosa Costello to do so.

Marcy Westcott, Diosa Costello and Mary Jane Walsh tend to stricken Desi Arnaz

As was common back then, a minority of the musical's songs attracted the attention of the record labels. Seven R&H songs were heard in the stage show before one was selected for a recording - "Love Never Went to College." Westcott sang the tune on Broadway, but Columbia turned it over to Walsh.

The Smoothies - Charlie Ryan, Arlene Johnson, Little Ryan

Walsh's version (with anonymous backing) is a good one, but I also wanted to include the sophisticated Victor recording by Hal Kemp and His Orchestra, with a vocal by the Smoothies. The latter group was earlier known as Babs and Her Brothers, even though there were a series of "Babses" and none of them was a sister to Charlie and Little Ryan, the other members of the group.

Diosa Costello and Desi Arnaz

Diosa Costello, who was Puerto Rican and apparently known as "the Latin Bombshell," had appeared with Arnaz in nightclubs before being cast in Too Many Girls. She performed "All Dressed Up (Spic and Spanish)" on stage as a solo, reprising it with the ensemble. The small Schirmer label engaged her to record it with a band led by Vladimir Selinsky. I don't know for sure if Hart intended the title to be a play on the ethnic slur, but I do believe the term was in use as such back then.

One of the best known songs from the score is "I Like to Recognize the Tune," which Mary Jane Walsh cut for Columbia, again with anonymous backing. On stage this was done by an ensemble that included Walsh.

Costello and Arnaz handled "She Could Shake the Maracas" on Broadway, but Costello recorded it for Schirmer solo, again with the orchestra of Vladimir Selinsky.

Margaret Whiting

The best song in the score is surely "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," sung in the show by Marcy Westcott and Richard Kollmar, but for Columbia by Mary Jane Walsh. Over the years the number has attracted many good recordings, and was interpolated into the Sinatra film of Pal Joey along with three other Rodgers and Hart favorites. One of the best readings is Margaret Whiting's 1946 single for Capitol. If anything, the Whiting aircheck in this collection, from a 1949 Carnation Contented Hour, is even better. She is backed by Ted Dale's orchestra. (The single version is available on this blog in her Rodgers and Hart collection.)

Mary Jane Walsh and ensemble

The final song from the stage production in this set is "Give It Back to the Indians," which Walsh introduced on stage and then cut for Columbia.

Too Many Girls ran on Broadway for six months, then its director, George Abbott, turned it into a film, where Diosa Costello somehow turned into Ann Miller, and Mary Jane Walsh into the well-known vocalist Frances Langford.

Frances Langford serenades Lucille Ball and Richard Carlson 

Rodgers and Hart added one enduring song to the filmed version - "You're Nearer," introduced by Trudy Erwin dubbing Ball, and reprised by Langford and others. Langford's label, Decca, asked her to record the song, backed by Victor Young.

Ann Miller and Desi Arnaz

I've also added the Arnaz-Miller version of "All Dressed Up (Spic and Spanish)" from the soundtrack. This is for archival purposes only - Desi really could not sing.

Hal Le Roy

Finally, I did want to draw attention to the great dancer Hal Le Roy, even though he recorded nothing from the score. He can be seen in a clip from the film online. All his films are worth seeking out - his dancing in them, anyway.

The sound on these items, remastered mainly from Internet Archive needle-drops, is good. The download includes more production photos and ephemera, along with Brooks Atkinson's New York Times review. He found the show "humorous, fresh and exhilarating," but was less impressed by Mary Jane Walsh and Diosa Costello.

Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers

Sing a Song of Stainless Steel

I couldn't resist the alliteration in the headline above, but in truth there aren't any vocals on this record - although it does "sing the praises" of stainless steel.

What we have here is a 1960 promotional LP issued by Republic Steel. It spends 15 minutes telling the listener about the glories and many uses of stainless steel. Republic  thought that manufacturers were sleeping on the potential of its product - and thereby on its potential for steel company profits.

On one side, the LP presents the soundtrack of a Republic film called "The New World of Stainless Steel." The other has the score from the film sans narration and sound effects. Presumably the promo flick would be projected at trade shows and other sales events, and the LP given away at the same time. I imagine the records also found their way into the hands of Republic's personnel.

By the way, I have no idea what the object on the cover above is supposed to represent. Looks like a rocket-powered snail.

Republic's film showed how stainless steel could be used to make boxy office buildings and dangerous sculptures

The Chicago Film Archive has rescued the film from obscurity; you can see it via Internet Archive or the Film Archive's Facebook page.

The movie and LP came from Wilding Studios, a major, Chicago-based producer of industrial films, shows, exhibits and ads. Wilding is no longer in business, but at the time was cranking out dozens of such industrial productions every year.

Lloyd Norlin

One of Wilding's leading lights was composer Lloyd Norlin, who was its music director from 1950-58. Norlin contributed the music to this film and many others. I suspect that the music heard on this LP was actually a stock music bed that Norlin penned for Wilding's library.

If you have seen any promotional films from the period, you will know what kind of music to expect - peppy, upbeat sounds rooted in the big band era. Much if not all of it involves a brass choir and rhythm section. (Expect to hear a lot of trombones.) Even though the music was not intended to be an end in itself, it does make for pleasant listening.

Norlin was a very good tunesmith. I've been able to locate a few other pieces by him to include in the download, as described below.

The Young Adults (Hamm's Beer)

Norlin wrote his song "The Young Adults" for the 1965 Hamm's Beer centennial meeting, memorialized on an elusive souvenir LP  - "Hamm's '65 - Bursting with freshness!" - that I would love to own. Since I don't, we'll have to make do with this highly enjoyable number, which is courtesy of a long-ago post on WFMU's site. It exhorts Hamm's distributors and sales people to get out there and sell more to young people, who apparently weren't drinking enough beer.

The J's with Jamie

The artists are unidentified, but it's virtually certain that they are the J's with Jamie. That group was active in Chicago at that time, and the lead voice of Jamie Silvia is all but unmistakable. Checking the back cover of the LP, the J's (there called the Jays) and Jamie were given as the vocalists on several of the ad tracks, although not this piece, which was intended for the distributors' ears, not the consumers'.

The J's with Jamie are favorites of mine - they have appeared on two LPs that are available here. Jamie with her previous group, the Mello-Larks, was featured in this post.

An Academy Award Nominee

One of Lloyd Norlin's greatest successes was his first - he wrote a song called "Out of the Silence" that somehow made it into the 1941 film All-American Co-Ed, where it was introduced by Frances Langford. The tune was nominated for an Academy Award that year.

It's a good song, even though it never was commercially recorded to my knowledge. I've included the audio from Langford's film performance in the download. It's derived from a YouTube clip.

It's not clear why Norlin didn't get more opportunities in Hollywood. He spent almost all his working career in Evanston, IL, where he had a piano studio and where he was an instructor at Northwestern University, in addition to his commercial work.

Northwestern and 'To the Memories'

Students at Northwestern have been mounting a musical or musical review annually since 1929. Norlin was involved with the show during his time on campus; his notable contribution was the song "To the Memories," which traditionally concludes the program, and has become a well-known school song.

The Waa-Mu Show, as it is called (it was founded by the Women's Athletic Association and the Men's Union), has a remarkable roster of alumni. The 1945 show, for instance, featured Paul Lynde, Charlotte Rae and Cloris Leachman.

The download includes a 1954 recording of "To the Memories" by the Northwestern Band. This was cleaned up from a noisy transfer on YouTube.

This post is the latest in a very occasional series presenting industrial promotional records - the most recent involved Les Baxter selling AC Spark Plugs; other posts have included records extolling the products of Budweiser, Schlitz, Westinghouse, Ford, Edsel, Yolande lingerie and Warner bras.