The Obsolete Collection (Retail Division)

The recent post of "The Obsolete Collection" on my singles blog met with favor, so I decided to do a sequel. I've moved this new post over to the main site in the hopes that more people will see it, and perhaps investigate its predecessor.

The first "Obsolete Collection" covered songs having to do with lamplighters, kerosene lamps, steam locomotives, trolleys, rumble seats, telegrams, telephone party lines, cuckoo clocks, milkmen and typewriters.

This time we explore the retail trade, broadly considered, looking for records that have to do with formats that have had their time in the sun and are now looking a bit withered. Let's start off with that mainstay of my youth, the big city department store.

The Department Store

Macy's Herald Square, New York, back when there were horses and streetcars on the street, and the 6th Avenue El up above

Department stores have been around for more than a century, but seem to be experiencing a agonizingly slow death. Instead of the giant Macy's you see above, for example, the chain is now opening small format stores that would have fit in a old Macy's rest room. And that chain is one of the few survivors.

We can go back even to the 19th century and find records about the department store. The vaudeville comedian Cal Stewart made a living off his rural character Uncle Josh encountering city institutions, including the big store. Stewart first starting recording his "Uncle Josh in a Department Store" routine back in 1898, for the Berliner company. He took the same act over the Victor folks in 1901, then to Columbia and Zonophone before finishing up shortly before his death in 1919.

Our "Uncle Josh" version comes from a 1902 Victor session. Tastes were different then, and his yuck-yuck-yuck routine soon becomes annoying. 

I don't think the "country bumpkin" character was novel even back then, but it influenced comics up through Cliff Arquette and his "Charley Weaver" in the late 20th century.

As a bonus, I've included some "Radio Hucksters Store Spots," with a vocal group and combo limning the praises of notions, linens and so on. Each spot starts with a vocal, followed by a instrumental interlude designed so that local stores could add their specific plugs ("Yes, head on down to Blatnik's Boston Store, and find bargain after bargain ..." etc.), with a brief vocal outro.

The Five-and-Dime

This circa 1940 Phoenix postcard focuses on Woolworth's, but also helpfully points out its five-and-dime competitors Newberry's and Kress

The department store's less flossy cousin was the five-and-dime - Woolworth, Kresge, W.T. Grant and so on. These vendors tried to keep the prices low, but still had a wide variety of goods. The one near me when I was young had everything from birds to records. Some sold china and peanuts, and that's where our featured record comes in. It's one of the best known tunes in the set - "I Found a Million-Dollar Baby (in a Five-and-Ten Cent Store)." I've selected the 1931 hit version by Waring's Pennsylvanians, with a sincere vocal by Clare Hanlon and a trio. It also includes the seldom-heard verse, which was new to me.

Billy Rose found two million-dollar babies

But wait - there are two such "million-dollar baby" songs. An earlier one, with the same theme and title but different music and lyrics, had come out in 1926. Both seem to be the handiwork of lyricist-promoter Billy Rose, working with Fred Fisher on the earlier song, and with Harry Warren and Mort Dixon on the latter.

The 1926 song is represented by a snoozy Victor recording by tenor Henry Burr, apparently a John McCormack fancier. The peppier approach taken by Waring's band works much better.

The Pool Hall

Ya got trouble ... watch out for the guy with the meat hooks

Do pool halls exist nowadays? I haven't seen one lately. But they were an urban favorite way back when. The picture above (it's a pool room in Washington Court House, Ohio) is roughly contemporary with the time period of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, which set in 1912 in "River City," Iowa (a stand in for Willson's home town, Mason City). The 1957 musical includes the magnificent spiel "Ya Got Trouble," where con man "Professor" Harold Hill proselytizes the townfolk about the depths of de-gra-day [tion] involved with the forthcoming transformation of the genteel billiard parlor into a wicked pool hall.

The song was introduced on Broadway by the magnetic Robert Preston, but I thought you might like to hear Willson's own version, which comes from one of those "And Then I Wrote" LPs. He's almost as good as Preston. FYI - the LP was in awful early stereo with Willson's voice seeming to come from the far right of the sound stage. He needs to be front and center, so I've moved him there.

The Nickelodeon

A circa 1910 nickelodeon

A "nickelodeon" was a cheap place to watch the early silent films. Entrepreneurs would take over a storefront, add some chairs, a screen and a projector, and voila, the Comique in Toronto (above), which was one of the fancier operations, by the looks of it. 

The word "nickelodeon" is a portmanteau of "nickel" (the price of admission) and odeon (from the Greek word for a covered theater). But somehow, the term "nickelodeon" transmigrated to also describe a coin operated player piano, and to some degree, what we would call a jukebox (which we'll get to next).

How do you improve a player piano? Add a drum, a cymbal and an accordion!

I haven't discovered any songs celebrating the original meaning of the word, but there is a well-known number that deals with the coin-op piano - "Music, Music, Music," aka "Put Another Nickel In" and "The Nickelodeon." Quite an elaborate set of titles to describe a simple melody with a bridge swiped from Franz Liszt.

The big hit of this song was by Teresa Brewer, a record I have detested since I was a small child. So I've included the original version, by one Etienne Paree with Eddie "Piano" Miller, whose playing is so metronomic it sounds appropriately mechanical. Actually this version is as bad as Brewer's, and Etienne is a little creepy.

The nickelodeon as theater was supplanted by movie palaces as the audience for films grew. I've recognized the days of silent films by including a snatch of stereotypical "chase music" ("The Chase") as played on a theater organ such as you might heave heard in one of the more elaborate showplaces..

As for coin-operated player pianos, you may be able to find one in your local museum.

The Juke Box

Wurlitzer would have had you believe that even a rural hideaway could afford its fancy model 1015

When we think about "putting another nickel in," those of us of a certain age think of the jukebox, that coin-operated marvel where you could watch the machine grab the record, put it on a turntable and bring the tonearm down so the music would flow.

Jukeboxes are not extinct, but there was a time when they were ubiquitous. So to celebrate them, let's begin with perhaps the most famous such record - the Glenn Miller version of "Jukebox Saturday Night," from 1942. The vocalists are Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke and the Modernaires. The original includes an impression of Harry James' "Ciribiribin" and Ralph Brewster's droll send-up of the Ink Spots' "If I Didn't Care."

Two of the Modernaires' three recordings of "Juke Box Saturday Night"

The Mods knew they were onto a good thing, so they made a Soundie version in 1944, remade the single record for Columbia in 1946 and put together a "New Jukebox Saturday Night" for Coral in 1953. I've included the latter in the package - it features their takes on Don Cornell, Les Paul and Mary Ford, the Four Aces and Johnnie Ray.

Juke boxes were still the thing later in the 1950s, when Perry Como treated us to Joe and Noel Sherman's "Juke Box Baby." Mr. C continued the Modernaires' habit of name checking other songs, including any number of current hits in passing.

This ditty, which shows off Perry's keen sense of rhythm, was on the flip side of another famous Como epic, "Hot Diggity." You will realize this is an old record when Perry complains to Juke Box Baby, "You don't dig Latin like ya dig that crazy sound." Latin? Talk about obsolete! Mine was probably the last generation that had to relieve Caesar's Gallic Wars.

The Road House

A "swanky" road house

Now, where did one find these juke boxes? Well, they were common, but certainly one place would be at the old road houses, a bar or club out on a country road. These sometimes were venues where you could find gambling and other once or still-illegal pastimes. 

Road houses have inspired several excellent songs. We'll start off with the wonderful "Road House Boogie," a 1949 R&B opus by Big Jay McNeely, with an uncredited vocal by (I believe) Ted Shirley. (Big Jay is the honkin' tenor sax player.) As always with these adventures, the singer ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. ("Saturday Night Fish Fry" is perhaps the most famous example.)

The next year brought another classic, this one from the honky-tonk giant Lefty Frizzell - "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time," his first record. Louche Lefty picks up a lady with some money, and tells her they'll drive out to all the hot spots and "dance, drink beer and wine." (He insists, "Bring along your Cadillac, leave my old wreck behind.") But, the denouement comes - "If you've got no more money, honey, I've got no more time."

The title is an example of country artists turning an off-color catchphrase into a song. Another was Hank Penny's "Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma'am!"

Finally, the more innocent "Down the Road Apiece," which Don Raye wrote in 1940 for him and Ray McKinley to sing with the Will Bradley Trio. Just a short while ago, we heard McKinley's remake with his big band, but today let's jump ahead a few decades to the insanely rocking version from the young Rolling Stones. In this reading, Mick Jagger rewrites the lyrics so that instead of calling on "Eight-Beat Mack" (i.e., McKinley), he calls out "Charlie McCoy, you all remember that rubber legged boy." Not sure how he came up with McCoy (or rubber-legged), but he's surely referring to the Stones' own drummer, Charlie Watts.

The Drive-In

Orange you glad you went to the Orange Drive-in?

If you were going to drive out to the sticks, you might want to take in a movie in the questionable comfort of your car. Drive-ins are still around, but they are not as popular as they once were. Back in 1964, they were still the place for a couple to canoodle in the dark. The Beach Boys immortalized the drive-in experience on their "Drive-In," which was a cut on their All Summer Long LP.

The term "drive-in" also encompassed the type of restaurant where you ordered from your car and the uniformed attendant brought you your food. These spots are still around, but again, not nearly as plentiful as they once were. Where I lived many years ago, there was a drive-in restaurant right down the street from a drive-in theater, so that was convenient on a Saturday night.

Joe - er, Dolores' - Drive-In 

In 1947, veteran singer-songwriter Seger Ellis praised "Joe's Drive-In" as the place to head after seeing a show, "so I can feed this face of mine." A fun record from the author of "Little Jack Frost, Get Lost" (written with Al Stillman) and "You're All I Want for Christmas" (with Glenn Moore).

The estimable Nelson Riddle also put out a record called "Drive In." I don't know whether the title refers to the film or food variety (presumably not drive-in banks or churches), so I've parked it in between the Beach Boys and Seger Ellis.

The Gas Station

Service with a smile, but try not to drip from your nozzle

Now, if you were going on a road trip, presumably you would have needed gasoline, so let's memorialize these palaces of petroleum before they are replaced by charging stations.

Gas stations are still common on the roadways, but they are much different enterprises from when I would gas 'em up, change the oil, sell you tires, replace your muffler, do a tune up or brake job, etc. That was nearly 60 years ago when gas stations were self-styled "service stations." Today they are a combination of convenience store, fast food vendor, THC emporium and car wash. And no one but you pumps the gas (in most places).

To recognize the old days, we have a lively piece called "Gas Station Mambo" by the fabulous Pérez Prado and his band, from 1953. In this station, the proprietor greets you by shouting "uh!" and "dilo!" The band sings about something or other, but I don't habla español. (I studied Latin, remember.)

And to get you in the mood to hang around the old grease rack, as I once did, we have a "Filling Station Effects" transcription featuring a very loud grease gun followed by the racket of an old-school gas pump, complete with periodic dings. The gas pump sounds like it could have used some lubrication itself. I would not recommend that you have this one on repeat play.

The Motel

Circa 1940s postcard 

We finish our survey with the motel, also still around, but much different from what it once was. A case in point is the Lazy Acres Motel above, once a modest motel, today primarily an RV park. And it's a survivor. Most of these rural retreats are long gone.

Lazy Acres did some radio advertising back circa 1950 on the Los Angeles radio program of Western Swing's Spade Cooley. We have a promotional record appropriately titled "Lazy Acres Motel." The song is performed by the Prairie Schooner Boys, who suggest you "take Route 99 and look for the sign - Lazy Acres Motel." Note that author of the song is one "Stan Feberg," probably the future musical satirist Stan Freberg.

I've heard worse promos - the department stores spots above, for example.

Bonus Track - "The Lamplighter's Serenade"

Dave Federman asked me if I would try to resuscitate a song that I could have included in the original "Obsolete Collection" - "The Lamplighter's Serenade." 

In my collection, I had chosen the slightly later "Old Lamplighter," but the Serenade is a fine record, too, written by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster.

I was familiar with the Miller and Sinatra versions, but Dave has uncovered a first-rate example by Woody Herman in an uncharacteristically mellow mood.

I found two copies of the 1942 78 on Internet Archive, but neither was in particularly good shape, offering an explosion of noise punctuated by peak distortion. I've taken the best parts of each disc, moderated the noise and mostly ameliorated the distortion so that the record now sounds acceptable.

The selections in this post came from IA and my collection. The sound is generally very good, even for Uncle Josh and his 1902 visit to the big city.

LINK to The Obsolete Collection (Retail Division)

The Voice of Sally Sweetland

Although she never became a big star, Sally Sweetland (1911-2015) had an extraordinary voice that led to a long career as a studio singer and later as a teacher.

Born Sally Mueller, she acquired the name "Sweetland" upon marrying her husband Lee Sweetland, himself a well-known studio singer and actor.

In this post, we'll examine the breadth of Sally's achievements, which spanned film dubbing, band work, solo recordings, backup vocals and children's records. There are 29 selections in all.

Film Work

Throughout the 1940s, Sweetland was busy in the studios, dubbing for Joan Fontaine, Brenda Marshall, Martha Vickers and particularly Joan Leslie in several films. In our first selection, she introduces the famous Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer song "My Shining Hour" in the 1943 Fred Astaire film The Sky's the Limit, dubbing for Leslie.

Joan Leslie and Fred Astaire in The Sky's the Limit

It's a song that's associated with Astaire, but Sally sang it first in the film - Leslie played a vocalist. Soon thereafter, Fred's brash character tells Leslie she sang it too straight, and proceeds to demonstrate how it ought to go, as the characters seemingly improvise new lyrics (which actually don't make too much sense).

Also from this film is the duet "A Lot in Common with You," which involves Fred intruding on Joan Leslie's act. (You will hear her telling him to "Get out!")

With Tommy Tucker

Tommy Tucker was not as famous as, say, Tommy Dorsey, but he did lead a good band for 25 years. Sally made several records with him in 1950 and 1951, starting with "Looks Like a Cold, Cold Winter," where she did a pleasing duet with Don Brown. The disk did OK in the market, but I believe Bing and Mindy Carson did better.

Don Brown and Tommy Tucker

Next was "Hullabaloo," which, true to its title, was a noisy polka, a genre popular back then. "Sonny the Bunny" was a kiddie novelty possibly themed to Easter 1951. Don Brown is the lead on this one with Sally mainly providing harmony. They made a good pair.

The final recording with Tommy Tucker was "Whisp'ring Shadows," where Sweetland duets with Peter Hanley, who became Tucker's male singer following Don Brown's death in a traffic accident. Hanley too was a talented vocalist. This is a charming waltz.

Religious Fare, Grandma Moses and Ted Maxim

Tucker recorded for M-G-M, which also engaged Sally for a series of religious songs. I've included "Our Lady of Fatima," where she contends with an organ and male quartet.

At about the same time, Columbia Records brought her in for one of her specialties - high-register vocalese. The song was "Lullaby," one of the numbers in the suite that Hugh Martin and Alec Wilder put together for a film on the painter Grandma Moses. This is truly gorgeous singing. The entire suite is available here.

Also in 1951, Sweetland was at Decca for two waltzes by polka bandleader Ted Maksymowicz (here credited as Ted Maxim). First was "Beautiful Brown Eyes," which had been written in the 1930s by the country artists Arthur Smith and Alton Delmore. Maxim's record would seem to have been a cover of Rosemary Clooney's revival of the song on Columbia.

Pat Terry and Ted Maksymowicz

The second Maxim record, "There's More Pretty Girls Than One," also was associated with Smith and the Delmore brothers, who recorded it in the 1930s. It was, however, a traditional tune. On both records, Sally works seamlessly with the excellent studio baritone Pat Terry.

Work for RCA Victor

We move on from Decca to RCA Victor, where Sweetland's first assignment was to record the vocal on Bob Dewey's record of Franz Lehár's "Vilia" from The Merry Widow score. It's not clear why RCA and Dewey (actually Guy Lombardo arranger Dewey Bergman) decided to record an operetta selection in sweet band style in 1951, but Sally does fine.

One of her most noted records was Perry Como's 1952 version of "Summertime." There could be no better singer than Como to present a number describing how "the living is easy." Sweetland's vocalese is heard throughout the record, which perfectly sets off Como's low-register vocal. A superb record.

Perry Como and Eddie Fisher

Victor repeated this formula the next year for Eddie Fisher's massive success "I'm Walking Behind You." Here, in addition to the vocalese, Sally  does some high-register duetting with Fisher, which is very striking. It's a memorable record - one I owned myself when I was four. (I started collecting records early.)

Solos with Enoch Light

Sweetland recorded several cover records for bandleader/impresario Enoch Light in 1952. This type of work required the ability to sing many genres convincingly, a Sweetland specialty. We've already heard her in operetta, polka, and kiddie material. Her first record for Light was a cover of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya," which suits her well. Here, I suspect the real intention was to cover Jo Stafford's pop version for Columbia. This is a thread that runs through her other Enoch Light records.

Enoch Light

Jessie Mae Robinson's "Keep It a Secret" was a hit for Stafford in 1952-53. Sally and Stafford also recorded Pee Wee King's "You Belong to Me." Sally sounds particularly like Jo in this recording.

The melodramatic "Kiss of Fire" is based on a 1906 song "El choclo" by Victor Argentine. Louis Armstrong revived it in 1952, but the hit was by Georgia Gibbs. Sweetland does what she can with this overheated item.

The Ice Capades Brigadoon; "Getting to Know You"

In 1953, the Ice Capades traveling show presented an ice skating version of the Broadway hit Brigadoon. Columbia records decided to issue a potted version of the show in honor of the program, with Lee Sullivan and Sally as the fine soloists in the seven-minute presentation. Sullivan had been in the original cast of Brigadoon in 1947.

Brigadoon picture sleeve; Lee Sullivan

Sally is heard in abbreviated versions of "Almost Like Being in Love," "Heather on the Hill" and "From This Day On." I've presented this record before, but this is a new version.

Sweetland made a substantial number of children's records. I've included one of the group she recorded for Golden Records - "Getting to Know You" from The King and I. It's a brief rendition, but nonetheless effective. As with many of the Golden records, the support is by the Sandpipers vocal group and an orchestra led by Mitch Miller.

With Sauter-Finegan

Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan engaged Sally for several records by their Sauter-Finegan Band. First was their sumptuous 1952 version of "April in Paris," where Sweetland does nicely both in vocalese and snatches of the lyrics. This was the first superior big band version of the song from the 1950s, along with Count Basie's much different arrangement from a few years later.

Bill Finegan and Eddie Sauter

Speaking of different, "The Moon Is Blue" is a quirky pop song with lyrics by Sylvia Fine and music by Herschel Burke Gilbert, written for the 1953 film of the same name and performed by the S-F band. Sauter and Finegan (or RCA Victor) did not give Sally a label credit for "April in Paris," but rectified that omission on this release.

Sweetland is heavily featured in the band's version of the Rodgers-Hart "Where or When," both with the lyrics and a climactic venture into high vocalese. This comes from the album Concert Jazz. The principals comment on the cover, "Our first love, Sally Sweetland. We hope you appreciate her as we do."

Two SF covers - one by Jim Flora (left), the other in his style

The band's 1954 LP Inside Sauter-Finegan features Sally in a muted and very lovely version of "Autumn Leaves."

Sauter-Finegan's "Where's Ace" is a spoof of the crime jazz genre of the time. The band keeps asking Sally "Where's Ace?" and she replies "Who??" They search him for in various locales. Sally ends up asking the band, "Where's Ace" and they reply "Who?"

With Hugo Winterhalter

The popular maestro Hugo Winterhalter engaged Sweetland for a few records as well. In 1953 she joined with studio vocalist Bud Dee to present an enjoyable reading of Jessie Mae Robinson's "The Lovers' Waltz."

Hugo Winterhalter

In 1955, she recorded one of her best discs - "Autumn Rhapsody," a conventional but attractive ballad by Carolyn Leigh and Alex Alstone.

An Unusual Children's Record

Sally Sweetland and Marni Nixon

We complete this exploration of Sally's legacy with a slightly later record - from 1964, the story of "Hansel & Gretel" with music from Humperdinck's opera. (A orchestral suite from the work can be found here.) Sweetland combines with another eminent studio singer, Marni Nixon, for two superb and all too brief selections: "Brother, Won't You Dance with Me" and "When at Night I Go to Sleep." I believe that Sally is the voice of Hansel. Tutti Camarata leads the band.

* * *

This collection was inspired by David Federman, as have many things I posted over the years. I believe that David was enchanted by Sweetland's stratospheric vocalese - me too - but there are many other items to appreciate here. I was surprised to find that I liked in particular her children's records of "Getting to Know You" and the Humperdinck adaptations. She also works beautifully with the relatively little-known Don Brown and Pat Terry (among others). A wonderful legacy by this talented and much loved singer and vocal teacher.

This selections are cleaned up from Internet Archive and my collection. 

LINK

'Inside U.S.A.' with Bea Lillie, Jack Haley, Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey

The 1948 Broadway revue Inside U.S.A. is not generally considered to be the best such production from composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz. That honor is reserved for their 1931 staging of The Band Wagon, which boasted the Astaires and "Dancing in the Dark." But Inside U.S.A. was nonetheless a hit for the team and the revue's stars, Beatrice Lillie and Jack Haley.

Inside U.S.A. borrowed its title if little else from a popular 1947 book by John Gunther, one in a series that Gunther had begun with Inside Europe in 1936. The revue used the title as a pretext for a series of songs and sketches, each focusing on a different state or locale. Lillie and Haley were both comics, so the focus was squarely on fun, but the score did feature one gorgeous ballad, "Haunted Heart." It became a hit in the versions by Perry Como and Jo Stafford, but even so is not often heard today.

There is no "original cast album" per se for Inside U.S.A. However, RCA Victor did bring Lillie and Haley into the studio to record several songs for an Inside U.S.A. album, filling out the contents with Como's hit version of "Haunted Heart" and Victor artist Billy Williams' recording of "My Gal Is Mine Once More." Meanwhile, Columbia Records was busy assembling a competing album with Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey handling the vocals. Apparently both albums were rushed to completion before the 1948 recording ban could hit on January 1, several months before the show opened. The Columbia LP includes one song ("Protect Me") dropped before the show opened.

Today's download includes both the Victor and Columbia albums and restored artwork for both, along with a number of production stills and sketches, a Life magazine feature on the revue, and other ephemera.

Lillie and Haley were ideally suited to the revue format. Haley, who was nearing 50 when the show opened, had had extensive vaudeville and film (notably, The Wizard of Oz) experience. In 1940, he had been a lead in Rodgers and Hart's Higher and Higher on Broadway. (See this post for the Shirley Ross recordings from that show.) Haley was an excellent song-and-dance artist.

Lillie was another veteran trouper, noted both for her West End and Broadway appearances. Song parody was her métier; it was what made her famous and is in full flower in Inside U.S.A.

Haley and Lillie win "First Prize at the Fair"

Beside the opening number, the Victor album includes songs set in, celebrating or at least parodying New Orleans ("At the Mardi Gras"), Wisconsin ("First Prize at the Fair"), Rhode Island ("Rhode Island Is Famous for You"), Atlanta (err, "Atlanta") and so on. Lillie's mock madrigal "Come, O Come to Pittsburgh" makes fun of the air quality in that steel town. While this may be mystifying to those familiar with the clear-skied city of today, here is what its air looked like in the 1940s.

"Rhode Island Is Famous for You" is probably the best remembered song in the score, except for "Haunted Heart." Haley duetted with Estelle Loring in the show; here he is partnered by an anonymous studio singer. Billy Williams, heard in "My Gal Is Mine Once More," was a former Sammy Kaye vocalist who led (and recorded with) a Western group called the Pecos River Rogues. That song and "Haunted Heart" were sung on Broadway by John Tyers, who had experience both in musicals and opera.

The Broadway orchestrations were by Robert Russell Bennett, but the arrangements on Victor are led by Russ Case and Irving Miller.

Buddy Clark and Pearl Bailey

The Clark-Bailey album includes two songs not in the Victor set - "Blue Grass" and "Protect Me" - both delivered by Pearlie Mae. In 1946, she had made a tremendous impression in St. Louis Woman, with its fabulous Arlen-Mercer score.

Buddy Clark - one of my favorite singers - is heard in "Haunted Heart," "My Gal Is Mine Once More," "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" and "First Prize at the Fair," all of which he does very well, particularly "Haunted Heart." Clark, who had been on the radio in the 1930s, became a big star for Columbia in the postwar years. He died in a 1949 plane crash.

Mitchell Ayers provides the backings for Clark and Bailey. The sound on both albums is lively and present. The raw transfers were found during my recent expedition into the boundless reaches of Internet Archive, but I have remastered them for this post.

One final note for anyone who likes (or even remembers) 1950s and 60s American television. Comics Carl Reiner and Louis Nye both were in the Broadway production, and can be seen in the production still below. Reiner is at center left, Nye at center right. Jack Haley is at the right.

Click to enlarge

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Christmas in 1954

Here is what Christmas sounded like in 1954 - at least if you confined yourself to the products that the RCA Victor recording company had on sale that year.

And quite a pleasant sound it was, with RCA's biggest stars in mostly familiar fare, which actually had been released as singles and on other LPs in earlier years.

One highlight is Perry Como's fine version of "White Christmas," which he manages to make personal, even though as a vocalist he is descended from the immortal Bing, the song's originator.

Dinah Shore offers "Happy Christmas Little Friend," welcome perhaps because the song is not overplayed like most traditional holiday material. Life Magazine commissioned this particular song from Rodgers and Hammerstein, but it nonetheless never entered the popular repertoire.

Tony Martin is excellent in "Silent Night" - one of his best records. And Eddy Arnold's country hit "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" is appealing even though it is a corny alphabet song. Blog favorite Ralph Flanagan adds a Miller-styled "Winter Wonderland" that I much enjoyed.

The low point is the Three Suns' four-square rendition of "Silver Skates," which evokes the roller rink more than the ice house. Also, I could live without Eartha Kitt's overplayed "Santa Baby" (and the Madonna clone version, for that matter).

All in all, though, a fine record. The sound is very good, as usual with RCA Victor products.

Victory at Sea

I am presenting the original 1953 recording of Victory at Sea for no other reason than I wanted to listen to it and decided to record it while doing so.

This was issued on CD about 20 years ago, but I believe that has long been out of print. What generally is available in the stereo remake, which extends to three volumes. This transfer is from a nice copy of the original LP.

Victory at Sea was a 13-hour documentary series that appeared on US television in 1952-53, and then in syndication for many years thereafter. For families like mine, where the father was on active duty in the South Pacific during the Second World War, it was watched intently, and I remember it well - especially the memorable score.

Robert Russell Bennett

And quite a score it was, a true collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and arranger Robert Russell Bennett, who worked together for many years. Some think that Bennett contributed as much or more to the score than Rodgers did. If we look strictly at quantity, that is undoubtedly true. There are 13 hours of music; Rodgers reputedly contributed only the 12 themes that are heard throughout the score. Of course, they are much the most memorable part of the what is heard; the reason why the music is still heard today. Bennett was a very talented orchestrator; Rodgers was a genius at what he did.

Even geniuses need help every once in a while. If you listen to the main theme from Victory at Sea ("The Song of the High Seas") after one of the themes from the first movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony, premiered in 1910, you will see where Rodgers may have looked for inspiration. He also cribs the main theme from Chausson's Poem de l'amour et de la mer. Plus there are echoes of Elgar and Tchaikovsky in the orchestrations, but these would have been the work of Bennett.

Richard Rodgers

Note (June 2023): Valued commenter JAC writes as follows: "This is a most timely revival of this topic, given the very recent publication of George J. Ferencz's masterful book on the score. In impressive detail, both historical and analytical, he takes us through the making and contents of each episode.

"And he does establish beyond question how overwhelmingly essential Bennett was to the fabric of the score. Rodgers contributed his dozen themes, and they're truly inspired, no question. But there are whole episodes that mostly (or all) Bennett after the opening titles, and those are not all just unobtrusive background either -- there are complete Bennett marches for instance. I guess it's clear that I highly recommend this book."

Rodgers was a practical fellow. While composing the themes for Victory at Sea, he and Oscar Hammerstein also were discussing a new show, which became Me and Juliet. Not one of their big successes, but it does have an highly enjoyable score. The hit number was "No Other Love," a tango that was first heard in Victory at Sea as the "Beneath the Southern Cross" theme.

"No Other Love" 78 picture sleeve

RCA Victor, which had bankrolled Me and Juliet, rushed a Perry Como rendition of "No Other Love" to market to coincide with the musical's May 1953 opening. Como was a Crosbyite, but even the laid-back Bing might have found Perry's version impossibly languid. The download includes the a transfer from the original 78, which came in the picture sleeve at right. (Yes, there were 78 picture sleeves for a time.) The artwork is based on the play's program and is similar to the cover of the original cast LP.

Victory at Sea was recorded July 2, 1953 in Manhattan Center with members of the NBC Symphony, Bennett conducting.

[Note (June 2023): These recordings have now been remastered in ambient stereo. There is slight distortion on the vocal peaks in Perry Como's "No Other Love" single, probably caused by a disc master cut at too high a level. This distortion is present on all three copies I checked.]