Ray Anthony, Billy Eckstine and Christmas Seals for 1954 and 1957

A Christmas Seals appeal from 1954

Here's a second set of holiday materials from the Christmas Seals people, from both 1954 and 1957. From the former year, we have bandleader Ray Anthony in a Christmas show, another selection of Christmas Seals promos from the celebrities of the day, and the official Christmas Seals song, as presented by Kitty Kallen.

For 1957, there is the Christmas Seals song for that year as presented by Billy Eckstine along with several lead-in promos, and additional renditions by George Beverly Shea, Sister Rosetta Sharpe and the Statesmen Quartet with Hovie Lister.

Christmas Seals materials from both 1954 and 1957 have appeared her before. From 1954, we've had programs from Eddie Fisher and Tennessee Ernie, along with celebrity spots (find these here), and last year's post of shows featuring Julius La Rosa and Jack Benny (which are here). From 1957, we have had shows starring Lena Horne and Gordon MacRae (here).

The Ray Anthony Show

Ray Anthony completes my cache of Christmas Seals shows from 1954 (well, except for Guy Lombardo, which I haven't transferred). Ray was riding high in 1954 with one of the most popular bands in the land.

His program for Christmas Seals was one of those where the celebrity just spins his current records, with no pause for Christmas music. For Anthony, this went so far as programming his hit "The Bunny Hop." (Perhaps he thought he was doing an Easter Seals show?)

A how-to on the Bunny Hop (click to enlarge).
Don't get so carried away that you knock over the Christmas tree.

Two of Anthony's other selections were dances, too - "Cat Dancin'" and "Dance My Heart." Finally, he added "Say Hey" - a tribute to center fielder Willie Mays, overshooting the baseball season by a few months.

The performances are good (they are Ray's Capitol recordings) and the sound is, too.

LINK to Ray Anthony Show

More Celebrity Spots from 1954

This group of 10 celebrities is composed mainly of actors, with the addition of Eartha Kitt and Eddie Fisher, best known as singers.

Robert Stack, Eartha Kitt

Once again, the notables make their support of Christmas Seals known, in spots that last from 20 seconds to a minute.

Here is the complete roster of participants: 

• Robert Stack
• William Bendix
• Mona Freeman
• Eartha Kitt
• Eddie Fisher
• Celeste Holm
• George Murphy
• Gene Raymond
• Barbara Stanwyck
• Loretta Young

Celeste Holm, William Bendix

LINK to Celebrity Spots

The 1954 Christmas Seals Song

The official Christmas Seals song for 1954 didn't get much traction in the market and is little remembered, although it was written by one of the finest songwriting duos of the time - Matt Dennis and Tom Adair.

Kitty Kallen had the honor of recording the number, but on the picture sleeve above, Decca oddly decided to emphasize the flip side, "Baby Brother (Santa Claus, Dear Santa Claus)," issuing the song in its children's series, to boot.

I suppose Kallen was chosen because her child-like voice was suited to "Baby Brother," but this could have and should have been much better.

I have shared this record before, but this version is newly refurbished.

LINK to 1954 Christmas Seals song

The 1957 Christmas Seals Song

For 1957, Christmas Seals adopted an existing song, "If I Can Help Somebody," written by Alma Bazel Androzzo in 1946 and recorded soon after by Turner Layton, a songwriter ("After You're Gone, "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans") and cabaret performer.

Alma Bazel Androzzo

Androzzo (1912-2001) was born in Tennessee but lived a good part of her life in Pennsylvania. "If I Can Help Somebody," her most famous song, was taken up by such luminaries as Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. A recording by tenor Josef Locke enjoyed some success in 1951.

Billy Eckstine

For Christmas Seals, there were at least two versions of the song in the market and on radio shows. The first is what is being featured today - the recording by the sonorous Billy Eckstine. Mr. B is strikingly fine in this version, sincere and convincing.

Mercury promotional cover

Mercury sent the record out to radio stations with four different promotional messages to introduce the record - by Sarah Vaughan, Patti Page, Eckstine himself, and bandleader David Carroll.

My friend Ernie alerted me that there was another promotional version issued at the same time, this one by gospel singer George Beverly Shea. I don't have the promotional material, but I have added Shea's rendition to the package.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, George Beverly Shea

The song's simple but inspiring message was taken up by many other gospel singers. I've also added the contemporary recordings by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Statesmen Quartet with Hovie Lister. The Statesmen performance features their tenor, Rosie Rozell.

Here are the opening lyrics of the song, which demonstrate why the work was appealing to the Christmas Seals people, and to many singers through the years:

If I can help somebody, as I travel along

If I can help somebody, with a word or song

If I can help somebody, from doing wrong

No, my living shall not be in vain

LINK to 1957 Christmas Seals song 

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

The Marvelous Jo Ann Greer

Jo Ann Greer (1927-2001) was a talented artist whose work took place mostly behind the scenes - as a band singer and ghost vocalist for Hollywood stars. As such, she has never received the acclaim her skills should have ensured.

Today we have a good portion of the songs she recorded with several bandleaders, what may be her only single as featured artist, and several examples of her dubbing assignments for the movies. The single sides (and a few album cuts) number 19 in all, spanning 1952-55. These are supplemented by eight soundtrack vocals dating from 1953, 1957 and 1959.

I might as well state at the outset - as I sometimes do with these compilations - that Greer was not often given the best material. But even in the most ephemeral items, she shows remarkable presence, infallible rhythm and diction, excellent intonation, and a vibrato that she uses very effectively. Given good songs, she is extraordinarily impressive.

1952-55 Recordings

Jo Ann's recordings are almost all in a band context, where extroversion and projection were almost a necessity.

Her earliest records come from 1952 and the Sonny Burke band. The first item is "I Wanna Love You," a relentlessly repetitive riff that she shares with a pair named Hub and Hubbie, about whom I know nothing. (Update: reader lafong has discovered that the two were probably songwriters Don Raye and Gene De Paul.) 

The flip is "I'll Always Be Following You," an OK Bernie Wayne tune done in duet with Don Burke, an experienced band singer. Greer is confident and forthright even on her earliest records.

Sonny Burke and band

Burke was a mambo popularizer; his Mambo Jambo album has appeared here. Greer was the soloist on his "(Me with) Mambo on My Mind," built on a familiar riff. Hub and Hubbie assist.

The above records were for Decca, which soon had Greer record her first and (I believe) only solo single. For the plug side, she turned Kay Swift's rhythm number "Fine and Dandy" into an overwrought torch song, before increasing the tempo. "I Love to Hear a Choo Choo Train" is a novelty built on another familiar riff. It begins with the usual train effects. Peggy Lee's ex-husband, Dave Barbour, is the bandleader.

Jerry Gray

Jo Ann came into her own in two early 1953 songs with Jerry Gray, who didn't ask her to tackle novelties or mambos, or turn fast songs into slow ones. "My Heart Belongs to Only You" is a superb reading of a song that was making the rounds that year. "No Moon at All" is a great David Mann-Redd Evans song from 1947 that she does wonderfully.

At about the same time, Greer joined the Ray Anthony band for a short but productive spell. With her first number, "Wild Horses," she is back in novelty territory. The problem is not that she did this material poorly; rather, it's that it is poor material. The horse number is backed by "You're a Heartbreaker," a cover of a country ballad that's handled well.

Dick Stabile

Anthony recorded for Capitol, and while Jo Ann was on the rolls there, bandleader Dick Stabile borrowed her for his recording of "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street," which was Gene Austin's first hit, back in 1925. This is a beautiful reading, if you can tolerate Stabile's piercing alto. Coincidentally, Greer had dubbed the songs for Gene Austin's daughter, Charlotte, in the film Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder in 1952.

Stabile's recording credits go back to the 1930s, but most of his studio work was as the bandleader for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. You may know him at sight; he plays the bandleader for Rosemary Clooney's number "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me" in White Christmas.

Greer's final two recordings with Ray Anthony were her most successful on the charts. First was one side of a two-sided novelty smash. "The Hokey Pokey" and its discmate "The Bunny Hop," enlivened dances and wedding receptions for many years.  

Jo Ann's vocal charisma mightily contributes to the success of "The Hokey Pokey's" repetitive silliness. That's the bandleader calling out the bodily parts; his lack of presence sets off Greer's confident singing.

We're back in the 1920s for "That's My Weakness Now," which had been introduced by Betty Boop herself, Helen Kane. Greer could hardly be more of a contrast as she duets beautifully with Marcie Miller. This propulsive reading has a nice arrangement, too.

The Les Brown band with Jo Ann Greer, c1957

Later in 1953, Greer moved on to the Les Brown band, where she was to work for three decades. It's said that Sonny Burke recommended Greer to Brown. I believe that Jo Ann replaced the excellent Lucy Ann Polk, who has been heard on this blog with her family group the Town Criers and Kay Kyser.

Greer's first recording with Brown was Irving Berlin's "Sittin' In The Sun," which was written for White Christmas but not used. The song also was recorded by Frankie Laine at about the same time.

In September 1953, soon after Jo Ann joined Les' crew, the band recorded a live date at the Hollywood Palladium that Coral issued on two LPs, with one of her vocals on each disc. For the first, Brown programmed the oldie, "Back in Your Old Back Yard," scored by the talented Skip Martin. Les himself, along with his arranger Ben Homer, wrote the other song, "Sentimental Journey," his longtime theme that is also closely associated with his mid-40s vocalist Doris Day. Greer does it beautifully; she's a bit more extroverted than Day, as was her manner.

Let's move on the Les Brown singles from 1954. First is another train song, "Susquehanna Transfer," a very good swinger that Jo Ann does with a great deal of personality. Yet another is "Sentimental Train," a lovely tune once you get past the freight-train open, which arrangers seemed helpless to resist. The writer was Carroll Lucas, a former Sammy Kaye arranger.

"The Man That Got Away" is a Harold Arlen-Ira Gershwin song written for the latest iteration of A Star Is Born and made famous by Judy Garland, a star if there ever was one. Greer is not intimidated; she makes use of her vibrato here to give the song a great deal of passion. Band vocals don't get much better than this.

"Lullaby of Birdland" is a George Shearing standard from 1952 that the pianist wrote for the famous New York club. Shearing used the harmonies of Walter Donaldson's "Love Me or Leave Me." Brown's 1955 recording opens with an attractive sax chorus. Greer's vocals swing strongly. She could do it all.

Work for Films and Television

Jo Ann worked closely with Rita Hayworth on three films in the 1950s. In this set, we have recordings from two of them, Miss Sadie Thompson from 1953 and Pal Joey from 1957.

Jo Ann scaled her voice back when she did vocal doubling for the breathy Hayworth. Her projection is much less than she typically used in a band context, making her manner more confidential. "The Heat is On" in Miss Sadie Thompson and both of the Pal Joey tracks have voice introductions from Hayworth; you will notice how closely Jo Ann matches her voice to Rita.

The Sadie Thompson songs are good ones, written by Lester Lee and Ned Washington. The second is "Sadie Thompson's Song," sometimes called "The Heat Is On."

Pal Joey was a 1940 Rodgers and Hart show, recast as a Sinatra vehicle. Hayworth plays his foil Vera Prentice-Simpson, a former burlesque dancer, at least in the film adaptation. Hayworth's "Zip" number was inspired by the act of the "intellectual stripper," Gypsy Rose Lee. ("Zip! I was reading Schopenhauer last night. And I think that Schopenhauer was right.") "Zip" is mainly notable for its witty lyrics. The character's more enduring song is "Bewitched," which Greer sings wonderfully well.

In 1959, Jo Ann was enlisted for the vocals on an episode of a new televised crime drama, The Naked City. Her character is a young singer in New York; Greer dubs four George Duning songs with words by Ned Washington (again). The first two are good. "Somewhere, Wisconsin" provides the character's back story, and "Five Minutes After Forever" tells of her love for a young cowboy. The title of "Live Dangerously" provides all you need to know about it. And in the contrived "Solid Food, Solitude and You" she pledges to go off with the Westerner. All are nicely done, and Jo Ann, as always, is in great voice.

Jo Ann Greer

Elsewhere on this blog you can find the complete soundtrack LPs for Miss Sadie Thompson and The Naked City.

A few more Greer dubbing assignments, for Hayworth, June Allyson and Esther Williams, can be heard on YouTube, followed by a 1991 club appearance.

These recordings come from my collection and the Internet Archive. The sound is excellent in all cases. The download includes brief Cash Box or Billboard reviews of most if not all of the singles.

A Dragnet Christmas

Following up on Kukla, Fran and Ollie, here is a Christmas album from another well-remembered American television program, Jack Webb's Dragnet.

Like Kukla, Fran and Ollie - and many if not most TV shows of the time - Dragnet began as a radio drama. Starring Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday of the Los Angeles Police Department, the program went on the air in 1949. Webb's long-time sidekick Ben Alexander joined in 1951, remaining on the show for many years as Officer Frank Smith. The radio program lasted until 1957 - almost to the end of such programming on that medium.

Jack Webb and Ben Alexander show off their hat collections

The TV program, which began in 1951, was strongly influenced by the pseudo-documentary look of the 1948 film noir The Naked City, and more broadly by the noir genre and its conventions. Friday the character was the offspring of the noir detective - with the significant difference that he was a police figure rather than a private eye. Whereas the police in hard-boiled fiction were often brutal, incompetent and crooked, in Webb's world they are dedicated, selfless professionals. The series is credited with markedly improving the public image of the police.

I am not an expert on Dragnet, but in this episode Webb has no wife and seemingly no life outside of work, whereas Frank Smith does have a home life (and apparently views his wife as a combination cook, housekeeper and secretary). In this regard, Friday is something akin to the the standard hard-boiled detective's persona as a lonely crusader.

Today's post includes the Dragnet Christmas LP shown above (a 10-incher), the TV show itself, and four singles that played off on the popularity of the show.

Dragnet - The Christmas Story

Among the reasons for Dragnet's enduring popularity are the many memes it spawned. Although the program has a reputation for being "realistic," it actually was nearly as stylized as a kabuki drama. Webb is always the narrator, he always starts the program with the same introduction, he leads off each scene by giving its location and the time to the minute (he apparently had quite a memory), the conversations generally end with Friday one-upping the person he is interacting with (as happens in the first scene with both his partner and his boss), and so on.

Perhaps the most important of these stylistic trademarks was Walter Schumann's opening motto-theme: DUM - DE- DUM - DUM, etc. (Schumann apparently pinched this motif from Miklos Rosza's music for The Killers, which led to an eventual legal settlement.) The music was so catchy that it became the basis for a 1953 single by Ray Anthony and several other records, discussed in the next section.

Scene of the 'crime'

Following Anthony's success, Webb and RCA Victor decided that they should get in on the action, preparing this Christmas LP for the 1953 holiday season. "A Christmas Story" is taken from the soundtrack for Dragnet's 1952 Christmas program. The story works very well without any visual element, demonstrating that the series was essentially a filmed radio show, similar to most TV productions of the time.

"A Christmas Story" was a charming tale involving a statue of the infant Jesus stolen from a church's manger scene. Joe and Frank go to great pains to find the statue, only to have it conveniently reappear as they return to tell the good padre they hadn't been able to locate it.

Joe Carioca, Jr. as Paco Mendoza

For a big-city detective team, the two seemingly have little to do besides chasing after a plaster statue. When the program opens, Friday is in the office addressing Christmas cards and Smith is coming in from doing his Christmas shopping.

The performances are good, however, with Webb muttering in his usual monotone, familiar character actors like Herb Vigran turning up in bit roles, and the appealing non-professional Joe Carioca, Jr. as the juvenile "thief," Paco Mendoza.

The download includes both my transfer of the LP and a video of the program itself, courtesy of YouTube, plus the usual scans, photos, and Billboard articles. The bonus singles are detailed below.

Dragnet Singles and Parodies

Unsurprisingly, Webb liked records that promoted his show

The big Dragnet musical success was Ray Anthony's single, which hit number three on the charts in 1953 and sent musicians of all kinds to the studio in an attempt to replicate his success.

Two notable parodies came from the usual sources: Spike Jones and Stan Freberg.

Spike's Dragnet is the more literal, with Jones as Sgt. Jim Saturday parodying many of Dragnet's stylistic tics, while tossing off the usual one-liners and throwing in the usual sound effects. Silly, but enjoyable.

Freberg turns Dragnet into the legend of St. George and the Dragonet. Freberg introduces himself, "This is the countryside. My name is St. George. I am a knight." He interviews a maiden (June Foray) who somehow has acquired a thick Brooklyn accent. Then he talks to a knave (Daws Butler) who sounds like Arnold Stang. It's during this record that Freberg supposedly invented the famous line, "Just the facts, ma'am," even though he never says exactly that phrase - nor was it ever heard on Dragnet. Eventually Daws shows up as the dragon and is arrested for overacting.

Other musicians took up the Dragnet theme as the basis of novelty instrumentals. One such was Cleveland polka maestro Kenny Bass, who uses it as the basis of a lively number that sounds much like any other Slovenian polka you have ever heard, and none the worse for that. Bass intersperses siren-whistle effects and screams in an apparent homage to the TV show.

The 78s all are courtesy of Internet Archive, as remastered by me.

There's one mildly Dragnet-related item on my other blog: Jack Webb is said to have adopted the name Friday in honor of singer Pat Friday (originally Freiday), who had appeared with him on radio. You can find Pat's excellent records here.

Best holiday wishes to all from Jack, Ben, Ray, Spike, Stan, June, Daws, Kenny and Pat - and me, too!

Jack and Ben smoke the sponsor's cigarettes

A House Party with Ray Anthony

I recently had a request to reupload a Ray Anthony LP called Swing Fox Trots. As is my usual practice, I went to work improving the sound, and, as often happens, I enjoyed the record so much that I pulled another one of the same artist's albums down from the shelf.

This present post is the result. It is a 10-inch LP called Houseparty Hop, taking its title from a terrific boppish tune of the same name that shows off Anthony's band in fine style. Otherwise, the program is composed of standards, all dispatched in a most pleasing manner. Anthony's band became known as a Glenn Miller clone, but there is none of that here.

Unlike many albums of the time, the tunes were not issued first as singles (or at all, as far as I know). The recording sessions were held in August and September 1951 in Los Angeles. I believe this was still a working band, although the personnel may have been augmented by a few session hands such as Ted Nash and Conrad Gozzo. The arrangements are likely by George (The Fox) Williams.

Billboard ad

I have many, many Anthony records, so I admit I chose this one for the cover. The artist assumed that "houseparty" likely referred to a fraternity house, probably accurately - Anthony was very popular on college campuses. So we get a cartoon depiction of what a pre-Animal House frat party looked like. Some dancing, some smooching, and some punch drinking (even the house mother is imbibing, although the Ivy-looking fellow in the crew cut, horn rims and bow tie seems dubious). Also very much of the time is a Cro-Magnon type chasing a girl onto the back cover - you can see the amusing continuation of this scenario below (click to enlarge). I probably don't need to observe that you would not see this kind of behavior depicted so lightly these days. One final observation - I love how the Capitol logo is hung on the frat house wall!

As a bonus, I transferred an Anthony EP called Dixie Parade, which can be found on my singles blog. And be sure to check out Swing Fox Trots, which is a much better album than the title would portend. When I transferred that record years ago, I speculated that Billy May might be responsible for the arrangements. However, subsequent research leads me to think that is unlikely. I came across a 1952 Billboard article in which May complained that "The Fox" was in his henhouse, stealing his style in Williams's arrangements for Anthony's band!

Julie Wilson and 'This Could Be the Night'

Cabaret legend Julie Wilson died this week, and I thought I might pay tribute to her by presenting this relatively obscure soundtrack recording from This Could Be the Night, a 1957 film where she played (what else) a nightclub singer. Wilson's vocal LPs of the period have been reissued, but not this item, as far as I can tell.

Wilson was 32 when the film was shot. She had already become a fixture at the posh La Maisonette at the St. Regis Hotel in New York, with her repertoire of standards and mildly risque material - a sophisticated mix for a high-end audience. She also had appeared in several shows, and this acting experience and her striking looks made her a natural for Hollywood.

Ray Anthony and Julie Wilson

Along with This Could Be the Night, Wilson was cast in the The Strange One (which soundtrack has also appeared here, although it does not feature her). The former film was set backstage at a nightclub. Quite a club - for a band, it employed Ray Anthony's ensemble, and for a stripper, it had the wonderfully attractive Neile Adams (who met her future husband Steve McQueen while making this film).

The movie sounds like fun, but the the soundtrack is nothing special, sorry to report. Anthony does a number of his set pieces - including two hits from 1952, "Trumpet Boogie" and "The Bunny Hop," that old-time wedding reception favorite. (The hop in this one is not as bouncy as the original version.) There also is something of a Sinatra flavor to the proceedings, with a cover of "The Tender Trap" and a rendition of "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die," which Anthony cut with The Voice back in 1954.

Neile Adams

The latter song has a solo by Julie Wilson, who admittedly did not have such a great voice herself. What she had was presence and personality. Her idol was Billie Holiday, who influence is apparent in two songs associated instead with other famous singers  - "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)" (Ivie Anderson) and "Taking a Chance on Love" (Ethel Waters). She also lets loose with the flapper-era favorite "Sadie Green," and one of the two versions of the title song, written by Nicholas Brodszky and Sammy Cahn. There is a vocal for Neile Adams, who may have been a wonderful dancer and actor, but whose singing was more like squawking.

M-G-M's sound is uncharacteristically close and harsh, but good enough, I guess. (Note (August 2025): The sound has now been reworked and is somewhat better.) I don't have personnel for the band, unfortunately. The film credits suggest that at least some of the arrangements were by Billy May and Skip Martin.

LINK (remastered in ambient stereo August 2025)

Ray shows the chorus line his spit valve