More Early Vic Damone

This post is a companion to one from last September in that it is a 10-inch Mercury LP from 1950 containing early Vic Damone material.

It presents some of Damone's early single successes, such as "I have But One Heart". As before, the singer is in excellent voice and the sound is reasonably good considering the cheap vinyl that Mercury used. "Come Back to Sorrento" was almost certainly pitched too high; I have lowered it one semitone, and the result is more natural.

As before, on most but not all these recordings, the vocalist was backed by Glenn Osser. Here is the lineup of songs, conductors and recording dates, as best as I have been able to glean from a number of sources:

I Have But One Heart (Jerry Gray) April 23, 1947

God's Country (Glenn Osser) early 1950

Again (Glenn Osser) February 1949

Why Was I Born? (Glenn Osser) June 1949

Come Back to Sorrento (Tutti Camarata) October 1947

My Bolero (Glenn Osser) June 1949

You're Breaking My Heart (Glenn Osser) February 1949

Don't Say Goodbye (Glenn Osser) early 1950

Virgil Fox - Organ Reveries

I enjoyed the Virgil Fox Christmas LP so much that I pulled out another of his early albums for transfer. This one, on Columbia, dates from 1951.

1952 concert poster

For the program, Fox chose a collection of familiar and mellifluous pieces, which the label issued under the title Organ Reveries. (I might note that the "War March of the Priests," included here, hardly qualifies as a "reverie".) A contemporary review in Billboard called the set "a frank bid for the general, unsophisticated market for those buyers who would take fright at a fugue," while acknowledging that Fox plays the pieces "with respect, admiration and fine technical ability."

As with the Christmas album, Fox is at the organ of Riverside Church in New York, where he was music director. However, the organ here had not yet been replaced by the Aeolian-Skinner Fox played for his holiday program. Here the instrument is the original 1930 organ installed by Hook & Hastings of Boston, although by that time it had already acquired the Aeolian-Skinner console seen on the cover.

The Hook & Hastings was never considered a great organ, but it does make a splendid sound. The album must have been popular; Columbia later reissued it with a different cover featuring the large pink blob shown at right.

Like the unsophisticated folks who enjoyed these chestnuts in the 50s, I delight in Fox's musicianship and will be offering some of his other LPs as time goes by.

More Jean Sablon

This is a follow-up to my recent post of the Jean Sablon Souvenir Album, which collected circa 1945-46 singles that the French crooner made for American Decca. This LP assembles his May and June 1942 recordings for the same label, completing the sides he inscribed for the Decca folks.

These earlier sessions concentrated on Sablon's French repertoire. Leading off is the famous stepwise melody of "Ma mie," which may be more familiar to some of you under the title of "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings." Harold Rome wrote the English lyrics for Kathryn Grayson to present in the 1945 Sinatra-Kelly musical Anchors Aweigh.

This present collection is just as fine as the earlier album. The backing is by Paul Baron, a conductor who was on the radio at the time, and who also was on hand for some of the 1946 dates. Even the Sablon photo on the cover is the same as the first LP we featured. And I recommend this one just as heartily!

Note (May 2025): this LP has now been remastered in ambient stereo.

LINK

'Merry Overtures' from Cleveland

I prepared this transfer because I've been reading the recent biography of conductor George Szell written by Michael Charry, and when looking for a Cleveland Orchestra record to listen to, this one came to hand.

It's a collection of overtures - an idea whose time has passed, but one I favor - and this is an especially good one.

Merry Overtures is a vintage 1957 recording, which was the year that the Szell-led Cleveland troupe began to be recognized as a leading orchestra after a highly successful European tour. The group set down these items in the months following that expedition. The Szell discography claims that the first comes from Severance Hall on October 25, 1957, with the following overtures taped in the city's Masonic Auditorium in November 1957 and March 1958. (For many years, Cleveland Orchestra recordings were made in that auditorium, which was more resonant that Severance.)

Szell and bassoonist George Goslee

I've published Cleveland Orchestra recordings from the 1940s, and the playing there is always quite good, but these are of a different order altogether. This collection is superb; it shows why the orchestra gained renown.

This LP has never been reissued as a package, although as far as I can tell, all the pieces and parts except perhaps for the Rossini overture have been parcelled out to other LPs or CDs. This Epic album was mono-only, but I believe some or all of the items were taped in stereo. I am sure I have a stereo copy of the Mozart, and perhaps others. No matter - the mono sound is glowing and does full justice to a great orchestra beginning to achieve its considerable potential.

By the way, the grandees on the cover are not in Severance Hall - a note says the photo was taken in Carnegie Hall. It's not normal for tails and tiaras to be worn at orchestra concerts these days, but perhaps the custom was considerably more formal in the 50s.

Pam Garner Sings Quietly

Pam Garner was a stylish singer of the late 50s and early 60s who made just a few records.

She is a vocalist much to my own taste - unmannered, sensitive, in tune. It is unfortunate that she only made two LPs - this and one two years later for Columbia. The market for pop singers changed in the post-Elvis era, and that change only accelerated when the English invaded in the early 60s. The result was the market for traditional pop singers dried up, at least on records.

Pam Garner shows up in Billboard as early as 1953, and disappears right after her Columbia LP came out. So not a long career, but one that is worth your attention.

Garner also recorded two singles for Coral. One backed "Me and My Shadow," which is on this LP, with something called "Pinch Me Baby," which can be found on YouTube. Pam linked up with the Les Brown band for the other 45, which I haven't been able to locate.


This album was among Coral's first stereo issues in late 1958. It has the familiar foibles of early stereo records. Pam's voice wanders all over the stereo field on the first side. The sound on the second side listed decidedly to starboard; I have rebalanced it here. Finally, it took some doing to lessen a pronounced hissing on Pam's sibilants. This must have been an artifact of the recording; she was too young for loose dentures.

1958 Billboard ad

Jean Sablon

Jean Sablon (1906-94) was sometimes called "the French Bing Crosby," and there is a vocal resemblance, although Sablon had his own, highly romantic style.

Sablon had a long career, beginning in the Parisian cabarets with Mistinguett among others in the 1920s, continuing with Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, and then to the US for radio stardom in the 1940s.

These sides, which date from December 1945 and February and April of the following year, were made in the US. Sablon sings in French and English, save for a superb rendition of Dorival Caymmi's "Porque" in Portuguese. (The singer had spent time in Brazil in the 1920s.)

I once wrote on another forum that Sablon was limited both vocally and as an artist. While that harsh assessment may literally be true - he does not have much range - it would be just as accurate to say that what he does, he does extremely well. This is one of the more enjoyable records it has been my pleasure to feature, and more are forthcoming.

Note (May 2025): these recordings have now been remastered in ambient stereo.

LINK

Dates with Ralph Flanagan

A short time ago, I wrote about an unusual 12-inch promotional disk that had a 10-inch Buddy Morrow LP called "The Big Beat" on one side and a Ralph Flanagan album on the other.

The Meadowbrook EP

Here is the Flanagan side of the record, sourced from a 10-inch LP laboriously titled "Dates with Ralph Flanagan at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook and the Hollywood Palladium." And if that isn't confusing enough, the 10-incher was actually a combination of two EPs, one for the Meadowbrook (at right) and one for the Palladium.

Joint Flanagan-Morrow ad

Not that the numbers were actually recorded at those then-famous venues. That took place in a New York studio. To simulate a supposed ballroom sound, RCA added a big dose of reverb and amped up the bass. The result was hollow and boomy - more like an airplane hangar than amphitheater, I'd say. I've adjusted the bottom-heavy effect, but there's not much I can do with the echo.

The recordings are from May and June 1953. The set includes a number by Buddy Victor, an innocuous band vocalist of the time.