The 1944 Christmas Seal Radio Spots

I don't know how long Christmas Seals put out messages for use on radio, but this is probably the earliest set of spot announcements I have seen. It's from 1944 and it comes to us from Ernie of Christmas sharity fame, who found it on Internet Archive.

These spots were pressed on a transcription disc that was then sent to radio stations for potential public series airplay. 

Today if we were to hear such a message, we would probably expect it to come from a pop celebrity. But back then, the idea was to have authoritative voices make the appeal. The messages came from men who were well known from being on radio - reporters, commentators and announcers one and (almost) all.

Nor were the spots personal in nature - there were no individual stories or appeals to the heart. The closest approach was a mention that Frédéric Chopin died of tuberculosis at 39.

1944 Christmas Seal Campaign Label

The personalities heard on the record have faded from our collective memory. I was born less than five years after these spots were recorded, and I recognized just a handful of the names. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Here are a few words about each of the participants. The spots are only 20-30 seconds long, so read fast.

John Nesbitt, Raymond Gram Swing, Fulton Lewis, Jr.

John Nesbitt

John Nesbitt (1910-60) created, wrote and narrated the radio show The Passing Parade, which later became a series of MGM short subjects.

Raymond Gram Swing

Raymond Gram Swing (1887-1968) was one of the most influential news commentators of his era. He broadcast from Britain during World War II.

Fulton Lewis, Jr.

Fulton Lewis, Jr. (1903-66) was a conservative American radio broadcaster from the 1930s to the 1960s. At his  peak, he was heard on more than 500 radio stations.

Bob Hawk, Milton Cross, Red Barber

Bob Hawk

Bob Hawk (1907-89) was an radio quizmaster and comic who helped popularize "man in the street” interviews.

Milton Cross

Milton Cross (1897-1975) was an American radio announcer best known as the host of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts for several decades. He wrote many books on music.

Red Barber

Red Barker (1908-92) was a former sportswriter who became the announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and then the New York Yankees.

Robert St. John, Clifton Fadiman, Phil Baker

Robert St. John

Robert St. John (1902-2003) was a journalist and broadcaster who was an NBC war correspondent in London when this was recorded.

Clifton Fadiman

Clifton Fadiman (1904-99) was an author, editor, and radio and television personality. He was the host of a popular quiz show, Information, Please!, from 1938 to 1948.

Phil Baker

Phil Baker (1896-1963) was a comedian and radio emcee. Baker had also been in vaudeville, wrote songs and played the accordion. He was hosting radio's Take or Leave It at the time of these spots.

Ralph Edwards, Parks Johnson, Deems Taylor

Ralph Edwards

Ralph Edwards (1913-2005) was a radio personality who would become best known as the host of This Is Your Life, first on radio and then television. He was on Truth or Consequences at the time.

Parks Johnson

Parks Johnson (1891-1970), was a radio personality who created Vox Pop, the first radio quiz show.

Deems Taylor

Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was a well-known composer, music critic and commentator. His music has appeared on the main blog.

LINK

A Tony Martin Christmas

The great singer Tony Martin did not record many Christmas records, but most of the ones he did make are unusual in their interest.

For this post - suggested by reader musicman1979 - we go back almost to the beginning of Martin's career, and continue to 1956. There are seven selections in all. They are from my collection and that of Christmas music maven Ernie Haynes, whom I thank once again.

In 1941, the Decca label had Tony record two songs by classical composers that are remarkably fine and almost unknown today. Neither were written for popular singers, but even so Martin was fully up to the challenges they present. 

"Christmas Candle" is by American composer-pianist Eleanor Remick Warren, setting a circa 1920 poem by Kate Louise Brown. The poetry is dated, but the song nonetheless is effective in Tony's committed performance.

The other side of the 78 is just as interesting. It is "Nazareth" by the 19th century French composer Charles Gounod, here with English words by Henry F. Chorley and presumably an arrangement by bandleader David Rose. This is a gorgeous melody that is seldom heard today. The vocalist again is fully engaged.

In 1947, Tony's holiday offering was much more relaxed and far better known today - the new "Christmas Song" from Mel Tormé and Robert Wells. Martin's genial performance, backed by Earle Hagen, is just right.

Moving ahead to 1954, Tony contributed a version of "Silent Night" to RCA Victor's Christmas LP To Wish You a Merry Christmas. I haven't found a singles release for this performance. For this number and all succeeding items, Henri René was the conductor. The complete Victor LP is available on my other blog, newly remastered. (It is at the end of a post devoted to the Voices of Walter Schumann.)

RCA's 1955 Christmas lineup - click to enlarge

In 1955, Victor had Tony record two new and very lively songs by famed songwriters. "Christmas in America" is just the kind of material that lyricist Sammy Cahn did well, here aided by a skillful Hal Borne melody.

Paul Francis Webster and Ben Oakland contributed "Christmas in Rio," a fun number that makes a apt companion for the Cahn-Borne song. Neither became standards, but they are well worth your time.

I hate to end on a somber note, but these numbers are presented in chronological order. The final song is the plaintive "Lonely Winter," a 1956 piece by Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman. It demonstrates one more aspect of Martin's versatility as a singer - from classics to torch songs, he did it all.

Thanks again to Ernie for the assistance and to musicman1979 for the idea!

LINK

Steve Cropper and the Memphis Sound

Duck Dunn, Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr.

I've never written about the soul music offshoot of R&B on these blogs, but the recent death of guitarist-songwriter-producer Steve Cropper is a good, if sad opportunity to do so.

Cropper was one of the leading lights of the "Memphis sound" - the recordings on the Stax and Volt label in the 1960s that defined the soulful, groove-oriented music that generated a great number of hits.

I'm far from an expert on the music, but I am a fan, so from my collection I can provide a short playlist of hits featuring Cropper that span 1961-68.

A later French picture sleeve - Cropper is in the shadows at right

The first success was by the Mar-Keys with "Last Night," which originally came out on the Satellite label. With its blasting horn motto and simple structure, it provided fodder for a whole generation of garage bands. It's been said that Cropper doesn't play on the tune - there is no guitar part - but he insists he was there: "Jerry Lee 'Smoochy' Smith came up with the piano riff that was played on organ. Since [producer Chips] Moman didn't want a guitar on it for whatever reason, I wound up playing the hold-down on the organ on the root note." The only solo on the record is by a tenor saxophonist. I think it is Packy Axton doing his best Boots Randolph imitation.

Cropper soon got together with three other musicians to form Booker T. and the MGs - Booker T. Jones on keyboards, Lewie Steinberg and later Duck Dunn on bass, Cropper on guitar and the minimalist and rock-steady drummer Al Jackson, Jr.

This formidable quartet almost immediately had a giant R&B and pop hit with 1962's "Green Onions," which set a pattern - extraordinarily catchy music that was seemingly simple, and yet intricate and precise. It also provided an early example of Cropper's ability to fire off memorable guitar stings and riffs, one after the other. All this from a tune that used the same progression as "Last Night."

The second example from Booker T. and crew is 1967's "Hip Hug-Her," a title that was a play on a women's trouser style that was then fashionable. The organist carries the melody, Cropper's guitar interjects terse (and highly influential) comments.

The MGs often backed up Stax-Volt's star vocalists. In 1967, Stax paired soul superstar Otis Redding with Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas' daughter, who already had enjoyed a few hits. They had a huge R&B success with "Tramp," covering a Lowell Fulson song. It is a highly amusing diss contest with Carla (then in graduate school) dismissing Otis as being "from the Georgia woods" (which he was), for wearing overalls and needing a haircut, among other sins. His response - "I'm a lover! Oooo, I'm a lover!" Cropper contributes one memorable (and frequently imitated) riff after another. Also heard on this side are the Memphis Horns - trumpeter Wayne Jackson and saxophonist Andrew Love.

It's another (almost) perfect record - the only flaw being that Otis & Carla (as they were billed) were much too low in the mix. I've raised their level substantially, but Otis in particular is often off-mike.

Sam & Dave

The MGs and the Memphis Horns also supported the popular duo Sam & Dave (Sam Moore and Dave Prater), who are superb in "Soul Man" by David Porter and Isaac Hayes, who would become a soul superstar. This song had an afterlife when adopted by the Blues Brothers in the late 70s - who also were backed by Cropper.

Otis Redding

We complete this mini-festival of Stax-Volt hits with Otis Redding's valedictory song, "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay," released in 1968, a few months after the great singer died in a plane crash. The record was (and is) massively popular, deservedly so. Redding wrote the song with Cropper - listen to how the guitarist's usual stinging attack is transformed into sensitive support for Booker T. Jones on piano, the Memphis Horns and the touching vocal.

A brilliant record and a fine remembrance of the hugely talented co-authors.

LINK

Lambert Conducts Warlock and Bliss

Peter Warlock

Here are additional English compositions conducted by the supreme talent Constant Lambert - songs by Peter Warlock and a neglected march by Arthur Bliss.

Warlock - The Curlew and Two Songs

The playful fellow you see at right is the 20th century English composer Peter Warlock. While he did have a jolly side - heard in some of his songs - a dark side was expressed both in his art and very likely in his death.

Here is what I wrote about him years ago: "Peter Warlock, a pseudonym for Philip Heseltine, mainly wrote songs during his short life, which ended in what is most likely suicide at age 36. He is lightly regarded as a composer - possibly because he was a miniaturist, but his songs are of a very high standard. The Curlew cycle is his masterpiece, his music fitting extraordinary well to Yeats' bleak poetry. ('No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind; the boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.') 

"But the composer responds just as strongly to joyful verse such as the Shakespeare setting 'Pretty Ring Time.' This dual aspect of Heseltine's work is sometimes thought to express the dual Heseltine/Warlock identity."

Composer-conductor Constant Lambert was a close friend of Warlock during the 1920s. He led this performance of The Curlew in March 1931, a few months after Warlock's death. The performers included the International String Quartet, the baritone John Armstrong, and Terence McDonagh, who was to begin a long career with English ensembles by joining the new BBC Symphony at age 22. He takes the important English horn part in this work.

John Armstrong has a prominent, rapid vibrato that can be distracting, but is otherwise good as the vocal soloist.

The Curlew set was issued by the National Gramophonic Society, a subscription company that would soon close shop after making first recordings of many works, including this one, I believe. Thanks to my friend Nick Morgan for information on this release. You can find his research on this pioneering organization here. This transfer may well have originated with Nick, although I did find it on Internet Archive, and clean it up for presentation at this time.

You can find the second recording of The Curlew, with Alexander Young and the Sebastian String Quartet, here.

The National Gramophonic Society set also includes two other songs by Warlock - "Sleep," with words by Beaumont and Fletcher, and "Chop Cherry," from a work by George Peele.

 Bliss - March - The Phoenix (Homage to France)

Arthur Bliss and Constant Lambert preparing the ballet
Miracle in the Gorbals in 1944

Lambert also was friends with another important composer, Arthur Bliss. In 1944 he began preparing the Sadler's Wells Ballet production of Bliss's contemporary work, Miracle in the Gorbals. (Lambert's 1946 recording of the score can be found here.)

Also in 1944, Bliss was working on one of his stirring marches, The Phoenix (Homage to France). Lambert conducted the first recording, also in 1946, with the Philharmonia Orchestra. This piece is reminiscent of the composer's march theme from the film Things to Come, and looked forward to his superb Welcome the Queen of 1954.

LINK

Sylvia Syms' 1956 Decca Singles

Cash Box April 28, 1956

The vocalist Sylvia Syms was, until 1956, a niche attraction. She had issued LPs on Atlantic and the obscure Version label, and the year before had come out with an album on Decca, the subject of a new post on the main blog.

Decca also decided to take advantage of her versatility by issuing a string of singles containing songs that did not appear on her albums. For this post, we feature all he songs Sylvia recorded in 1956 - seven numbers.

As it happened, Syms' first Decca single was to take her to new heights of popularity. It was her enthusiastic rendition of Lerner and Loewe's "I Could Have Danced All Night," which of course came from My Fair Lady, one of the most successful musicals of all time.

Ironically, this single was backed by a song from one of the big Broadway failures of the day, a musical called Shangri-La that was based on James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon. Far from being enchanted, Shangri-La the show lasted only two weeks. That was enough time for Syms to come out with "Walk Sweet," an inoffensive song from the score by Harry Warren, Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee. (Actually, Sylvia recorded the song in March, three months before the show opened.)

(The story of Lost Horizon had no luck in the musical realm. Bacharach and David turned it into a movie musical in 1973 - another fiasco. There had been a successful non-musical film in 1937, however.)

Sylvia's follow-up to "I Could Have Danced All Night" enjoyed some popularity as well - although it was in a much different style. "English Muffins and Irish Stew" turned out to be a calypso, of all things, by those fine Trinidadians Moose Charlap and Bob Hilliard. Syms, an excellent actor, adopted a convincing accent (to me, anyway) are sailed confidently through this amusing number.

Ballads, calypso, R&B - Syms did it all

The discmate for "English Muffins" provided another contrast. It was the title song from the Audie Murphy boxing saga The World in My Corner, with music by Henry Mancini and words by Roy Carroll. This is a very good song, if downcast, and Sylvia makes the most of it.

"Dancing Chandelier" returned to the giddy world of "I Could Have Danced All Night." It's a Bob Hilliard-Phil Springer tale of  party-going dancers upstairs making the ceiling shake - with a happy ending. Syms is ebullient.

Sylvia again showed her range on the flip side, with a lively R&B number called "Each Day" from producers Bob Kornegay and Paul Winley. She's entirely persuasive.

Jack Pleis

Finally, we have another Phil Springer song, with lyrics by the gifted Carolyn Leigh - "The Nature of Things." This is a pleasing ballad with excellent contributions by the conductor and arranger Jack Pleis, who is just as much a stylistic chameleon as Syms. He is at the helm for all these numbers, which are generally admirable.

Decca might have had its doubts about "The Nature of Things" - the label did not issue it until late 1958, on the flip side of Gigi's "The Night They Invented Champagne" (which is not in this package).

LINK

Goossens Conducts Grieg

Eugene Goossens

The talented English conductor Eugene Goossens has not appeared on these blogs for more than 15 years, and so perhaps it's time he reappeared. Today he does so with a composer whose music he often recorded - Edvard Grieg. Most of the program is taken up by the two suites from Grieg's incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. The makeweight is the composer's Two Elegiac Melodies.

Grieg's most popular work on the concert platform is likely the Piano Concerto. But for popularity, the Peer Gynt suites would not be far behind.

It's ironic that Grieg's suites these days are usually consigned to the summer season or to pops concerts. They come from a play that was considered radical for its day. According to the Norwegian Ibsen Company, "Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt in deliberate disregard of the limitations that the conventional stagecraft of the 19th century imposed on drama. Its 40 scenes move uninhibitedly in time and space and between consciousness and the unconscious, blending folkloric fantasy and unsentimental realism."

Edvard Grieg, Henrik Ibsen

Ibsen himself chose Grieg to write the music for this tale, and the composer responded with some of his most memorable - and popular - themes. The story's ambulatory plot of a journey from Norway to Africa and back provided Grieg with ample opportunities for colorful music, most famously with "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

Goossens recorded the music on four occasions: The Suite No. 1 in 1927, 1937 and 1945, and the Suite No. 2 in 1928. For this program we have the 1937 Suite No. 1 and the 1928 Suite No. 2. (I wanted to include the 1947 recording as well, but one of the sides was unplayable.)

1937 label; 1928 label

Goossens conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the first suite, and the New Light Symphony Orchestra (perhaps a recording aggregation) for the second. The sound for all these pieces is quite good for the period, and the performances are affectionate.

The Two Elegiac Melodies - "The Wounded Heart (Hjertesár)" and "The Last Spring (Váren)" also were recorded in 1937 with the LPO and are just as sympathetically done.

LINK to Grieg recordings

More from Eugene Goossens

Although Goossens is little remembered these days, he was a skilled conductor (and composer) who made many excellent recordings. Here are two that have appeared on the main blog, which are now newly refurbished in ambient stereo. The links in the subheads below lead to the original posts.

Vaughan Williams - A London Symphony. The composer's second symphony elicited a detailed and idiomatic reading from Goossens conducting the Cincinnati Symphony, which he led from 1931-46. This recording comes from 1941, and is unusual in that it is of the 1920 version of the symphony, which Vaughan Williams later revised.

The cover at left ascribes the performance to the "Cromwell Symphony Orchestra." It came out during the early 1950s, when Victor's budget label Camden used pseudonyms on its classical reissues, for whatever reason.

Britten - A Simple Symphony. Here's what I wrote about this piece 16 years ago: "It's amazing (and perhaps a little daunting) to read that Britten composed some of this material when he was as young as nine, and assembled it into this delightful and memorable string symphony when he was 20."

The composer must have liked what he heard from Goossens and the recording orchestra in 1953 - he wrote the liner notes for this 10-inch LP. 

Ray Anthony Plugs His New Record

The year is 1957, and bandleader Ray Anthony is looking for a hit. His band is still popular, he was appearing in films - that year, This Could Be the Night - he is making albums and is on TV. But chart hits were hard to come by.

It wouldn't be too long before his version of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme would make the best-seller lists, but in the meantime, he was issuing novelties like today's pairing - "Cello-Phane," written by Anthony himself (supposedly), and "The Lonely Trumpet" by Hugo Strasser and Claus Ritter.

Capitol was behind this new release all the way. There was the full-page ad in Billboard seen at right, a promotional tour by the bandleader, and a promo record, shipped with the fond hope that deejays would play Ray's quick introductions to the two songs.

In brief, he remarks in the intros that "Cello-Phane" is interesting because it utilizes a cello, and "The Lonely Trumpet" notable because it features a Hammond organ.

"Cello-Phane" turns out to be "In the Mood" played on a cello with wordless vocal accompaniment - and a trumpet break, of course. Ray did not write "In the Mood"; in fact, it's hard to figure out who did. The hit Glenn Miller record said the author was Joe Garland, but Wingy Manone claimed the riff was based on his "Tar Paper Stomp" of 1930.

"The Lonely Trumpet" was by the then-young German bandleader Hugo Strasser. It also is attributed to Claus Ritter, but he was a lyricist and this version does not use the words. Here, the lonely trumpeter is of course Ray himself. Not sure who the lonely organist - or cellist - are.

As far as I can tell, the disc did not make the charts, so the promotion effort was in vain.

Wonderfully, I believe Ray is still with us, at age 103.

By the way, the This Could Be the Night soundtrack I mentioned above is newly remastered in ambient stereo, with new graphics and complete scans. It features the chanteuse Julie Wilson along with Ray's band.

LINK to Cello-Phane and The Lonely Trumpet

Lonely Ray Anthony with then-wife Mamie Van Doren