May 2005

May 26, 2005
 

 

Smith Ballew

Footloose And Fancyfree
Smith Ballew And His Orchestra
Smith Ballew, vocal                            1935
(Oriole 3158 A mx 17487)
 

Take The Ache From My Heart
Smith Ballew And His Orchestra
Smith Ballew, vocal                            1935
(Oriole 3158 B mx 17485)
 

All I Do Is Dream Of You
Chick Bullock, vocal                           1934
(Banner 33108 A mx 15425)
 

Sleepy Head
Chick Bullock, vocal                           1934
(Banner 33108 B mx 15426)
 

Here are two vocalists who were very famous in the early 1930s but have been completely forgotten by today's general public.

Born in Palestine, Texas in 1902, Smith Ballew developed an interest in music while attending the University of Texas and spent much of the 1920s leading  Texas based jazz bands.  After a brief period with the Ben Pollack Orchestra in Chicago,  Ballew ended up in New York City in early 1928 where his vocal talents were discovered by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.   Ballew's vocal on a  12 inch 78 rpm "concert style" recording with the Dorsey Brothers Concert Orchestra  for the Okeh label helped bring him to the attention of Okeh executives who offered him a recording contract.   With the help of dance band impresario Jean Goldkette, a band specifically suited to Ballew's singing style was formed.  The band was soon booked into one of New York's top nightspots and was given additional exposure through NBC network radio broadcasts.  By 1931 Ballew's success as a crooner  had come to the attention of Rudy Vallee who invited Ballew and his band to fill in for three months at Vallee's New York nightclub, Villa Vallee, while Vallee was away on tour. 

In addition to work with his own band, Ballew was also very much in demand as a vocalist in New York City recording studios and made records with a number of bands for virtually every record label that maintained a studio in the city.   During periods when he was under an exclusive recording contract with a particular  record label,  Ballew frequently performed for rival labels under the pseudonym Buddy Blue. 

One of Ballew's good friends was Glenn Miller who occasionally worked for him as both a trombonist and talent scout.  In fact, the very first records issued under the "Glenn Miller Orchestra" name were actually  recorded by the Smith Ballew Orchestra with Glenn Miller's name used as a recording pseudonym. 

In 1936, Ballew embarked on a new career as an actor and starred in several "singing cowboy" westerns.  He made his final movie appearance in 1951 after which he moved to Fort Worth, Texas where he worked for many years at Convair and its successor, General Dynamics. 

Chick Bullock was the house vocalist for the American Record Corporation (ARC), a company which found success in an industry devastated by the Depression through its "dime store" subsidiary labels which were sold at bargain prices through discount chains and mail order houses such as Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward.  By the mid 1930s, ARC had managed to acquire all of the surviving 1920s era American record labels with the sole exception of Victor.    Bullock recorded with a variety of  ARC bands as well as his own band, the Levee Loungers, which was comprised of ARC studio musicians.  He even performed on some recordings by Cuban rhumba band Antobal's Cubans.  For those recordings,  Bullock was credited under the pseudonym "Chiquito Bullo." 

As with Smith Ballew,  Bullock's work as a vocalist brought him to the attention of Hollywood.  Unfortunately, Bullock acquired a disfiguring condition which caused the white portion of one of his eyes to turn black and kept his career confined to the recording studios and radio. 

Bullock had an extremely prolific recording output of over 500 sides.   After ARC was acquired by the Columbia Broadcasting System in late 1938, Bullock continued to record for the company until early 1940s when the musicians' union went on strike against the record industry making solo work in the record studios almost impossible.   Bullock subsequently retired from the music business and pursued a second career in real estate. 

 
 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings. 
 
 

La Gioconda Suicidio! In Questi Fieri Momenti
Rosa Ponselle, vocal                                    1920
(Columbia 49735)
 

There are many record collectors who tend to shy away from acoustical era recordings in favor of post 1925 electrical recordings which offered much higher fidelity.  I will even admit to doing so myself to a certain degree.   But despite the primitive technology, there were many very impressive recordings made during the acoustical era - and, in my opinion, this is one of them.   I only discovered the record a few evenings ago when I was going through a box of unsorted records looking for something interesting to include in this update.   Since then I have listened to it a number of times and find it quite haunting. 

Rosa Ponselle was one of the Metropolitan Opera's top stars for 19 seasons.  Having no previous formal vocal training,  Ponselle was performing in vaudeville when she was discovered by famed tenor Enrico Caruso.  She was the very first American to star at the Metropolitan Opera who did not have previous operatic experience in Europe. 

This song comes from Amilcare Ponchielli's 1856 opera La Gioconda.  This particular record made a strong childhood impression on conductor Leonard Bernstein who later wrote in a letter to Rosa Ponselle: "Yours is the first operatic voice I ever heard, at age eight, on an old Columbia 78, singing 'Suicido'. Even through all the scratchiness and surface noise, that voice rang through in such glory that it made me a music-lover forever. I thank you every day of my life."

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May 19, 2005
 
 

 
Worryin Blues
Gene Rodemich's Orchestra          1924
(Brunswick 2731-B)
 

That's Georgia
Gene Rodemich's Orchestra          1924
(Brunswick 2731-A)
 

Gene Rodemich was a St. Louis pianist and bandleader.  His musical career received a big boost at age 14 when he played the piano at the 1904  St. Louis World's Fair andsoon became known as the "Ragtime Paderewski" because of his classical training.   In 1919, his was among the first dance bands to record for the newly formed Brunswick Records. In 1926 the band relocated to Boston and, two years later, to New York City.   In the early 1930s the Rodemich band  played for radio broadcasts and recorded music for cartoon soundtracks. 

 
 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings. 
 
 
 

Dancing Tambourine
The Ambassadors (Anglo-Persians)             1927
(Vocalion A 15627)

Stein Song
Hotel Pennsylvania Music                             1930
(Velvet Tone 2120-V mx 150073)
 

Here are two interesting recordings by late 1920s era dance bands that don't quite fit in stylistically with the regular weekly update. 

The recording of "Dancing Tambourine" comes from the flip side of the Vocalion disc of "There's A Cradle In Caroline" I featured  a few weeks back by Al Goering's Collegians.  Just as that recording was, in fact, a pseudonymous reissue of a Ben Bernie record previously issued on Brunswick, Vocalion's full priced parent label,  this week's selection is a reissue of a Brunswick recording by the Anglo-Persians.

The Anglo-Persians were a band led by Louis Katzman on a radio program sponsored by the Whittall Rug Company. 

"The Stein Song" is a University of Maine fight song.   The song actually became one of the top ten hits of 1930 riding the number one position on the charts for 10 weeks.   Several bands recorded it with Rudy Vallee's version being the most famous.

Hotel Pennsylvania Music was a band led by Jack Albin and named after New York's famous Hotel Pennsylvania where the band had a long term engagement. 

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Cinderella Blues
Herb Wiedoeft's Cinderella Roof Orchestra   1923
(Brunswick 2542 A)
 

Cinderella Blues
Jesse Stafford And His Orchestra                 1928
(Brunswick 4048)
 

Shine
Herb Wiedoeft's Cinderella Roof Orchestra   1923
(Brunswick 2542 B)
 

Shine
Jesse Stafford And His Orchestra                 1928
(Brunswick 4048)
 

The Jesse Stafford Orchestra which was active from 1928 - 1937 was a continuation of the Herb Wiedoeft band after Wiedoeft was killed in an automobile accident. 

Herb Wiedoeft came from a musical family - brothers Gerhardt and Adolph were sidemen in his band and brother Rudy was the most famous saxophone player of the late ragtime and early jazz era.  Wiedoeft's band had a long engagement at the Cinderella Roof Ballroom in Los Angeles from which the name of the band's theme song "Cinderella Blues" was derived.   A recording contract with Brunswick records and tours to Chicago and New York had made the band nationally known by the time Wiedoeft was killed. 

In the first recording session after trombone player Jesse Stafford assumed leadership, the newly renamed band cut an updated remake of "Cinderella Blues"/ "Shine,"  the first record that the Wiedoeft band had made for Brunswick in 1923.   This week's update features both the acoustically recorded 1923 and the 1928 electrically recorded versions.  While the 1928 versions were clearly patterned after the 1923 recordings,  there are a few differences, most notably a faster tempo (and, yes, I did transfer the 1923 Brunswicks at 80 rpm and not 78 rpm, so that is not what explains the difference). 

Unfortunately, my copies of both records are not in the best of condition and the 1923 record, most especially,  has a few rough spots on both sides.   Despite their condition, both records are still enjoyable to listen to.   I consider the 1928 Jesse Stafford version of "Cinderella Blues" to be a truly outstanding recording and it is one that I listen to rather frequently. 

 
 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings. 
 
 

Blaze Away!
Starr Military Band              1916
(Starr 7500 B)

Under The Double Eagle March
Starr Military Band              1916
(Starr 7500 A)
 

One of the more highly sought after record labels for collectors of early jazz  and blues recordings is the Gennett label which was a product of the Starr Piano Company of Richmond, Indiana.   Artists such as Bix Beiderbecke and King Oliver began their recording careers on Gennett. 

The Starr Piano Company dated back to the 1870s.  In 1916, the company decided to enter the rapidly growing phonograph and record market.   At the time, the patents for the process of recording with laterally cut or "zig zag" grooves were controlled by Victor and Columbia which, between them, controlled the vast majority of the American market.   Other record labels such as Edison, Pathe and tiny handful of smaller labels had no choice but to cut their grooves in the vertical or "hill and dale" method that was used on cylinder records. 

The company's record label was initially called Starr but by 1918 the name had been changed to Gennett due to the fact that dealers of rival piano manufacturers were reluctant to carry a line of records that promoted the Starr name.

So far as I am aware, the record from which this week's selections come from was Starr/Gennett's very first issue.    Since the record was cut with vertical grooves, it requires specialized playback equipment.  Playing the record with the steel needles on a standard wind-up phonograph would ruin it.   While the phonographs that Starr manufactured were capable of playing both vertical and lateral cut records,  the fact that the majority of the era's phonographs could only play lateral records significantly limited the sales of early Starr/Gennett records. 

In 1919, when some of the patents controlled by Victor and Columbia began to expire, Gennett was one of the very first small labels to issue lateral cut records.  The matter ended up in court and was eventually decided in Starr's favor.  This cleared the way for the subsequent flood of new record labels that hit the market in the early 1920s. 

The march "Blaze Away!" dates back to 1901 and was composed by Abe Holzmann and is still performed by military style bands.

"Under The Double Eagle" was composed in 1902 by Joseph Franz Wagner who was known as "The Austrian March King."  The song was introduced in the United States by John Phillip Sousa and was extremely successful. 

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May 5, 2005
 
 

 

Gimme A Little Kiss, Will Ya? Huh?
Jean Goldkette And His Orchestra           1926
(Victor 20031-A)
 

Lonesome And Sorry
Jean Goldkette And His Orchestra           1926
(Victor 20031-B)
 

While Jean Goldkette is best remembered for having one of the better dance bands of the 1920s,  he rarely led any of the bands that bore his name.  Instead, Goldkette, a concert pianist by training, preferred to function behind the scenes as a sort of  Jazz Age impresario. 

Goldkette formed his first band in Detroit in 1921.  A couple of years later, the Graystone Ballroom where the band was playing was unable to meet its payroll and the ballroom was turned over to Goldkette.   Deciding that he wanted to have a band that was as good as the Paul Whiteman Orchestra,  the best known band of the era, Goldkette assembled a team of some of the top white jazz sidemen of the day including Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Lange, Joe Venuti, Russ Morgan, Frank Trumbauer and others. 

At any given time Goldkette usually maintained and booked several bands under his name.  In Detroit, there was a Jean Goldkette Orchestra that performed at the Graystone Ballroom and another one that was regularly featured at the Book-Cadillac Hotel.  Yet another Jean Goldkette Orchestra performed on the road.   Goldkette also promoted and booked other bands besides his own including McKinney's Cotton Pickers (Don Redman's orchestra) and a band named the Orange Blossoms which would later change its name to the Casa Loma Orchestra and become one of the more popular bands of the 1930s. 

Through record sales and broadcasts from the Book-Cadiallac Hotel,  Goldkette's bands developed a national audience.   In 1927, however, its main unit gave what would be its final performance at New York's Roseland Ballroom and many of the band's top musicians took jobs with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. 

The most famous version of the novelty song  "Gimme A Little Kiss, Will Ya? Huh?" was recorded by Whispering Jack Smith who was also one of its composers.   The Goldkette version is a bit more upbeat.  The kissing and face slap sound effects on this recording make it sound a bit like an old cartoon soundtrack.   In 1926, however, such soundtracks were still a few year in the future.

You can read a 1998 interview with Spiegle Willcox, one of the musicians who performed in both of this week's selections by following this link.  In the interview, Willcox makes a couple of references to the recording of "Lonesome And Sorry."

 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings. 
 
 

Leanin' On The Old Top Rail
Roy Smeck And His Serenaders
Donald King, vocal                         1940
(Decca 3021-A mx 67169)

The Gaucho Serenade
Roy Smeck And His Serenaders
Donald King, vocal                         1940
(Decca 3021-B mx 67171)
 

Roy Smeck was known as the "Wizard of the Strings" for his talent on the banjo, guitar, ukulele and Hawaiian guitar.  In 1926, Smeck gained a national audience when he appeared in a Warner Brothers musical short feature that was one of the very first Vitaphone talking pictures.   Smeck made records for a number of different labels and performed in a variety of musical genres.   The recordings featured here definitely fall into the "western" category.