Paper, not plastic

This week on Zayde’s Turntable we find a somewhat untraditional type of record. While the song and the performer are not that remarkable I was looking forward to posting about one of the several albums in my collection from the intriguing “Hit of the Week” label.

Examples of “Hit of the Week” label, with the monochrome illustrations on the back of some of the records depicted on the right.

“Hit of the Week” (HOTW) were a very unique series of albums issued in the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, which were made – not of the standard shellac – but instead of a patented paper/resin product called Durium. Simply put, HOTW records, first issued in February 1930, were an ultra-cheap record for the impoverished nation. Each week the newest HOTW record appeared in flimsy rice-paper sleeves on newsstands  (not, as with other records, at record stores) for just 15 cents – the cheapest record available at the time. Despite the fact that they were printed on paper stock and not vinyl, HOTW records had remarkably good audio quality, often matching or exceeding the quality of shellac records of the same period. The single-sided records were sometimes issued with liner notes or the featured artist’s picture illustrated on the back (a feature missing from this particular album, however). By the summer of 1930, at its peak, HOTW were selling nearly 500,000 records each week (at 15 cents per record, that makes a weekly gross of $75,000 – or about $970,000 in today’s dollars); however, the continually worsening economy quickly claimed even the super cheap HOTW record company. Sales crashed and in March 1931 the company went into receivership. Two months later they were purchased by an advertising agency that attempted to revive the label, expanding the discs to five minutes in length, with two songs per record – still only on one side, and raising the price to 20 cents. The changes did not work and the final HOTW was produced in June 1932. The advertising industry continued to utilize Durium printed records throughout the decade, primarily as 5” and 3” promotional records. The agencies would even print the mailing address and affix postage directly onto the reverse of the miniature paper records. HOTW records are today relatively popular with collectors – even those with less remarkable songs or singers – largely due to the medium upon which they are pressed. HOTW did publish a number of A-list musicians’ works, however, including Duke Ellington (who appeared on the label as part of the group the “Harlem Hot Chocolates”), Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, and Gene Austin.

Hit of the Week #1088.

Rear of Hit of the Week #1088, lacking an illustration.

This album is in Very Good condition. It has a small chip at the edge, but it does not intrude on the grooves at all and has no effect on the recorded audio. It is an acoustically recorded 10-inch diameter 78-RPM brownish red Durium paper/resin disc with lateral grooves and a ¼” spindle hole. The record catalog number is Hit of the Week 1088. The A-side recording features the Vincent Lopez (1895-1975) Orchestra directed by Hymie Wolfson playing the foxtrot “Little White Lies” by Walter Donaldson (1893-1947). The vocalist is Lew Conrad and it runs 2 minutes and 38 seconds. The album was recorded in July 1930 and released by HOTW on September 11, 1930. Les Docks sets the value at $3-$6 and there is one dealer selling it on EBay for $4.

Columbia 45-RPM featuring Eartha Kitt’s 1963 cover of “Little White Lies.”

Donaldson originally wrote the 1930 foxtrot “Little White Lies” for Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, who recorded it on July 25, 1930 for Victor, with Clare Hanlon providing the vocals. As this HOTW version attests, several artists ended up recording the popular tune in 1930, including – besides Lopez on HOTW – Ted Wallace on Columbia, Earl Burtnett on Brunswick, Johnny Marvin on Victor, Marion Harris on Brunswick, Lee Morse on Columbia, and Harry Reser and Annette Hanshaw on budget labels like HOTW. Jesse Crawford recorded an instrumental organ cover for Victor in 1930, as well. Ella Fitzgerald recorded a version of it for Decca in 1939 with Chick Webb’s orchestra. The greatest heights that the song achieved on the US charts was when a 1947 recording of the tune by Dick Haymes for Decca lasted 23 weeks on the Billboard charts, peaking at #3 in 1948. Dinah Shore’s 1947 cover of it for Columbia records lasted one week on the charts at #28 and a 1957 version on Bally Records by Betty Johnson lasted one week at #25 in that year. The song was a hit overseas, too, with Ruby Murray recording it for UK Columbia in 1957 and Eartha Kitt doing likewise in 1963 for the same label. According to Paul McCartney the song was a favorite of both him and John Lennon when they were growing up in Liverpool, and likely had some influence on their later output.

This 1930 edition of the sheet music for “Little White Lies” features a photograph of Vincent Lopez. Donaldson’s publishing company simultaneously released versions of the same music with the photographs of a number of other performers who released recordings of the tune, including Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Kate Smith, and Jesse Crawford.

Songwriter and publisher Walter Donaldson.

Donaldson, the son of a piano teacher, began writing original music for school productions as a young boy, demonstrated sheet music for customers in five-and-dime stores, and accompanied nickelodeon films in his neighborhood in Brooklyn. He saw his first published work when he was 22 and continued to perform, even after his enlistment in the Army, when he would entertain troops and play the piano at War Bond rallies. After his service in the Army during World War I Donaldson was picked up by the Irving Berlin Music Company to be one of their stable of in-house songwriters, a gig he kept until 1928 when he set up his own music publishing company. Around the same time he moved from New York to Hollywood, to join many of his fellow Tin Pan Alley songwriters in composing music for the burgeoning film industry; his film music credits include Glorifying the American Girl, Suzi, The Great Ziegfeld, Panama Hattie, Follow the Boys, and Nevada. By the time of his death in 1947 the tremendously prolific Donaldson had penned around 600 original songs, including some major smash hits that are synonymous with Tin Pan Alley and the music of the 1930s to this very day: “My Blue Heaven,” “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” recorded by John Pizzarelli, “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” “I’ve Had My Moments” made famous by Frank Sinatra, “You’re Driving Me Crazy” rendered by Mel Torme, “Makin’ Whoopee,” and “Love Me or Leave Me” sung by Lena Horne. Remarkably, Donaldson’s publishing company is still in existence to this day and maintains a terrific website with the composer’s complete biography, his catalog with representative recordings (including a 1995 recording of Julie London singing “Little White Lies” for Liberty records), and information about licensing any of the composter’s 600 odd songs.

Bandleader Vincent Lopez.

Lopez, like Donaldson, was a Brooklyn kid. The song of Portuguese immigrants, Lopez was on track to become a priest before he found a new calling in music and formed his own dance orchestra in 1917. With Lopez at the piano, the band played numerous hotel and dance gigs throughout New York City. Lopez’s piano technique has been called “flamboyant and florid” and was a direct influence on later performers on the instrument, including Liberace. Numerous musicians who would later go on to fame in their own right spent some time in Lopez’s band, including Artie Shaw, Xavier Cugat, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Rudy Vallee, and Glenn Miller. In November 1921 the Lopez orchestra became one of the first to broadcast a regular radio program – a 90-minute weekly show on WJZ out of Newark. The notoriety from the show propelled Lopez to the front line of famous bandleaders of the 1940s and secured both his band and himself roles in a number of the hottest musical movies of the 1940s.

Vincent Lopez leads his orchestra in a photograph from the 1920s.

In 1941 Lopez and his band began a long-term residency as the house band of the Hotel Taft in New York City, delighting audiences into the late 1950s with swing, dance tunes, Dixieland jazz, country-western, and even, in the 1950s, with rock and roll songs. The liner notes to a “Best of the Big Bands” CD compilation from the 1990s offers this description of the show at the Taft:

The Lopez band practically defined the style of popular hotel orchestras of the time…Lopez was also an innovator when it came to the audience participation stunts that generated publicity. Wednesdays through Fridays, for instance, Lopez would have everybody in stitches at the Grill Room with his “Shake the Maracas” show, in which people came great distances to demonstrate their personal skill with the maracas and compete for such prizes as miniature piano cigarette lighters and autographed photos of the bandleader. On many an afternoon, tourists (and hooky-playing office workers) would head off to the Taft for an hour-long 1:00 PM dance session, often broadcast as “Luncheon With Lopez” over the Mutual Radio Network. He even sponsored “Fashions in Music,” a weekly afternoon fashion show in which models would display the latest in day and evening wear to the instrumental melodies of the band. Such novelties may have diminished the impact of his music, but it never affected his pocketbook – or his ability to hire the best musicians in town. For many years, a spot in the Lopez band was a real plum for a musician who also desired a stable family life; the show at the Taft always ended at 9:00 PM sharp, giving a sideman ample time to change into street clothes and be home in time to kiss the kids goodnight and watch the eleven o’clock news.

Singer Lew Conrad.

Lew Conrad was, like Donaldson, the son of a musical family, with both parents sharing a background as vocalists. They decided they did not want their son to be a – gasp – singer, so they had him take up the violin instead. Conrad was promoted by his parents as a violin prodigy for the vaudeville circuit, but he really did not enjoy that realm of the entertainment world. After graduating from Tufts Conrad took his violin to the Cleveland Symphony for a year, before landing a singing and violin gig with the Leo Reisman Band. Conrad also did recording sessions with the studio orchestras of Nat Shilkret and Ben Selvin, until, in 1929, he landed an audition for NBC, who offered him a contract. Conrad’s fame peaked between 1931 and 1933, shortly after he recorded this record for HOTW. His musical performances were being heard nationwide nine times a week on NBC network radio and in 1933 his band was featured in an installment of a series of musical film shorts. His fame seemed to have tapered off, for unknown reasons, into the late 1930s, with the last news account of the band performing coming in 1941.

During times of severe economic hardship the American people have gone with less or gone without, but our innate appetite for entertainment seems to persist, albeit in a diminished form. Consider the last twelve years of movie attendance: during the recession in 2008 1.37 billion tickets were sold at cinemas, just about the same as the number sold in 2000, before the recession after 9/11/2001. At the same time, the dollar amount spent on tickets when considering those two years increased by $2.37 billion – or 32%. This means that despite a tremendous jump in ticket prices and the hit to the economy, people were still willing to shell out for a movie ticket. The HOTW story, as a label, illustrates is just how truly awful the Great Depression was for the average American family. Despite our national natural thirst for escapism entertainment even the cheapest record label of the period felt the sting of the economic collapse. And while Americans were turning to new forms of entertainment around the same time – “talkie” film features, for example – the notion that the industry that was then, and is still today, our leading entertainment industry couldn’t cope is a telling piece of evidence of the disruption of the Depression. On a lighter note, I think any record collector with a stack of HOTW albums in their collection would tell you that the audio quality is generally just as good as their vinyl discs. And they’re a hell of a lot easier to move – and less likely to shatter when you drop one by mistake, as you will inevitably do. Perhaps if the Depression had not been as bad as it was Durium records would have replaced shellac more broadly as the preferred material for record albums. Considering the trajectory of recorded music, from 78-RPM to LP to tapes and CDs, it is interesting to imagine what innovations would have happened, not happened, or happened differently, if the principle medium of recording was so changed.

Musical Depreciation: fun for the eyes and the ears

This week’s selection is by special request from none other than Zayde himself! My collection includes a number of single albums by the prolific and immensely talented comic musician Spike Jones, the self-described “man who murdered music” (for our younger readers, imagine a mid 20^th century Weird Al Yankovic). Rather than feature just one of these records, however, I’ve decided to feature a compilation.

Musical Depreciation, with "Maestro" Spike Jones and his City Slickers

“Musical Depreciation” is a bound set of five standard electrically recorded 10-inch diameter 78-RPM black vinyl discs with lateral grooves and ¼” spindle holes. The musician on all the records is “Maestro” Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The records themselves are housed in plain brown paper sleeves that are bound together in a cardboard book that measures about 12” wide by 10-3/8” tall by 5/8” deep. The cover has a full color caricature illustration of Spike Jones, wielding a popgun and surrounded by musical instruments. The front and back boards are blue with a red paper over the spine and the album title and artist name appearing in gold lettering down the side. The cover shows some wear but the majority of the rubbing and damage is along the binder’s edges and corners, as well as the spine. Neither the set nor the individual albums (nor any Spike Jones album, for that matter) appear in Les Docks’ valuation guide for collectible 78-RPM records, however I was able to find three dealers selling the set online for $19, $40, and $50.

Spine of the compilation.

Three other RCA Victor compilation sets in my collection.

The set was issued by RCA Victor, one of the many labels and brands of the Radio Corporation of America and Victor. Victor, of course, is perhaps the most prolific record company of the 20^th century. The company’s history and diversity of labels are, as was the case with Columbia, far too long and complicated to detail here. I will point out that RCA Victor issued a number of sets of records with the exact same dimensions, color schemes, and even typeface on the spine as “Musical Depreciation.” Bound sets such as this one were a way for a record company to issue a compilation of songs by one artist (or, with their classical records, to release a multiple movement symphony in one package). The key with bound sets, however, is that they are almost never the first issue of a particular recording. In order to be worth the expense that the binder and artwork entailed, companies would only issue works and artists that had already had proven commercial success. Despite the fact they are “reissues” of previously released recordings, bound sets today are not terribly common. The great irony is that many record sellers would remove the records from the set, discard the binder, and sell them individually; the end result is a glut of A-list musicians’ records – all represses and individually mostly without any collectability or value – that, had they been kept in their original album, might actually be more valuable.

Several other RCA Victor album covers with Frank Decker's rich illustrations.

The illustration on the cover is by the artist Frank Decker. I could find almost nothing about the personal life of this 1940s-1960s illustrator in my research. Decker was an in-house RCA Victor album illustrator, though he was not the company’s only such artist. Album artwork today is for many as collectible as the records themselves – for some, in fact, it is more so, and album covers with no records in them at all can sometimes fetch far more than the associated record in a plain sleeve with no illustration. Decker was heavily influenced by the man who supposedly originated the concept of album artwork: Alex Steinweiss, the in-house illustrator for Columbia records. Steinweiss, who passed away last year at the age of 94, was a member of the Columbia advertising department when he was approached by some of the company executives in 1939 to develop strategies to improve record sales. His first illustrated album cover, for a collection of Rogers and Hart songs, was a massive success and Columbia moved quickly to re-release their most popular albums to that point with new illustrated covers; in most cases sales increased by nearly ten times their previous level for the same record.

Decker was more than just an album artist. He did this cover illustration for Pic magazine in 1946, the same time he was busy working for RCA Victor.

Ad for the Park-Sheraton hotel illustrated by Frank Decker in 1960.

The other record companies were quick to catch on to the concept and began releasing (and re-releasing) their own compilations and solo albums in the new illustrated album cover or sleeve in the 1940s. Decker, who was with RCA Victor, based his illustrations on the same style and sentiment that Steinweiss had popularized: geometric patterns, bold solid colors, and whimsical or fantastical depictions of scenery or other elements illustrative of the album content. Decker’s most famous works were probably his classical music album covers, which captured creative, fantastic scenes in a style that was remarkably at once both rigid and fanciful. The illustrations took liberties with scenes and people and the earliest reviews of the pieces I could find – in Billboard magazine from 1947 – indicate that some in the music industry, while impressed with the artwork, were a bit confused with Decker’s (and presumably Steinweiss’) imaginative interpretations. Where Steinweiss remained primarily an album artist until the 1970s, when a more psychedelic style of artwork became the fad and he chose to retire, Decker apparently branched out early, doing magazine covers and advertising art as early as the mid 1940s, while also continuing to provide illustrations to album artwork well into the era of the 45-RPM.

Album boxes for 45-RPM records, illustrated by Frank Decker.

Spike Jones. His band's trademark outfits sported garish plaids, stripes, and bowler hats, to accent their looniness and guarantee the viewer would remember them.

Spike Jones (1911-1965) was born Lindley Armstrong Jones and earned his nickname as a young boy when his father’s business colleagues at the Southern Pacific Railroad compared the thin boy to a railroad spike. He had an early affinity for music, getting his first drum set at the age of 11 and learning how to beat out rhythms from a chef in a railroad station restaurant who taught him how to play on pots and pans in the back kitchen. A short stint in theater orchestra pits led to a job playing drums for a number of larger bands, including as the percussionist on Bing Crosby’s first recording of “White Christmas.” It was in the pit orchestras, however, where the young drummer discovered the niche market of novelty orchestras.

The City Slickers, in an early performance.

Jones was described as being, in private, a moody and ambitious man who was deeply interested in finding new ways to promote himself and build his own name in the public. Bringing together other musicians from his studio gigs, most importantly the vocalist and clarinetist Del Porter and violinist Carl Grayson – both relatively big names at the time – Jones assembled his own novelty band. Originally named the Feather Merchants, the group rechristened itself the City Slickers (after a Cindy Walker tune that Jones had played in the band for entitled “We’re Gonna Stomp Them City Slickers Down”). If in private he was broody recluse, in performance he was the consummate ham. Spike Jones and his City Slickers became infamous throughout the 1940s for their satirical arrangements of popular songs – from contemporary fox trots to classical works – and for utilizing a bizarre assortment of “instruments” including shotguns, birdcalls, police sirens, and cowbells.

Greg Gormick tells of the moment that proved the band’s break-through success:

Donald Duck mocks Hitler and the Nazis.

“The big break came in 1942.  Jones’ RCA Victor recording contract of 1941 produced three initial recording sessions that yielded some interesting sides that didn’t exactly set the music business on fire.  But the fourth session included a song written for the Walt Disney cartoon, Donald Duck in Nutzi Land (click the still to the left to view the cartoon), which poked fun at Adolph Hitler and the Nazi scourge overrunning Europe.  Take one ended with a trombone “schmeer” effect after the last mention of der Feurher, but the second substituted a loud and rude “raspberry” effect, which more accurately summed up how most Americans felt about Hitler.  It was take two that was issued and it was Der Fuehrer’s Face that made Jones a household name.  Played repeatedly by several famous American disc jockeys, it swept the country and soon spread abroad, reportedly even to Hitler’s ears.  It was that little something extra that Jones needed to grab the public’s attention.”

Following “Der Fuehrer’s Face” the group issued hit after hit. The band eventually took their show on tour around the U.S. and Canada in the late 1940s and early 1950s under the title The Musical Depreciation Revue. The group was so popular they even appeared on various radio programs from 1945 to 1949, and on television programs on both NBC and CBS from 1954 to 1961. In the end, Jones achieved his wish: a famous name, numerous records at the top of the charts, millions in sales, and a top-ticket touring and television act. As with contemporary satirists like Weird Al Yankovic, however, Jones was not always looked on fondly by the musicians whom he parodied; many songwriters tried to prevent Jones being allowed to create his “arrangement” of their tune. Gormick, again, tells two interesting anecdotes that illustrate the tension between musician and mocker is nothing new to the American entertainment industry:

“Composer Jerome Kern was furious at Jones’ version of his late friend Gus Kahn’s Chloe…  Kern thought the song was an insult to its lyricist and he urged Kahn’s widow, Grace, to pursue the matter.  She thought it was hilarious and was pleased that it breathed new life into the corny song, telling Kern nicely to mind his own business. Not so good humoured was singer Vaughan Monroe, who was one of Victor’s top-selling artists in the late 1940s and a large stockholder.  When Jones parodied his hit recording of Riders in the Sky, it ended with:  “I can do without his singing, but I wish I had his dough.”  To satisfy Monroe and Victor executives, the record was withdrawn and a new ending fabricated in the New York studios, with Spike nowhere in attendance. The original version still turns up and is a prized collectors’ item… In addition, Spike circulated copies of the full parody to disc jockeys, counting on the controversy to create the kind of publicity he savoured.”

The City Slickers grew in size and took their (expensive) show on the road for "Musical Depreciation."

Popular taste changes in comedy perhaps quicker than any other form of entertainment, and Jones was no exception; the musical comic act was dying and being replaced by spoken word comedy recordings by the likes of Mort Sahl, Bob Newhart, and Tom Lehrer (Jones tried his hand at spoken word comedy on the LP “Omnibust” but it was not a big hit). His popularity peaked by the mid-1950s and began a slow decline from there. Coupled with the large expense associated with a traveling revue featuring dozens of performers and Jones’ choice to walk away from the Victor label the Spike Jones phenomenon plummeted. Jones, whose fodder was big band tunes and highly lampoonable pop music of the 1940s, was hurt by the rise of rock-n-roll in the 1950s and 1960s. There were attempts at children’s records (“Socko, the Smallest Snowball!”) and even a few serious music recordings under the moniker Spike Jones’ New Band, but the bandleader failed to recapture the successes of his earlier period.

Then, on May 1, 1965, at the age of 53, Jones – who smoked countless cigarettes every day, died from emphysema. Just as Jones had been influenced by the novelty orchestras (and the Marx Brothers) of the 1920s and 1930s, however, the City Slickers left an indelible impression on American culture and paved the way for performers such as Stan Freberg, Peter Schickele’s P.D.Q. Bach, Frank Zappa, and, of course, Weird Al Yankovic. Even the Beatles, by way of the Goons, drew some inspiration from the drumming musical murderer from Southern California.

My copy of the album set features five completely immaculate interior envelopes.

Interestingly, of the three individuals selling this set online, not one of us has the same five records in the album. All are RCA Victor labels and all feature five of Spike Jones many records. This is because it was very common for owners of these albums to mix and change up the records that were stored in the album binders, often based on preference or simply replacing a damaged record with another one by the same artist. I have not been able to identify the exact recordings that comprised the album set as originally released. Below I provide the information about what is on each of the five records I have in the set, along with links to complete versions of the songs elsewhere online. I do not go much into detail about the writers or performers, but where there is some interesting comment about the song itself I’ve included that.

Disc 1:

20-3177-A            “All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)” by Don Gardner, vocal refrain by George Rock (recorded December 6, 1948)

20-3177-B            “Happy New Year” by Eddie Brandt and Freddy Morgan, vocal refrain by Sir Frederick Gas, Doodles Weaver, George Rock, and Spike Jones (1948)

This disc does not appear in the sets of the other three versions I found and is probably a later addition to the “Musical Depreciation” compilation I own. “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” one of Jones’ most famous songs, was written in 1944 when Don Gardner, a music teacher in Smithtown, New York, asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas. He realized most the children were answering with a lisp because they were missing at least one of their front teeth. Thirty minutes later he had the song written. When he performed it in 1947 at a music teacher’s conference it was picked up by a representative of the Witmark Company and, ultimately, had its first recording (the one in this set) made by Jones and his band in 1948. To Gardner’s utter amazement, it reached the top of the pop charts in 1949. It has since been covered by the likes of Danny Kaye with the Andrews Sisters, the Platters, Nat King Cole, the Three Stooges, the Chipmunks, and Count von Count of Sesame Street. How many other songs can say that?

Disc 2:

20-1893-A            “The Glow-Worm” by Lilla Cayley Robinson and Paul Lincke, arranged by Spike Jones, vocal refrain by Red Ingle and Aileen Carlisle with chorus (1946)

20-1893-B            “Hawaiian War Chant (Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai)” by Ralph Freed, Johnny Noble-Leleiohaku, vocal refrain by Spike Jones and his Wacky Wakakians with chorus (1946)

In the process of preparing this week’s entry and digitizing the records in this set I was very saddened to discover that this particular record has a straight-line crack at about 7 o’clock rendering it entirely unplayable. Nevertheless, I included it here. Only one of the three dealers selling this set online also had this album in the compilation. “Hawaiian War Chant” was written in the 1860s by the Hawaiian prince Leleiohoku and was originally entitled “We Two in the Spray,” with lyrics telling of two lovers, not a battle. In 1936 Ralph Freed changed it to English lyrics and Johnny Noble altered the melody, and the tune was performed by the Tommy Dorsey Band in the 1942 film Ship Ahoy. It was this version that Jones would lampoon in 1946, kicking up the tempo and changing the lyrics with Grayson doing the (uncredited) lead vocals. Jones’ version reached #8 on the U.S. charts that year, yet another example of a Spike Jones satirical take on a pop song actually selling better than the original song itself. Freed and Noble’s version proved more enduring, however, as Les Paul and Mary Ford, Sandi Griffiths, Sally Flynn, the Muppets, Nathan Lane (as Timon in The Lion King), Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and Weird Al Yankovic all recorded covers or adaptations of it. The song is in the regular repertoire of both the University of Hawaii Marching Band and the Michigan Marching Band. Finally, Disney has used it in two of their theme park attractions (the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland and the Adventurers Club’s Pleasure Island).

 Disc 3:

20-1654-A            “Chloe” by Gus Kahn and Neil Moret, featured in the Paramount picture “Bring on the Girls”, vocal refrain by Red (Swamphead) Ingle (1945)

20-1654-B            “A Serenade to a Jerk” by Del Porter and Carl Hoefle, vocal refrain by Judy Manners and Red (Jerk) Ingle (1945)

This album, with its two fox trots, appears in all three versions of the “Musical Depreciation” set I could locate online, as well as in my own; therefore, I am fairly confident it was part of the original compilation issued by RCA Victor. Interestingly the label (which simply reads “Victor” instead of “RCA Victor”) differs from the other four albums in my set.

“Chloe” reached a relatively unimpressive #441 in the U.S. charts when it was first released in 1927. That version, of course, was the original song – “Chloe (Song of the Swamp)”, with music by Neil Moret and lyrics by Gus Kahn (see above for the anecdote related to Kahn’s friend, Jerome Kern’s, less than pleased reaction to the Spike Jones spoof). Jones’ version would place in the top 5 on the charts in 1945, again illustrating the often powerful effect that satire could have for boosting a song’s popularity – albeit in an altered, and not always desired, form.

The film “Bring on the Girls” was a moderately successful comedy starring Veronica Lake, Sonny Tufts, and Eddie Bracken. In the movie a millionaire joins the Navy hoping to find a girl who will marry him for himself and not his money; a beautiful gold-digger working at a resort hotel sets out to “get him.”

Disc 4:

20-1895-A            “That Old Black Magic” by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, vocal refrain by Carl Grayson

20-1895-B            “Liebestraum” by Del Porter and Franz Liszt, arranged by Spike Jones and Del Porter, vocal refrain by Red Ingle, narration by Richard Morgan

This album likewise appears in all three versions of the “Musical Depreciation” set I could find online, as well as my own; therefore it was also likely part of the original compilation. While the Liszt spoof is quite entertaining “That Old Black Magic” was the more popular.  Harold Arlen wrote the tune and Johnny Mercer the lyrics, and it was published in 1942, quickly becoming a very popular standard. The initial recordings in 1942 were made by Glenn Miller, Margaret Whiting, Frank Sinatra (the Chairman of the Board sang an altered version entitled “The Old Jack Magic” at a celebration for John F. Kennedy the night before his presidential inauguration), Sammy Davis Jr., Mercer himself, and Judy Garland, for whom Mercer actually intended the song when he wrote the words. The song placed in the top ten for two separate recordings (Miller’s and Whiting’s) in 1943 and went on to be recorded by just about every major singer of the 1940s-1960s. Ella Fitzgerald crooned it in 1961 and Billy Daniels’ 1950 version earned him the nickname “The Old Black Magic Man.” Sammy Davis Jr. sang it on a guest cameo on I Dream of Jeannie and, perhaps most infamously, Marilyn Monroe sang it in the 1956 film Bus Stop. Who else? Jerry Lewis, Louis Prima, Dave Brubeck, Cab Calloway, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Tony Bennett, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Mathis, Van Morrison, the Platters, Kevin Spacey, Mel Torme, Tom Jones… Over 75 recorded versions (including Spike Jones’ and one by the Muppets – I’m noticing a pattern there) and five appearances on feature film soundtrack, background music on two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, and as background music to the 1996 Miss Universe beauty pageant semifinals.

Disc 5:

20-2023-A            “The Jones Laughing Record (introducing The Flight of the Bumble Bee)” by Spike Jones and his City Snickers

20-2023-B            “My Pretty Girl” by Del Porter and Ray Johnson, vocal refrain by The Foursome, whistling by Gene Conklin

My apologies to the link to the song of “My Pretty Girl.” The only recording I could find of it online was that one. There is a fun live performance of just the Spike Jones version of “Flight of the Bumblebee” to be found elsewhere, however.  Again, this record does not appear in the other three sets of “Musical Depreciation” I found online, suggesting it was probably added by a later owner of the compilation. The original “Flight of the Bumblebee” was an orchestral interlude by Rimsky-Korsakov written in 1899 for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. The piece closed Act III, Tableau 1: the magic Swan-Bird changes the Prince into a bee so he may fly off to visit his father, who believes the prince is dead. The song is infamous for its highly technical complexity, consisting primarily of long runs of sixteenth notes. While the original composition (mercifully) split the runs up among the various orchestra instruments, later adaptations were crafted and arranged to showcase virtuosity on a single instrument by highly skilled musicians. Rachmaninoff’s transcription of the piece for piano is probably the most famous. Later musicians used it as a solo piece for violin, guitar, and – with Jones’ recording – trombone.

Spike Jones a few of his comic comrades...

78-RPM recordings of novelty orchestras are normally of high monetary value, but Spike Jones and his City Slickers were so popular and so prolific that their albums were produced in huge quantity, making them almost without value to a collector. But, to a music enthusiast – especially one with a sense of humor – they are a must have for any collection of 20^th century American records. Clever, fun, and upbeat, you are almost certain to at least crack a smile, if not burst out laughing, at each one. I had the great joy of putting this week’s entry together with my toddler running around and it was wonderful to watch her laughing and dancing to these songs as I played each one in turn (she especially enjoyed “Liebestraum”). So, click the links above to the songs in “Musical Depreciation” – and then click around to the other Spike Jones recordings available online. Then put your feet up and laugh a little.

A historic Harmony

This week on Zayde’s Turntable is an album of no true monetary value to a collector, but I wanted to learn a bit more about it because it captures an important historical moment in American history.

First, a word about the label. Harmony Records were pressed from 1925 until the early 30s and was owned outright by Columbia Records. It was often used as a low-price outlet for Columbia’s reissues and, in the 1950s, Columbia revived the label for a series of LPs with nothing but reissued tracks (about five songs per side). Columbia continued to release reissues on the LP version of the label into the mid 1970s.

Harmony labels (with the ca. 1950s version on the left and ca. 1930 versions center and right).

Perhaps the most interesting facets of the original Harmony Records is their role in straddling one of the most significant technological shifts in recording history: the movement from acoustic recording to electrical recording. Reportedly Columbia had just completed a major overhaul of their acoustic recording system when the new fad – electrical recording – came onto the scene. Rather than scrap their significant investment in the acoustical studio they simply continued to utilize it for their “lower end” Harmony label. The result is some of the finest, and last, acoustically recorded commercial records.

Acoustical recording is a mechanical process in which the artists performed live, their music being captured in a massive machine with a diaphragm; a needle connected to the diaphragm literally cut the recording into master disc (or cylinder). Level control was achieved by actually having a performer move physically closer to or further from the machine.

The Victor Orchestra recording acoustically. Auto-tune function not available on this model; sorry, Ms. Black.

Electrical recording was introduced in 1925 and is still, in many respects, the manner by which audio recordings are made. Electrical recording systems allow for microphones, over-dubbing, level adjustment, and, these days, even more. In its earliest incarnations, however, the process still physically cut a master record with a needle, meaning that a mistake at any point in the recording rendered the entire take – and record – useless. (Some labels would reissue scrapped takes of popular songs on later albums, though it was far more common to simply reissue the originally released take.)

This album, the only Harmony label in my collection (according to my notes from the late 1990s) is in Good to Very Good condition, with some slight wear and one light scratch to one side (the scratch does not effect the record’s playability and both my Symphony phonograph needle and my Crosley Archiver needle were able to navigate it without problem). It is a standard 10-inch diameter 78-RPM black vinyl disc with ¼” spindle hole. The record catalog number is Harmony 418-H and the master number is 144218/144219.

Harmony Records #418-H

Harmony records include a unique Columbia code.

Peculiar to all post-1924 Columbia records is a third identifying number pressed into the vinyl of the end gap of the record at the 12-o’clock position: 3-B-5 on the A-side 1-B-6 on the B-side. The first number is the take number, the middle letter designates the “mother” (the metal master disc), and the final number indicates the “stamper” (the metal “negative” of the mother). One stamper could press out about 1,000 copies of a record before it was no longer useable (hence the need for a “mother” that could create more stampers). With this information we know that the A-side song took three takes and the B-side song took only one take. At least two mothers were created (probably more), and at least 5 stampers for the A-side and 6 for the B-side – meaning, at a minimum, about 10,000 to 12,000 copies of this record were made.

The A-side recording is “Lucky Lindy,” lyrics by L. Wolfe Gilbert and music by Abel Baer, and runs approximately 2 minutes and 41 seconds. The B-side recording is “Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.),” lyrics by Howard Johnson and music by Al Sherman, and runs approximately 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Both songs are sung by tenor Jack Kaufman, backed up by an unnamed orchestra. While I could find no indication of a specific recording date, it is likely from 1927 or early 1928.

Both songs were written on the occasion of “Lucky” Charles Lindbergh’s celebrated May 1927 trans-Atlantic solo flight. The record-setting event engendered a remarkable level of patriotic fervor and an incredible number of musical tributes, perhaps more so than any other event in American history until then or since. Ironically, the flight was considered an illustration of mankind’s (and America’s specifically) technological prowess and ingenuity – I say ironic because this particular record was recorded in what was then an antiquated technology, the acoustic method. Lindbergh became celebrated more than any star of Hollywood or radio and there was a rush to capture that spirit by the leading cultural medium of the day: recorded music.

Charles Lindbergh, around the time of his famous 1927 flight.

To say the quantity of songs written about Lindbergh’s flight exceeds that written to mark any single event in American history before or since is not an exaggeration. Not even including the still recognizable dance craze inspired by the flight (the Lindy Hop), in all in the two years following Lindbergh’s journey the U.S. Copyright Office received three hundred applications on songs related to the flight and the pilot. Thirty songs alone had the same title – “Spirit of St. Louis,” Lindbergh’s plane. Another twelve were entitled “Lindy” (there was some confusion over the spelling, resulting in Lindberg, Lindburg, Linberg, Linderburg, and Linbergh). The third most popular title was “Lone Eagle” – a commonly used metaphor for the pilot that combined jingoistic American symbolism with the physical feat of flying itself. Other Lindbergh tributes included “Won’t You Take Me to Heaven, Please, Lucky Lindy Do,” “America Did It Again,” “Like an Angel He Flew into Our Hearts,” “Plucky Lindy’s Lucky Day,” “Just Like a Butterfly through Sun and Rain, and “He Did It, the Thing that Couldn’t Be Done.” The Hoover for President campaign benefited from “If He’s Good Enough for Lindy.” The volume of musical tributes was so great that one Tin Pan Alley songwriting team even wrote one entitled “This Song Is Not About Lindbergh.”

Lindbergh received a hero's welcome on his return to the U.S.

In 1929 Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, and Bertolt Brecht penned an opera entitled “Der Lindberghflug” (Lindbergh’s Flight), though Brecht would later remove all references to the pilot and rename the piece “Der Ozeanflug” (Ocean Flight) in 1950 in reaction to Lindbergh’s perceived Nazi sympathies. Indeed Lindbergh’s apparent right-wing political viewpoints also engendered negative musical references, though not for some decades after his flight. In the 1940s Woody Guthrie’s “Lindbergh” skewered the celebrated pilot for his affiliation with the far right America First Party (“They say America First, but they mean America Next”). Guthrie probably would have found the lyric “Lucky Lindy, right all along…” on the A-side of this record to be a bit too true.

On the A-side we have the prolific recording artist and vaudevillian Jack Kaufman singing Gilbert and Baer’s “Lucky Lindy” – perhaps the single most popular and widely produced of the Lindbergh paeans. Gilbert and Baer had just finished composing the piece on May 21, 1927 when word of Lindbergh’s safe landing at Le Bourget was announced on the radio. It was performed that very evening at several venues around New York City; Leo Feist printed the sheet music that very weekend and it was on sale by Monday. On Tuesday the number was headlining at the Paramount Theater, being performed on the cinema’s massive Wurlitzer in between films. The song was probably featured on every major label by most of the leading singers of the day. I can find evidence of (in addition to the Harmony recording) a ca. 1927 recording by Vernon Dalhart on Perfect (#12345), another Jack Kaufman recording (possibly the same) also from around 1927 on Velvet Tone (#1418-V), a Domino Records (#17260) recording with baritone Ernest Hare, another Ernest Hare recording on Banner (#1994-A) (which one EBay seller is currently listing for $1), and a May 26, 1927 (yes, five days after Lindbergh landed) Victor scroll recording (#20681-A) by Nat Shillkret and the Victor Orchestra. Not one of these albums appears in Les Docks’ guide to “collectible” records – in fact, I could not locate a single of the Lindbergh tribute songs anywhere in his compendium. This simply further illustrates that, today, value is determined more by scarcity than historical import, musical quality, or even the featured artist.

The sheet music for "Lucky Lindy" was on sale just a few days after Lindbergh landed.

Songwriter Abel Baer (1893-1976).

Abel Baer (1893-1976), a World War I veteran, originally trained to be a dentist, but abandoned that career in 1920 when he joined a music publisher as a staff writer. His works include many Tin Pan Alley hits, including “Mama Loves Papa,” “When the One You Love, Loves You,” and “I’m Sitting Pretty.” Less celebrated today is his World War II jingle “We’ve Got A Job To Do On The Japs, Baby.” Two years after penning “Lucky Lindy” – probably his greatest commercial success – Baer moved to Hollywood and wrote songs for the films “Paramount on Parade,” “True to the Navy,” and “Frozen Justice.” His credits also include the Broadway scores of “Lady Do” and “Old Bill M.P.”

Lyricist Wolfe Gilbert (1888-1954).

Louis Wolfe Gilbert (1886-1970) started as a singer in a quartet on Coney Island, before being discovered by an English producer and being brought to London to perform as part of The Ragtime Octet. He started writing music in 1912 and made the move to Hollywood in 1915, writing – eventually – over 250 songs for film, television, and radio, including “Ramona” – the very first motion picture theme song, as well as numbers for the Eddie Cantor Show and the lyrics for the hit children’s program “Western Hop-Along Cassidy” on NBC. Gilbert was an astute self-promoter and one of the first songwriters to publish and market his own catalog; his acumen for the business led to his selection to serve as director of ASCAP from 1941 to 1944.

The B-side recording is Kaufman singing “Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)” – again keeping with the eagle symbolism. It is clearly the more jingoistic of the two songs, with Al Sherman, the writer, appropriating snippets of melody from classic American anthems (listen for a bit of the “Star Spangled Banner” and “Yankee Doodle” in the clip below). Like “Lucky Lindy,” this tune was released within days, perhaps even hours, of Lindbergh’s successful landing in France in May 1927. In addition to this recording I was able to identify several contemporaneous recordings: three issues of Vernon Dalhart singing it, one recorded on May 23 (two days after he landed!) on a Victor scroll record (#20674-A – note how close the catalog number is to the “Lucky Lindy” Victor recording, illustrating how closely together the two albums were released), one on Edison Blue Amberol cylinder (#5362), and one on Perfect (#12345; the reverse side of the same disc with “Lucky Lindy,” exactly as with this Harmony record, though with a different artist; one seller on EBay currently lists this disc for slightly overpriced cost of $30). There was also a Harry Crane recording on Oriole Records (#922-A) and another issue of the Jack Kaufman recording found here on Velvet Tone (#1418-V – again, identical to this record, in this case in both song selection and artist).

Sheet music to "The Eagle of the U.S.A."

Lyricist Howard Johnson (1887-1941) was likewise a veteran of World War I. After getting out of the Navy in 1917 Johnson, a pianist, joined ASCAP and began his career as a songwriter. In addition to penning “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream” Johnson was behind many of the most popular ballads of the period. One of Johnson’s (now ironic) pieces was the 1917 song “China, We Owe A Lot To You” (music by Milton Ager). No kidding.

Songwriter Al Sherman (1897-1973).

Al Sherman (1897-1973) came to America from Prague in 1909. Speaking little English and serving as a surrogate father for his four siblings after their father left them, Sherman taught himself piano and quickly became one of the most in-demand improvisers in America. He developed a reputation for providing “mood music” and his skills were sought by many of the leading film stars of the silent movies; in 1916 Universal signed Sherman to do bit parts in the films himself. In 1918 he joined the Remick Music Company as a staff pianist, composing numbers alongside some of the top songwriters of the day, including George Gershwin. Sherman also organized and directed his own orchestra that played in both Miami Beach and New York City. Sherman’s sons, Robert and Richard, would continue in their father’s footsteps, eventually writing the music for the classic films “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Sherman’s own Tin Pan Alley credits include over 500 songs, most notably “Over Somebody Else’s Shoulder,” “For Sentimental Reasons,” and “Potatoes Are Cheaper, Tomatoes Are Cheaper, Now’s The Time To Fall In Love,” which became his signature tune and “helped raise the spirits of the Depression generation.” His songs made or furthered the careers of a remarkable roster of musicians: Maurice Chevalier, Fred Waring, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Ruddy Vallee, Ozzie Nelson, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, and Duke Ellington and the Cotton Club Orchestra. His music can be heard in the Broadway hits “Ziegfeld Follies,” “George White’s Scandals,” “The Passing Show,” and “Earl Carroll’s Vanities.” His film music includes songs for “The Big Pond,” “Sweetie,” “The Sky’s the Limit,” and “Sensations of 1945.”

Cyndi Lauper in 1983. Her cover of one of Sherman's songs earned her a Grammy award.

Sherman’s music continued to influence American musicians even into the 1980s, when Cyndi Lauper’s rendition of Sherman’s “He’s So Unusual” – titled “She’s So Unusual” (1983) – even featured scratches and hisses designed to sound like a vintage 78-RPM record. The song hit #4 on the Billboard pop charts and won a Grammy for Best Album Package; it made #494 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

The vocalist on both sides of the album is tenor Jack Kaufman, one of the famous singing brothers Irving, Phillip, and Jack Kaufman, who originally hailed from Syracuse, New York, about an hour from where Zayde’s Turntable currently resides. Irving has been called the “most recorded singer between 1914 and 1930” and his two brothers, who performed for a while as “The Kaufman Brothers” (until Phillip’s death in 1918), were quite prolific in their own respects.

Jack (left) and Phil Kaufman in a promotional poster from around 1910.

Jack and Phil’s early vaudeville acts seemed to include quite a bit of the reviled “blackface” routines. An undated period newspaper review of their act states:

“The Kaufman Brothers… [began] their act by impersonating the Russian dancers and the Parisian vocalist who had just preceded them.” … “Especially worthy of attention are their parodies of Italian songs. Both men… play ‘swell coons’ attractively.” … “Their entrance is made in bangy, bangy coon-shouter style… These brothers have excellent voices, but are too full of monkeyshines to take time to sing properly.” … “Ragtime and Italian songs are their long suit.” … “They sing exceptionally well, but otherwise just indulge in effervescent nonsense and wear red vests and checkerboard suits.” … “Their Yiddiher Opera brought a storm of applause.”

They grew to become “second stringers” – vaudeville acts that filled out the bill for larger stars like Irene Franklin and Will Rogers.

Newspaper cartoons depicting Phil and Jack Kaufman in their blackface performance (top row and bottom left, 1910-1911; bottom right, 1914).

Jack and Phil Kaufman in an undated photo appear in blackface as part of their vaudeville act.

After Phil’s death, Irving joined with Jack and the two performed together for a number of years. The partnership dissolved in 1923, though they reunited briefly again starting in 1928. It was during this five year hiatus that Jack, performing and recording as a solo artist now, cut this album for Harmony Records. Irving and Jack (and, earlier Phil) were studio workhorses and recorded separately and together probably more albums during the Tin Pan Alley period than any other musical family, appearing by name or by pseudonym on quite literally hundreds of records for dozens of labels. Jack’s sense of theatricality, a maybe even bombast, comes across in the two recordings on this album – listen to his rolling R’s and energy, due probably to both the enthusiasm around the event and his own personality. The last Kaufman recording was made by the busiest of the brothers, Irving, in 1974, meaning the Kaufman era of original recordings lasted a remarkable 60 years.

Lindbergh and his plane - the inspiration for over 300 songs.

This May America will celebrate the 85^th anniversary of Lucky Lindbergh’s historic non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic. The air mail pilot took off from Long Island a virtual unknown and landed, 3600 miles and one day later, in Paris, France as a national hero and icon. One can imagine the songwriters, musicians, studio executives, sheet music publishers, and recording technicians scrambling for that one week in late May in 1927, trying to be the first to get a piece of that Lindbergh magic. In some ways it may not seem so different than today’s commercialism. But, when I put that record onto Zayde’s Turntable and try to imagine the energy, the (much needed) optimism, and the pride that must have been coursing through the singer, the band, and the original listener, playing this disc for the very first time in 1927, I can’t help but think that it is, maybe in some way, just a bit different.

A Perfect record to get things started

For the first album we’ll look at on Zayde’s Turntable I’ve chosen a Perfect record.

That is neither its condition nor a description of its musical content. Perfect records first came on the scene in 1922 and was the American brand of the prolific European record company Pathé, which had been creating first cylinder recordings and later standard 78-RPM discs since the 1890s. Perfect records were lower quality dime-store albums, but the label proved so popular (read: affordable) with the American public that they continued as their own brand even after Pathé itself folded in 1929 during a large merger of many record companies into the mammoth American Record Corporation. Perfect records, headquartered at 34 Grand Avenue in Brooklyn, continued to be manufactured until 1938.

34 Grand Avenue in Brooklyn - once home to the Perfect record company. Now Raels Gable (sic).

A “Perfect” label of 45-RPMs was issued in the 1950s, but I can find no evidence that it was at all related to the original 1922-1938 company. In 1993 Dean Blackwood revived the label briefly to issue recordings by a handful of 1980s experimental rock and rockabilly artists.

Perfect labels from 1922 through the late 1950s.

Perfect record 15228, featuring the La Palina Broadcasters and Ted Bancroft - neither of whom existed.

This particular album is in Very Good to Excellent condition, which is not common for a Perfect record given, ironically, the generally lower quality manufacturing that went into the brand. It is a standard 10-inch diameter 78-RPM vinyl disc. The record catalog number is Perfect 15228 (15228-B) and the master number is 37047A (37047B). The A-side recording features the waltz “Pal Of My Sweetheart Days” by Benny Davis and Fred Coots and runs approximately 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The B-side recording features the waltz “All That I’m Asking Is Sympathy” by Benny Davis and Joe Burke and runs approximately 2 minutes and 50 seconds. Both songs are sung by “Ted Bancroft” (more on the use of the quotations below) backed up by the “La Palina Broadcasters.” Tyrone Settlemier dates the album to August 20, 1929, which seems to match with the appearance of the encircled “E” on the label – a feature that appeared on Perfect labels only in the late 1920s. The record is valued at approximately $7 to $10.

Side-by-side with another 78-RPM of the period the color difference of the Perfect is more apparent.

It is one of eight Perfect records in my collection, but is probably the one in the best condition. One reason I decided to start with a Perfect label is the company’s interesting decision to forgo the traditional black shellac for a reddish/orange shellac – not all 78s look the same and as record companies competed for ways to make their product stick out a bit more they became increasingly more creative in how they made their albums look and not just sound. Only one other label at the time – Vocalion – did the same. Another Pathé label, Pathé-Actuelle, pressed mottled vinyl albums for a time. The epitome of this practice were the picture discs, best represented by the highly collectable Vogue picture records – in which complete color illustrations were printed on paper, covered with a thin vinyl sheet, and then the recording grooves were pressed onto the disc. The albums were pretty, even if the sound quality was a bit less than ideal.

Another bonus aspect of this album is that it is in my collection in its original sleeve. While most collectors don’t care about the album sleeve (except for some records, mostly 45s, where the sleeve artwork is actually more collectible than the record itself), there’s something nice about having the disc in its original home. Album sleeves were prime real estate for the record company to advertise and promote the other recordings (hey, if you bought this one…).

B-side of sleeve lists Perfect artists (so to speak).

On one side the headline of the sleeve copy here reads “A Selected List of Perfect Standard RECORDS THAT SHOULD BE IN EVERY HOME.” It then lists 28 albums in six categories – Hawaiian (“Ciribiribin…With Whistling,” “Kawaha,” and “O Sole Mio” -?), Instrumental, Vocal, Humorous and Novelty (“Casey At The Dentist” – a less successful sequel to Casey at the Bat perhaps?), Sacred, and Operatic and Classical. The song “La Paloma” must have been a real hit as it appears twice – once under Hawaiian (featuring “Louise and Ferera” on Hawaiian Guitars) and once under Instrumental (featuring the Casino Orchestra). The sleeve implores the reader to “ASK FOR COMPLETE STANDARD CATALOG OF PERFECT RECORDS.”

A-side of sleeve with promotional image and copy.

The front of the sleeve touts “AMERICA’S FASTEST SELLING RECORD…Better Records Can’t Be Made”. The former claim may have been true, but the latter almost certainly not. In addition to a black and white illustration of various types of musicians performing on top of a record the sleeve front additionally partially lists 35 popular and famous artists and orchestras that appeared on the Perfect label (the Original Memphis Five, Ukulele Ike, Hotel Biltmore Orchestra, Harry Barth’s Mississippians, Phil Hughes and his High Hatters, Irving Kaufman, Arthur Fields, Yvonne Gall, etc.).

A better look at the sleeve graphic, untorn.

The music on the album is less than thrilling.

The A-side recording, “Pal Of My Sweetheart Days,” is a standard waltz like so many that came out of Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s, with a cookie-cutter sensibility to the tune, accompanied by trite rhymes and clichéd lyrics.

“Mem’ries awaken the old love again, pal of my sweetheart days / Tho’ we’re far apart, you seem to linger in my heart.”

You get the idea.

1929 sheet music for

In addition to appearing on Perfect a version of the song appeared on the Broadway label, featuring “Frank Raymond’s Do”, some time between 1929 and 1932. The song was published in 1929 by Coots & Engel Inc. of New York City. In addition to a piano, vocal, and ukulele sheet music and the albums the song appeared on a Sears “Supertone” piano roll (#4430) issued by Columbia featuring an unknown pianist (though I have a very strong suspicion that the artist was…well, I’ll give away part of the end of this post if I tell you now).

1929 sheet music to

The B side recording is likewise a standard waltz from the period. “All That I’m Asking Is Sympathy” was also recorded by Art Jarrett and his Orchestra for Victor (record catalog number 22236) on December 2, 1929. It received a revival (and serious tempo adjustment) in 1953 on the album “Slim Whitman Sings” – the third record from the prolific country music singer and acclaimed yodeler Ottis Dewey “Slim” Whitman (issued on an Imperial 78-RPM #8180 and currently selling on EBay for about $15). The song was published by the Joe Morris Music Company of New York in 1929. “You are all I had / Now I am so sad / All that I’m asking is sympathy.”

Lyricist Benny Davis (1895-1979).

The works of three composers appear on the record. Benny Davis (1895-1979) had a hand in both songs. Davis, a former vaudeville performer and accompanist, was one of the busiest, and most successful, lyricists of the period. In addition to the two songs here Davis was responsible for the lyrics to the hit song “Baby Face” and several dozen others. He wrote lyrics to the Broadway shows “Artists and Models of 1927” and “Sons o’ Guns” (1936), as well as three versions of the Cotton Club revue. His song most recognizable to contemporary listeners is probably “With These Hands,” which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1990 film “Edward Scissorhands” sung by Tom Jones.

Davis’ colleague on “Pal Of My Sweetheart Days” (and many other songs) was J. Fred Coots (1897-1985), another high-volume Tin Pan Alley songwriter. A banker-turned-songwriter, Coots’ produced over 700 published songs and the scores to nine Broadway shows including “A Night in Paris“ (1926). His song “Louisiana Fairy Tale,” was used as the original theme song to the PBS show “This Old House” many decades later. In 1940 Coots – a fierce Rangers fan – wrote the “New York Rangers Victory Song,” which is still played after each of the hockey team’s home wins. Timely with the recent holiday, Coots most famous contribution to the American songbook, however, is doubtless the Christmas classic “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” (1934) – the tune for which he supposedly cooked up in ten minutes and which has sold over 4 millions copies of sheet music (500,000 of which were in the first year alone).

Composer Fred Coots (1897-1985).

Jack Burton’s 1950 “Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters” in Billboard magazine ranked Coots at number #52. Burton’s profile of Coots relates how the young banker gave up a lucrative career (fortuitous with the eventual market collapse of the late 1920s) to follow a passion for music. He sold his first song, the less-than-marketably-titled “Mister Ford, You’ve Got The Right Idea” (1917) for $5 – then promptly spent the entirety of the earnings on a celebratory dinner that same night. Years later, when the same publisher who bought that 1917 tune was himself on hard times the then-wealthy Coots presented him with a check for $500: “I owed the guy,” he explained.

Coots also composed music for several popular “night spots” during Prohibition, including the Alamo in Harlem, where the songwriter discovered a large-nosed pianist with a ripping sense of humor. Coots persuaded the young Jimmy Durante to give up his 75-cents-an-hour piano gig to get onto the comedy circuit professionally.

Waite Hoyt: championship Yankees pitcher, funeral director, and vaudeville performer.

Coots himself also appeared on stage on occasion, mostly in vaudeville acts in New York City. Following the New York Yankees 1927 World Series victory Coots teamed up with Yankees pitcher Waite Hoyt – fresh off pitching two winning Series games – to perform to sold out crowds at the Palace Theater. Hoyt, a consummate performer himself, went by the nickname “The Merry Mortician” – an allusion to his two non-baseball jobs: running a funeral home and starring in vaudeville numbers (including acts with Durante, Jack Benny, and George Burns). One might imagine Derek Jeter doing soft-shoe with Zach Galifianakis…or one might not.

Davis’ collaborator for “All That I’m Asking Is Sympathy” was Joe Burke (1884-1950), a songwriter better known for his film scores and songs than his popular singles. Burke started his career as an actor, appearing as Senator Keene in the 1915 black and white silent film “The Senator” and in the 1929 flick “The Show of Shows”. His catalog of Billboard Number One hit songs includes “Moon Over Miami” (1936), “Carolina Moon” (1929 – the same year as “All That I’m Asking Is Sympathy”), “On Treasure Island” (1935, for Tommy Dorsey), “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” (1930), and “Who Wouldn’t Love You” (1942). He also penned the official college anthem for Villanova University (even though Burke himself was educated at UPenn). Burke’s most (in)famous song is perhaps “Tip Toe Through The Tulips” (originally for Nick Lucas for the 1929 show “The Gold Diggers of Broadway” and later more notoriously covered by Tiny Tim).

Tiny Tim, in his final video interview shortly before his death in 1996.

A second attraction for using this record to get Zayde’s Turntable spinning – in addition to its unconventional color – is its usefulness in illustrating the wide use of pseudonyms in the period. Collector and author of the “American Premium Record Guide” Les Docks notes: “the real name of the artist was not always used on all the affiliate labels…the purpose was often to evade exclusive recording artist contractual restrictions, or to avoid making royalty payments to artists…If this isn’t confusing enough, one pseudonym…might conceal the true identity of a dozen or more bands, whose performances appeared on other labels perhaps under different pseudonyms.”

Particularly fascinating on this record is that both the orchestra and the vocalist appear as a pseudonym. After a fair amount of digging I was able to ascertain the true identity of both the enigmatic “La Palina Broadcasters” and “Ted Bancroft.”

Bandleader Fred Rich (1898-1956).

Docks’ compendium lists several albums of value from the La Palina Broadcasters on Conqueror, Domino, Pathe-Actuelle, and Perfect – all valued $7 to $10. There is absolutely no record elsewhere of such an orchestra actually existing, however. La Palina was (and is) a brand of cigar, which – at one point – sponsored radio programs on CBS radio. In late 1928, a 30-year old man by the name of Fred Rich (1898-1956) was hired to be the music director for CBS radio. Rich, who came from an already lengthy career as a bandleader with numerous recordings to his credit, would be a natural to lead a radio orchestra (hence “Broadcasters” in the title) for Perfect (and other labels, all of which had some sort of business relationship with Columbia and CBS).

A search for more on Rich and La Palina confirm the pseudonym – Robert Stockdale’s “The Dorsey Brothers” lists four recordings on, literally, dozens of labels using up to six pseudonyms (“Ted White’s Collegians,” “Pierrot Syncopators,” “Pete Mandel and his Rhythm Masters,” “Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra,” etc.). Brian Rust’s “Jazz Records, 1897-1942” adds the front name “Jimmy Pollack’s Orchestra” on the rare Domino label to the mix. Docks identifies Fred/Freddie Rich and his Orchestra as being synonymous with the “La Palina Orchestra” – not Broadcasters – and lists over fifty of his albums on Banner, Cameo, Columbia (naturally), Gennett, Harmony, Hit-of-the-Week, Okeh, Pathe-Actuelle, Perfect, Regal, Romeo, and Vocalion – with an overall range of value between $5 and $30.

Rich’s recordings are mostly fairly standard and unimpressive dance fare (such as appear on this particular album), though he did press a few remarkable and acclaimed jazz albums. A writer in the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors 1971 volume observers about an unspecified La Palina Broadcaster’s recording: “Ted Bancroft does the vocal. There is the lead trumpet work, a lengthy Tommy Dorsey trombone solo, with brother Jimmy taking a clarinet solo. On the B-side the vocalist is Irving Kaufman [see list of featured Perfect artists above]. The quite commendable trumpet solos are by Leo McConville. The trombone solo is played straight but has T.D.’s [Tommy Dorsey’s] tone. A most interesting piano solo. Who? The B-side original issue cannot be traced. Banner?? It is a real sleeper.”

Rich’s finger-work as a pianist lives on immortalized in the dozens of piano rolls he also recorded for the Aeolian Company and others (perhaps even the uncredited roll for “Pal Of My Sweetheart Days”?). Rich left his job at CBS in 1938 but still made musical appearances on a number of programs (including The Abbott and Costello Show on NBC from 1943 to 1945). Leaving radio behind his final artistic endeavors were for the big screen, providing the scores to the films “Stage Door Canteen” (1943), “Jack London” (1943), “A Walk In The Sun” (1945), and “A WAVE, a WAC, and a Marine” (1944), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best score.

There is no Ted Bancroft. A cursory search finds references to a Benny Goodman drummer, Ben Pollack (hmmm….”Jimmy Pollack’s Orchestra”?), singing under the pseudonyms “Ted Bancroft” and “Eddie Gale” (not, of course, Eddie Gale the jazz trumpeter…confused yet?). Pollack was a bandleader and singer by the late 1920s and his band had recently relocated from Chicago to New York City. They pressed albums for a vast array of labels: Banner, Perfect, Domino, Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo, and Victor, under an equally vast array of pseudonyms: Mills’ Merry Makers, Goody’s Good Timers, Kentucky Grasshoppers, Mills’ Musical Clowns, The Lumberjacks, Dixie Daises, The Whoopee Makers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, and Jimmy Bracken’s Toe Ticklers. But Pollack’s music was almost all straight jazz and “hot dance.” Furthermore, as I am certain that the La Palina Broadcasters are the Fred Rich orchestra, it seem very unlikely that Ben Pollack would appear as a solo vocalist on an album backed up by someone else’s band.

Ted Bancroft is another Columbia/CBS artist. A musician who provided vocal accompaniment to Fred Rich’s Columbia house orchestra on numerous Columbia labels, including the original “Singin’ in the Rain.” He was one of the original “singing cowboys” and appeared in western films for Paramount and 20^th Century Fox up through the 1950s, including dubbing the singing for John Wayne in “Riders of Destiny” and “The Man from Utah” and starred opposite Frances Langford as the lead in “Palm Springs.” He recorded hundreds of records with dozens of bands (including Ben Pollack’s). His own short-lived orchestra, on the Okeh label, gave a start to Glenn Miller. His name was Sykes “Smith” Ballew (1902-1984).

Sykes “Smith” Ballew (1902-1984), aka Ted Bancroft, pictured in 1931 two years after recording this album and at the height of his one-time fame.

And not one of his albums is commercially available today. You can only hear them on Zayde’s Turntable.

And that, in some ways, seems Perfect.