Cladrite Composers | Cladrite Radio

A Berlin parade

As a small Easter egg for the Cladrite Radio community, we thought we’d offer the following:

Did you know that the lovely Irving Berlin standard “Easter Parade” is a reworking of an earlier Berlin tune? It’s true. In 1917, Berlin wrote a song called “Smile and Show Your Dimple.” That song wasn’t particularly well received, so in 1933, when writing for the Broadway musical revue “As Thousands Cheer,” Berlin revisited the song, writing new lyrics and tweaking the melody a bit to create the song that is still so well known today.

Just as a bit of trivia, “Easter Parade” was performed in “As Thousands Cheer” by Marilyn Miller and Clifton Webb.

So we’re sharing a 1933 recording below of Webb singing the song backed by the Leo Reisman Orchestra, along with a 1942 Harry James rendition, a 1939 recording by the Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, Bing Crosby singing the song backed by the Victor Young Orchestra in 1948, a Gene Austin recording from 1933, and a 1917 recording by Sam Ash of the song that fostered “Easter Parade,” “Smile and Show Your Dimple.”

“Easter Parade” — Clifton Webb with the Leo Reisman Orchestra

“Easter Parade” — Harry James and His Orchestra

“Easter Parade” — Guy Lombardo and His Orchestra

“Easter Parade” — Bing Crosby with the Victor Young Orchestra

“Easter Parade” — Gene Austin

“Smile and Show Your Dimple” — Sam Ash

24 Apr 11 | Tags: As Thousands Cheer, Bing Crosby, Clifton Webb, Easter Parade, Gene Austin, Guy Lombardo, Harry James, Irving Berlin, Leo Reisman, Marilyn Miller, Sam Ash, Smile and Show Your Dimple, Victor Young
| Cladrite Composers, Cladrite Culture | Read on | Comments (0)

We're having a great time, thanks

Bless Royal Caribbean’s little corporate hearts. They seem to have a Cladrite kindred spirit or two involved in creating their advertising campaigns. We wonder if the people responsible know about our humble little operation—here’s hoping.

Many of you will recall that in February, RC ran a campaign that featured the Hal Kemp Orchestra‘s rendition of “It’s Winter Again,” a relatively obscure song from 1932 with lyrics by Arthur Freed and a lovely melody by Al Hoffman and Al Goodhart

We were already featuring the lyrics to the song at the bottom of each page here at Cladrite Radio, and when the commercial featuring the Kemp recording of it, with Skinnay Ennis on vocals, began to run frequently, our traffic shot right up. Folks were Googling the lyrics trying to find out more about the song and/or the recording and were finding their way here (more on that here).

Which suited us just fine, as you might imagine.

February came and went, as did winter and, therefore, that particular commercial, but the good folks at Royal Caribbean are now running a television spot that features another relatively obscure song from the Cladrite era, “Are You Havin’ Any Fun?“. We thought the spot might be using a 1941 recording by Joe Loss and His Orchestra, but we began to suspect that it was, in fact, a modern-day recording, just made to sound old (which this story about the commercial confirmed.)

So we thought we’d share the lyrics and a couple of recordings of the song with our readers and listeners. When you’ve got a sympatico relatiionship with a company like Royal Caribbean, you might as well prolong it.

Are You Havin’ Any Fun?
Hey fellow with a million smackers
And nervous indigestion
Rich fellow, eats milk and crackers,
I’ll ask you one question,
You silly so and so,
With all your dough…

Are you havin’ any fun?
What you getting out of livin’?
What good is what you’ve got
If you’re not havin’ any fun?

Are you havin’ any laughs?
Are you getting any lovin’?
If other people do,
So can you, have a little fun.

After the honey’s in the cone,
Little bees go out and play.
Even the old grey mare down home
Has got to have hay. Hey!

You better have some fun.
You ain’t gonna live forever.
Before you’re old and gray, feel okay.
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!

Why do you work and slave and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts.
You know the squirrels save and save,
And what have they got? Nuts!

Better have a little fun.
You ain’t gonna live forever.
Before you’re old and grey, still okay,
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!
Are you havin’ any fun?

“Are You Havin’ Any Fun?” was composed by Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics) for a Broadway show called “George White’s Scandals of 1939.” The Scandals were an Ziegfeld Follies-esque revue that was produced on an annual basis from 1919-1939.

Tony Bennett had a hit with the song in the late 1950s, but the version heard on the Royal Caribbean ad has more of a late ’30s/early ’40s feel to it, and the versions we’re sharing below date from that era.

“Are You Havin’ Any Fun?” — Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra

“Are You Havin’ Any Fun?” — Ella Logan

“Are You Havin’ Any Fun?” — The Hoosier Hot Shots

Snapshot in Prose: Rodgers and Hart

This week’s Snapshot in Prose visits a pair of classic composers who need no introduction, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, when they were at their most successful.

The author of the story speaks to both men, and we learn that they were of very different temperaments, outlooks, and lifestyles. Apparently musical theatre, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows.

hat incomparable team of songwriters, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, author and composer of Blue Moon, began turning out their great song hits without the benefit of Necessity, the mother of so much of our musical invention, being around to spur them on.

Nor did they hear the wolf howling at the door. But they did suffer a terrible urge to express themselves in their work.

Hunger for approval, thirst for accomplishment. Haven’t you too, often experienced that feeling?

We called upon Lorenz Hart in his spacious, luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park.

He greeted us in his huge music room with Kiki, his nine-year-old dog, romping at his feet.

“She’s just home from the Doctor’s,” said Hart. “Had to take her—she was losing her hair. She’s a Chinese chow.”

I picked up my pencil.

“Don’t say anything about poor Kiki, she hates publicity,” said Hart.

Hart is hospitable and generous. “What will you have?” he said, leading the way into his ultra-modern study and offering everything from Bourbon to coffee.

“A story about you and Rodgers,” we answered.

“How did you happen to begin writing songs with ‘Dick’ Rogers?”

In his inimitable way, Hart began: “We met while Dick was attending Columbia University. I’d been out of the Columbia School of Journalism for a year or two. Of course, we decided to write the college varsity show.”

“What was the name of it?”

“Something like Fly With Me—a great success”

“What work had you done before you met Rodgers?”

“I had produced a play by Henry Myers, The First Fifty Years. There were two characters played by Clare Eames and Tom Powers. We took in so little money, we couldn’t afford to pay the players. It ran for six weeks. We’d have been worse off if it had run 12. Lost our money.

“However, after our Columbia show, Dick met Herbert Fields, a son of Lew Fields of the famous Weber and Fields Minstrels.

“Lew Fields was putting on The Poor Little Rich Girl, so Herbert asked his father to use some of our songs. By the time the show opened all of the songs were ours.

“The Poor Little Rich Girl ran 22 weeks on Broadway. Rodgers was then only 17. Of course we felt that we had arrived. We expected the managers to make us some offers. But no offers came.

“We put on amateur shows, benefits, and did anything we could to make a few dollars.

“Finally with Herbert Fields writing the book, Dick and I sat down and wrote a musical comedy. Then for months we made tours of auditions. Some managers liked the music and hated the lyrics, some loved the lyrics but couldn’t hear the melodies. Nobody took it.”

“What did you call it?”

Oh, it had some awful names. Then we all three wrote The Melody Man for Lew Fields. He took it on the road. Yes, it was a colossal—failure,” he finished.

We showed Dearest Enemy to Max Dreyfuss. He liked it, and now signed us up on his staff.

“This was in the month of March. The show could not open until Fall. We were unknown—and now very, very broke.

“We wrote Garrick Gaieties in a week. We used two or three numbers that we had been peddling around. One of them was Manhattan.

“At the opening matinee, I stood in the back of the theatre with a young writer about town, Walter Winchell. Three boys came before the curtain and recited that polysyllabic lyric! I felt like the thing was doomed.

“But that matinee, because of the long applause, lasted until seven o’clock.”

Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 17

In Chapter 17 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée regales the reader with tales of the songwriting game and music publishing business.

Chapter XVII

SONGS AND SONG WRITING

I DO NOT want to destroy any illusions that my songs may have built up about me but I am really not, at least in the accepted sense of the word, a “veteran” song writer, although I have more than the required number of songs to my credit to entitle me to make application for membership in the American Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers.

Along Tin Pan Alley the real song writer, in the accepted sense of the word, is he who has not only one or more hits to his credit, but whose mind is continually filled with lyrics and melodies and who can write a song almost at command. Of course it is greater proof of this gift to have five or six or even more successful hits to one’s credit; but the man whose mind is prolific enough to produce one song after another that will be at least moderately successful, if not a terrific hit, is the veteran song writer.

Of course the greatest in the game are the men whose names stand out almost like names in history, such as Irving Berlin, with all his successful waltzes and early fox trots, Walter Donaldson, the Von Tilzers, Victor Herbert, creator of a higher type of semi-classical, popular music, Seymour Brown, Jerome Kern and many others I may have forgotten to mention.

Of recent years there has grown up a group of young men who have twisted the music scale into odd combinations to the satisfaction of their purses and vanity. Benny Davis has the most hits to his credit, Gus Kahn is considered the greatest lyric writer of them all—at least he is the highest paid individual, and his name has appeared on so many song that it is almost impossible to keep count of them. George Gershwin has also written some very clever popular tunes besides his rhapsody, although his popular show tunes have never achieved sensational success. Mabel Wayne, perhaps the only really successful woman writer, has several hits to her credit; while Mary Earl who wrote “Beautiful Ohio” several years ago, seems to have rested on her oars ever since. Marian Gillespie is another not heard from in years.

The clever team of Jimmy McHugh, once a plumber, and Dorothy Fields, daughter of the great comedian, evolved some very fine music for several Broadway productions of the season of 1928-1929, including the year’s hit, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby.”

After having written “Dardanella” and left it on the shelf for two years, Fred Fisher was finally persuaded to allow a famous re-write musician to make a beautiful arrangement of it, thus turning it into a really salable piece, and its success was instantaneous and historic. He had written several hits before, but Dardanella was his greatest.

Nearly everyone in the East knows of the fantastic record of three young boys, one of whom for years had displayed his talents in University productions, while another had been a night club wiseacre and the third who had always been a song writer. These three boys, after collaborating on a few tunes for other publishers finally incorporated and their success is the talk of Tin Pan Alley. Within the period of a year Bud De Sylva, Lou Brown, and Ray Henderson not only wrote enough tunes to pay for the building they now own but declared a handsome dividend for themselves at the end of their first year.

Theirs is the outstanding success of the song world, but of course, they are perhaps the most gifted trio of song writers in existence, having to their credit the music of “Good,” “Three Cheers,” “Hold Everything,” “Follow Through,” “Sonny Boy,” “Together,” and many other tunes too numerous to mention.

Two newcomers, Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert, have written three or four successes and can feel very pleased with themselves. Who doesn’t know their “I’ll Get By,” “Mean to Me,” and “To Be In Love, Specially With You?”

I could go on indefinitely.

On the Pacific Coast there are two young men, Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, whose “Broadway Melody” hits, “Doll Dance,” “Pagan Love Song,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and many other tunes of an instrumental nature have earned them a princely fortune, enough so they can retire at any time.

Other famous west coast and middlewest writers are Byron Gay whose “The Vamp,” “Sand-dunes,” and “Horses” were very popular; Isham Jones whose work with Gus Kahn gave us such beautiful tunes as “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” “Spain,” “The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else,” “It Had to Be You,” and many others.

But I must end my list even at the risk of injuring the feelings of those whom I have not mentioned. I feel the ones enumerated are the outstanding writers, and anyone I may have failed to speak of will forgive me.

Most of these songsmiths are at the time of my writing either on the Pacific Coast, or en route to it or from it, as the creation of sound pictures and the need for music to fit situations in these sound pictures has required the presence of these fertile musical minds. They must be on the spot where, as the picture is rehearsed, they can see more easily just how the song must fit the scene. At unheard of guaranteed weekly salaries, with their royalties from each song sheet and record as an extra bonus, these men have rushed to the Coast with even greater anticipation and hope than did the miners in the gold rush of ’49.

Goodbye to another glorious gal

Popular recording artist Margaret Whiting, the daughter of songwriter Richard Whiting (“Hooray for Hollywood,” “She’s Funny That Way,” “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” and many, many more), has passed at age 86. Whiting, who was mentored early in her career by the great Johnny Mercer, recorded more than 700 songs and earned a dozen gold records.

Whiting led an interesting later life as well, as she would cohabitate with and eventually wed John Robert Stillman, a prominent porn star whose stage name was Jack Wrangler; the two were married for 15 years until his death in 2009.

We encountered Ms. Whiting a few times some years back, over the course of our employment as a waiter and bartender at a popular Central Park South eatery. Ms. Whiting, as we understood it, lived upstairs in the building that housed the restaurant, so she was a fairly frequent patron. Though a pleasant enough sort, she wasn’t terribly outgoing, so we have no memorable tales to tell, but she was accompanied on occasion by Mr. Stillman.

Whiting’s greatest success came in the late 1940s and 1950s, as the big bands gave way to a focus on individual singers, in advance of the rise of rock ‘n’ roll.

We hope Ms. Whiting’s final years were peacerul and happy ones, may she rest in peace, and we’re happy to be able to pay tribute to her by sharing a pair of our favorites among her recordings and a video of a live television performance from 1952.

Margaret Whiting — “It Might as Well Be Spring”

Margaret Whiting — “Moonlight in Vermont”

13 Jan 11 | Tags: Jack Wrangler, Johnny Mercer, Margaret Whiting, Richard Whiting
| Cladrite Composers, Cladrite Culture, Cladrite Performers, Goodbye to another glorious gal | Read on | Comments (0)

Are You Having Any Fun?
Hey fellow with a million smackers
And nervous indigestion
Rich fellow, eats milk and crackers,
I'll ask you one question,
You silly so and so,
With all your dough...

Are you having any fun?
What you getting out of livin'?
What good is what you've got
If you're not having any fun?

Are you having any laughs?
Are you getting any lovin'?
If other people do,
So can you, have a little fun.

After the honey's in the cone,
Little bees go out and play.
Even the old grey mare down home
Has got to have hay. Hey!

You better have some fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and gray, feel okay.
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!

Why do you work and slave and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts.
You know the squirrels save and save,
And what have they got? Nuts!

Better have a little fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and grey, still okay,
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!
Are you havin' any fun?

---Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics), 1939