Have you ever heard of the Black Swan record label? Neither had we (and it’s not something we’re proud of, given we’re all about pop and jazz of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s), but we were intrigued by Michael Pollak’s recent story in the New York Times and felt the Cladrite community might find it of interest, too.

Black Swan was the first major black-owned record company. It managed to remain in operation for just a couple of years, but its influence was wide-ranging and long-lived.

Black Swan was founded by one Harry H. Pace, a banking and insurance worker and disciple of W. E. B. Du Bois, who had previously paired with W. C. Handy in forming the Pace & Handy Music Company, a music publishing concern.

Nine years later, Pace made history when he parted with Handy and started Black Swan Records. Many of the established labels at the time would not record African-American performers, but Pace was not satisfied with merely rectifying that injustice, he set out to demonstrate the breadth of the talent in the African-American community, to, as Pollak writes in the Times, “challenge white stereotypes by recording not just comic and blues songs, but also sacred and operatic music and serious ballads.”

Black Swan would have achieved a certain degree of importance if only because the great Fletcher Henderson played piano on many of the label’s early recordings, but Black Swan rose to greater heights in signing Ethel Waters. Her blues recordings made a splash, and a vaudeville tour featuring Black Swan artists managed to make the label what Pollak terms “a national one.”

But Black Swan’s success led more established labels to realize what they’d been missing in not recording black artists, and in an effort to elevate the nation’s image of African-American performers, the label opted not to sign blues singer Bessie Smith to a contract.

That was a costly mistake.

The label did introduce the likes of Waters, Henderson, Trixie Smith and Alberta Hunter, but after only two years, it was relegated to the dustbin of American music history. But during its brief existence, it had, as Pollak notes, awakened the music business, an impact that is still being felt today and for which we are all the richer.

Jeanette MacDonald is best remembered today for the old-fashioned (even then) musicals she made with Nelson Eddy, but you’d be hard-pressed to get us to watch one of those. We greatly prefer the movies she made in the early Thirties—most notably with director Ernst Lubitsch—when she was allowed to show a little spark and sass on screen.

This profile originally saw the light of day in September 1940. Her professional pairing with Eddy was already well established, and she had been married to actor Gene Raymond for three years. She and Raymond remained married until MacDonald’s death in 1965.

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It’s remarkable that until just a few days ago, we still had an orchestra leader from the golden age of the big bands among us. Orrin Tucker, whose first big hit was his 1939 recording of a World War I-era hit, “Oh Johnny, Oh Johhny, Oh!” with “Wee” Bonnie Baker on the vocals, passed away on April 9 at age 100, and it could be argued he was the last living bandleader of prominence from those halcyon days.

The Tucker outfit wasn’t a hard-swinging ensemble. His was an old-style dance orchestra, playing music everyone—not just jitterbuggers and lindy hoppers—could cut a rug to. And aside from time spent serving in the Navy during World War II, he remained an active orchestra leader into the 1990s. That’s quite a career.

“There were so many musicians that said, regardless what the public wants, I’ll play the way I want to play,” Mr. Tucker is quoted as saying in the Washington Post’s obit. “I’ve always tried to play the music people are fond of and play it the way they want to hear and the way it is easy to dance to. I made it a point to know what the public liked and did my best to please them.”

Tucker was born on Feb. 17, 1911, in St. Louis, Mo. His childhood was spent in Wheaton, Ill., near Chicago, and he grew up intending to pursue medicine. But he worked as a saxophonist and singer while attending North Central College in Naperville, Ill., and proved successful enough at it that he formed his own orchestra.

Tucker eventually hired, at Louis Armstrong‘s suggestion, singer Evelyn Nelson, whom he renamed “Wee” Bonnie Baker.

The National Association of Music Merchants conducted an interview with Tucker in 2003 as part of their oral history program, and in the following clip, Tucker, still looking handsome and seeming pretty darned sharp at age 92, recalls working with Bonnie Baker. (Our thanks go out to the good folks at NAMM for allowing us to share the clip with the Cladrite Radio clan.)

And here are three tracks for those not familiar with the sounds of the Tucker Orchestra. “Drifting and Dreaming” was the band’s theme song, “Oh Johnny” was, as mentioned above, the outfit’s first hit, and “You’re the One (for Me)” is just a song we like.

“Drifting and Dreaming” — Orrin Tucker and His Orchestra

“Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!” — Orrin Tucker and His Orchestra

“Pinch Me” — Orrin Tucker and His Orchestra

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

There are many familiar names among the artists we feature on Cladrite Radio—everyone from Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong to Billie Holiday, Paul Whiteman, and Nat “King” Cole.

But our greatest pleasure is giving exposure to lesser known artists—bands, singers, and instrumentalists with whom only the true buff is familiar.

Among those less known here in the United States, except among the cognoscenti, are such British band leaders as Ray Noble, Jack Payne, Henry Hall, and Carroll Gibbons, who was American but gained his fame in England. Each of these artists can be heard here on Cladrite Radio, and those interested in learning more about them now can turn to the BBC’s Radio 2.

Air personality Brian Matthew hosts a program called “The Bands The Mattered,” which each week explores the life and career of a pair of orchestra leaders. Payne and Hall were featured in Week 1, but, unfortunately, the BBC only streams each show for a week. But you’ve still got a few days to access the archive of this week’s show, which focuses on Noble and Gibbons.

We only just learned about this program, and we’re not at all happy to have missed the first episode of this season (not to mention all of the episodes of a previous season, too), but we’ll be listening going forward, and we thought you might want to, as well.