Bing Crosby | Cladrite Radio

Another OTR Christmas

We figure most folks will find themselves in one of two camps over the next few days.

The first group will be those who got a bit of a jump on their seasonal activities. They’ve purchased and wrapped all their gifts, mailed their cards, gotten the grocery shopping completed for any holiday meals they’re to prepare, so now they spend the next few days relaxing and savoring the festive mood that surrounds us.

The second group, bless their hearts, have accomplished few to none of the above-cited tasks, and will be frantic and out of breath for the next 72 hours or so as they fight the crowds to squeeze in some last-minute shopping; sign, stamp, and lick, and mail their cards, and drive all over town from grocery store to understocked grocery store looking for all the ingredients required for the holiday meal they’re expected to whip up.

To the second group, we say, “Good luck and Godspeed—we don’t envy you.” Because, the rigors of a little holiday travel aside, we’ve completed our own seasonal tasks and intend to relax and enjoy ourselves through the weekend.

One way we in the first camp might pass the time is with some Christmas-themed old-time radio programs from the good folks at OTRcat.com. They traffic in reasonably priced collections of classic radio shows from the Cladrite Era, but for the next few days, you can listen to a full dozen holiday programs for free.

A number of genres are featured: mystery-horror, variety shows, dramas, cop shows, private eye programs, and comedies, among others.

We’re sharing below an episode of the “Lights Out” program entitled “Uninhabited” that originally aired on December 22, 1937, in which, as the folks at OTRcat describe it, “a French, Australian, and African-American soldier find themselves traveling on a train on Christmas Eve 1918.” But if the likes of “The Jack Benny Show,” “The Great Gildersleeve,” or “Dragnet” are more to your liking, you’ll find those streaming at OTRcat.com.

Lights Out: “Uninhabited” (30:04)

We think you’ll find the offerings at OTRcat well worth your consideration, and at these prices—free!—they certainly can’t be beat. So put your feet up and relax—you’ve earned it!—as you enjoy some Christmas entertainment from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—when you’re not listening to Cladrite Radio, that is.

(P.S. We have absolutely no connection to OTRcat.com. We just like old-time radio, and we appreciate any outfit that’s willing to share samples of their wares gratis.)

22 Dec 11 | Tags: Bing Crosby, christmas, Dragnet, Jack Benny, Lights Out, Old Time Radio, OTR, OTRcat.com, The Great Gildersleeve
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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
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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.”

Regular listeners to Cladrite Radio know we’re big fans of Mildred Bailey. She’s perhaps not as well remembered today as some of her contemporaries, but fans of the music of the 1920s and ’30s know her well, and her versatile vocal stylings clearly proved an inspiration to songbirds who followed her, including Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

Bailey was married three times—her third husband, who proved to be a charm only professionally, was vibraphonist Red Norvo. Though their marriage didn’t last, the two recorded together from the mid-’30s through 1945. Bailey, who had health issues throughout her adult life, struggling with weight gain and diabetes, died far too young—at age 44—in 1951.

Read to the end of this profile, first published in 1935, and you’ll find a couple of our favorites Mildred Bailey recordings for your consideration. We’re confident that, if you’re not already a fan, you will be after hearing these recordings..

WHEN Mildred Bailey ran away from a convent and got a job playing piano in a synagogue, anyone might have guessed that this young lady would never lead a dull life.

Mildred, whose real name is Rinker, is the daughter of a mother who was famous in and around Spokane for her lullabies. Her brother, Al, was a member of Paul Whiteman‘s original Rhythm Boys, the other two members of this famous trio being Harry Barris, pianist-composer, and Bing Crosby.

Another brother, Miles, played saxophone in the college band at the University of Illinois and brother Charles (Chuck) Rinker played the guitar and sang his way through the University of California and later was vocalist with several big orchestras. He is now one of Tin-Pan Alley’s best known song pluggers.

So you see, Mildred’s talent was largely a family characteristic. She first demonstrated her vocal ability and precociousness when, at the age of six, she sang a hot tune at a church benefit, much to her mother’s annoyance. Her first money job was playing piano in a motion picture theatre at the age 16.

She went to work for a music shop in Spokane, playing the piano and singing over songs for prospective purchasers of sheet music and when she went to Seattle to visit an aunt, she looked for something similar to do there. She found it, behind the music counter of a five and ten cent store, demonstrating popular songs. While working there a night club operator from Vancouver, British Columbia, came along, heard her singing and playing and offered her a professional engagement before an audience as an entertainer.

“So you see,” she explains, “it is largely a matter of getting the breaks. If that night club owner hadn’t come along I might still be hanging a piano and singing my head off for 25 center a copy for the store and an altogether too small salary to keep myself in perfume and jewelry, my two greatest extravagance.

“I think there are probably quite a few girls behind the music counters today who would have a real chance to make good if given the opportunity of appearing professionally somewhere. This is one possible source of talent which seems to have been entirely overlooked by the sharp eyes of the talent scouts for motion picture companies and broadcasting stations.”

Before long, “Rink,” as Mildred has been nicknamed by her friends, went to Los Angeles and joined a Fanchon and Marco stage unit show. These units of entertainment appeared in principal theatres on the West Coast and, in recent years, have travelled throughout the nation. After a number of tours for Fanchon and Marco she began making short featurettes for Vitaphone and thus realized a childhood ambition to become a movie actress.

Now it must be mentioned that in those early days of her professional stage and movie career, she was a petite little thing, weighing only about 100 pounds, for all of her five feet and four inches of height. Perhaps this will sound strange to you who only know her as a radio star as she is today—a fat, jolly singer of spirituals and hot rhythm songs weighing around 190 pounds.

But first let us tell you that it was Paul Whiteman who discovered Mildred Bailey when he went to Los Angeles to make his first movie, “The King of Jazz,” for Universal Pictures. Her unique singing style matched the rhythm of Whiteman’s music and he engaged her to sing with his band as the featured feminine vocalist.

23 Feb 11 | Tags: Al Rinker, Bing Crosby, Fanchon and Marco, Harry Barris, Mildred Bailey, Paul Whiteman, Red Norvo, Vitaphone
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Snapshot in Prose: Bing Crosby

What a career Bing Crosby had. Is there anyone in popular culture who got his start in the 1920s who is as well remembered today as Der Bingle?

Perhaps Louis Armstrong.

Many folks 55 years old and younger will recall only the more sedate, older Bing, he of the briarwood pipes, stingy-brimmed fedoras, and cardigan sweaters.

But in his early years, Bing was like Elvis Presley—a white man singing music inspired and influenced by the music of the African-American community.

He also was something of a wild man off-stage, as he is said to have had, in those days, a penchant for going on alcohol-fueled tears.

By the time this profile was published in December 1935, Bing was long since a huge star, having conquered vaudeville, recordings, radio and movies. He had much great success still to come, but it’s interesting to consider this early look back at his rise to stardom.

Bing Crosby will tell you that he is the laziest man in the United States, but it is doubtful if a more ambitious and energetic person ever fought his way to the pinnacles of success.

A lazy man would have been content to do one thing. Bing, however, achieve his fame by doing well in half a dozen diversified fields of endeavor.

As a youngster, he was a star athlete. Growing up, he made himself an expert musician and a polished orchestra leader. Later came his success as a crooner and as the greatest entertainer in the history of the ether waves.

He followed this triumph with a thrilling and novel courtship of the sweet and beautiful cinema queen, Dixie Lee. Shortly afterwards, he became the first legitimate radio performer to make a permanent place in motion pictures. Finally, where an ordinary father would have been content with a single son, or even a daughter, Bing proceeded to have twin boys.

When the sun disappeared from view on May 2, 1904, a brand-new son brightened the home of the Crosby family in Tacoma, Washington. This newcomer, who is also the hero of our tale, was given the rather pretentious name of Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. Papa Crosby had to do an awful lot of pickle manufacturing to provide for his seven young ones, so he took the whole caravan to Spokane, where business opportunities seemed brighter.

It was in Spokane that the resounding, vocal “Bing!” Bing!” which accompanied the waving of young Harry’s hand-made gun in a game of “cops and robbers,” earned for him the nickname that clings to him to this day.

As a boy Bing had no chance to get the habit of being lazy, what with splitting kindling, shoveling snow, mowing lawns, running errands, selling papers, and going to school. He did, however, manage to find time for athletics.

He had found visions of himself decked out in a grand uniform and playing shortstop for one of the big league teams. One day, when he was about twelve, he entered every event in a neighborhood swimming meet and wound up with nine first place medal, and two seconds.

Bing received his baptism of grease paint while attending Gonzaga High School in Spokane. One night, playing a dead Caesar, he turned a tragedy into a comedy by leaping upstage to dodge the falling curtain. After school he worked in the prop department of a local theatre, and broadened his knowledge of life behind the footlights.

Finding that he still had a few minutes of leisure each day, Bing began to deal out punishment to the drums in the school orchestra. The summer that he was sixteen he became a lumberjack in a relative’s logging camp, and in this capacity did more damage to his own person than he did to the forest. Bad cuts above each knee forced him to retire.

That fall he entered Gonzaga University with the idea of becoming a lawyer, but football, baseball and the glee club received most of his attention and efforts. The average person would have found it hard to keep up with such a schedule.

Together with a classmate, he organized a seven-piece band that was soon a necessary part of all the college parties. Bing played the traps and sang the vocals. The manager of a vaudeville house heard the band, liked it and engaged it for an indefinite engagement at his theatre.

This settled, once and for all, the profession Bing was going to follow. He and Al Rinker, his school chum, went to Los Angeles, where Rinker’s sister, Mildred Bailey, secured them employment in the Tent Café. After that they toured the Pacific Coast in vaudeville.

Back in Los Angeles at the Metropolitan Theatre, they sang one night for an audience that included Paul Whiteman. They did so well that the portly maestro signed them immediately. He took the young vocalists East, where an addition to their party made them the famous “Rhythm Boys.”

In three years with Whiteman their voices became known from coast to coast. In 1930 the trio was signed to sing at the Cocoanut Grove. It was here that Crosby began to make a name for himself as a soloist. He made records which became best-sellers.

19 Jan 11 | Tags: Al Rinker, Bing Crosby, Dixie Lee, Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, Mildred Bailey, Paul Whiteman
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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