Happy 115th Birthday, Rudy Vallée!

07/28/2016 cladriteLeave a comment

Rudy Vallée was born Hubert Prior Vallée 115 years ago today in Island Pond, Vermont. He was a huge star as a young man, a true teen idol singing in a brand new style—the Elvis Presley (or perhaps the Justin Bieber) of his day, if you will. Here are 10 RV Did-You-Knows:

In addition to his vocal talents, Vallée played drums, clarinet and saxophone.

Vallée’s popular radio program of the 1920s and early ’30s was sponsored by Fleishmann’s Yeast (funny, but you just don’t see or hear that many yeast advertisements anymore).

Vallée, for all his popularity with the public, was said to be difficult to work with early in his career. He was short-tempered and ever spoiling for a fight, it is said.

As an orchestra leader, Vallée gave many popular singers their start, among them Alice Faye and Frances Langford.

Vallée wrote his first memoir in 1930, when he was all of 29.

His catch-phrase was, “Heigh-ho, everybody!”

The crooners of the 1920s and ’30s, of whom Vallée was among the most popular, were singing in a new, more intimate, even sexy style that simply wasn’t possible prior to the rise of the microphone. Rudy’s vocalizing may not strike the average listener today as especially sexy, but at the time, it was. If you don’t believe us, just ask him: He insisted on more than one occasion that “People called me the guy with the cock in his voice.” (No, we don’t really understand that, either.)

He played the romantic lead in several movies at the height of his popularity, but he later switched to more comedic roles, playing stuffy, pompous and sometimes oddball characters. (He’s very funny in Preston Sturges‘ The Palm Beach Story (1942), for example, but one almost wonders if he’s in on the joke.)

Vallée had a hit in the 1920s with The Maine Stein Song, the fight song for his alma mater, the University of Maine.

Vallée died in 1986 while watching the Statue of Liberty Centennial ceremonies on television.

Happy birthday, Rudy Vallée, wherever you may be!

Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, The Final Chapter

04/01/2011 cladriteLeave a comment

In Chapter 22 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée closes by musing on the fleeting nature of fame and what matters most to him amidst the clamor of his early fame.

Chapter XXII

THE IRONY OF FATE

AND NOW they ask me, “What do you think of this admiration? How does it affect you?” How could it affect me otherwise than to give me a feeling of ironic pleasure. After all, I have a sense of humor, and I am tempted at times to burst into hysterical laughter when I reflect that the city in which I was once the most lonesome person in the world, with the same appearance and musical gifts that I now possess, today finds me the target for both admiration and criticism almost as great as that which Rudolph Valentino received.

Right here I must say that I do not seek the publicity I receive. Rather I almost dislike it. Natural publicity, generally true and sound, I enjoy; stunt, sensational and exaggerated publicity I abhor. I employ one press man, and his specific duty is to keep a keen ear close to earth and to try to kill any unfavorable publicity that might be started by those who would drag me down, because it is a fact, all too true, that the bigger one gets, the more one is panned, reviled and hated. But I have enemies, people I have never met, people who do not know me or my work, but who instinctively dislike me and who would hurt me if they could. I know only two well that certain individuals who cannot stand seeing one so young and apparently untalented, attain something, will not rest until they see the end. It is sometimes possible avoid a catastrophe if the warning comes early enough. For that reason this one man tries to present the facts as they are, and to keep me in the minds of people as I would like to be kept. I am not going to attempt to convince anyone that I am this way or that way. The greatest tributes to my ideals are the photographs that I have received from the boys who play with me. They have all found me a stern taskmaster, but one who always works for their interests. I have told them that they will never be discharged, no matter waht they do, and they know they are assured of a life job with me. We have a world tour which we can begin at almost any time and which will carry us at least four or five years at a good salary for everyone. I will not allow my picture work or anything to hurt my relations with the boys who play with me.

Their greatest tribute, as I say, is expressed on the photos they have given me, for nearly all of them have ended their inscriptions by calling me the squarest man they have ever known or worked for. I can ask not more than that.

One article said that my main ambition was to make a million dollars. But it is really much simpler than that . . . after having well provided for my mother and father . . . what would really give me great happiness is to possess a beautiful home in the country, not elaborate but homelike, and comfortable. I played for years for very little, and was very happy since I play for the sheer love of playing. The same is true today and is quite apparent to a close observer: My boys and I play because we enjoy our work. We receive unheard of prices because we won a following through long and extremely hard work on the air and no one can begrudge us what we labored so hard to achieve.

People tell me that our success is fragile, and that the slightest indiscreet action on my part would mean the end. But I like to feel that the bond between us and our true radio admirers and the thousands of sick or unhappy people to whom we have given solace and enjoyment can not be so easily broken and that the end will come only when we cease to bring romance, sincerity, beauty and comfort through our music.

THE END

Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 21

03/25/201110/27/2012 cladriteLeave a comment

In Chapter 21 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée reveals how he came to use his signature megaphone while performing and how he felt about “copycat” orchestras that sprung up when Vallée’s Connecticut Yankees hit it big.

Chapter XXI

Originality

WHILE WE WERE in Hollywood making our picture we found it impossible to broadcast back to the East. In the first place it was necessary that we be prepared to work on the picture at any hour, day or night, and secondly the line charges for broadcasting across the continent runs into thousands of dollars and the reception in the East at best is never good when transmitted over three thousand miles; but radio fans become very devoted and attached to their radio favorites and many of ours seemed to resent our disappearance from the air even after I had told them we would be away for no longer than eight weeks.

These letters from our very devoted fans who upbraided us for going off the air made me very happy. But the letters I received from those who were confined to sick rooms and who found our music a comfort in their illness, and especially some notes I received from a little blind colony just outside of New York, these made me feel slightly conscience-stricken.

However, something almost laughable had happened in the broadcasting of dance music just before we left for the Coast which made me feel more at ease when I received these letters. It is a well-known fact in theatrical circles that our vaudeville appearances were sensational. Nearly everyone knew, too, that it was our radio broadcasts which had brought this popularity and it is a truism that whenever any product, person or group of persons achieve success in a particular way or through a particular method, that those who likewise desire to achieve success are quick to adopt the same methods and ideas.

Our sudden rise was the cue for other small and comparatively unknown broadcasting orchestra leaders who had been broadcasting for years, possily even before we had gone on the air, to drop their own style and to study our presentation over the air in hopes of discovering just what that something was which had won over our radio audiences. In fact, several of these leaders were frank enough to write or visit me and ask me to show them just how we broadcast and thereby aid them in achieving success. They were honest enough to admit that they too hoped that their adoption of our style would result in as a great a popularity for them.

By July and August just preceding our trip to the Coast, this adoption of our particular style had become a fact according ot the thousands of letters which reached me from listener-in, in which they all asked me if I was going to do something about it. Some showed me copies of letters, very denunciatory in tone, which they had sent to the radio stations asking them why they permitted such an obvious imitation.

But realizing that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and reliazing there was room enough for all of us, I said nothing, and in fact was pleased as the vogue we had apparently created. Then as these unhappy letters from those who missed us reached me, I felt consoled in the thought that in a way those orchestras back East that had admittedly attempted to present a program over the air in the simple style that had brought us such a wonderful reward, these orchestras helped make our absence less keenly felt.

Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 19

03/11/201110/27/2012 cladriteLeave a comment

In Chapter 19 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée addresses the question that’s had us all on the edge of our seats since the first chapter of the book: What type of woman is his dream girl?

Chapter XIX

THIS DREAM GIRL NONSENSE

THEY say the man who dug the word halitosis out of the dictionary will probably be given a gold statue in the public square by the Listerine people, but the publicity man who seized upon that phrase, “girl of my vagabond dreams” from the song “Vagabond Lover,” and tied me up with a search for a dream girl merits a royal hanging for making me appear an individual in a never ending search for the perfect girl.

One ghost-written article entitled, “Wanted, the Girl of My Dreams,” did convey some of my ideas, but at best they were quite garbled—one part in particular that said I probably would not dare to meet any girl in her home and go to dinner because I feared that she would be ill at ease, feeling that she was with a musical celebrity. This resulted in hundreds of letters inviting me to home cooked meals and assuring me that the authors only wanted me for myself. I appreciate the sentiments of those who wrote me offering meals, and I wish I could have taken advantage of them, as I like nothing better than good, home cooking.

There was another article that again garbled my ideas, but throughout all this I have always felt that the reaction of the public would be, “Who cares what his ideas of a perfect girl are?” and that this reaction would be perfectly justified. After all, why should anyone be interested and for that reason I permitted the appearance of these two specific articles. I know that I am far from perfect and that is the reason that I do not expect a perfect mate. I have certain ideals and hopes but I am not hypercritical or too hard to satisfy. I do hope to find a girl whose ideas and views in the majority of cases are similar to mine, because it is my belief that only people suited to each other can be happy. It is illogical to expect that two people with conflicting temperaments and ideas can live happily in the same house unless one or the other is always willing to make a concession and give in.

While a brunette does quicken my heart more than a blonde, yet I have cared deeply for several blondes and still enjoy their company greatly. A woman’s physical charm is the thing that first attracts me, but unless she has many other wonderful qualities that my mother has, I am afraid we could never be happy. I love an industrious woman, one who enjoys housework, taking care of a thousand and one household things, and likes to cook. I hope to be able to save her from drudgery but if it should become necessary for her to do these things I would want to feel that she loved me enough to accept whatever her lot might have become. That phrase in the wedding ceremony expresses it best of all, “For better or worse.” I would like to feel that were every misfortune conceivable to come upon me, the girl I loved would still stay by me and would be loyal through whatever calamity befell me.

That, I believe, is the real thing. In fact, my conception of love is an indefinable something that cannot be measured, estimated or analyzed. The minute you are able to point out in concrete, physical terms the thing that attracts you to a person, then I say it is not that indefinable something we call love, because if it is something tangible that can be described or named, then the minute it is lost, love ceases; but real love continues long after beauty disappears, when disfigurement or even dismemberment occurs. Love continues under the most horrible conditions and the one who loves will never be able to explain really why.

I do expect and want it to be natural that the girl says she loves me should keep a certain warmth and sweetness for me alone. The woman who gushes and throws herself with abandon into the arms of any man she dances with, disproves for me the statement that she loves me. There is a difference between courtesy and discourtesy, and I expect her to show other people courtesy at all times but not that extreme warmth that should be mine alone.

Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 18

03/04/201110/27/2012 cladriteLeave a comment

In Chapter 18 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée offers tales of his encounters with an arm of the music publishing industry that was a dying breed even then: The song plugger.

Chapter XVIII

THE SONG PLUGGER

DUE to the influx of theme songs and sound pictures a most interesting species of human being is fast disappearing from the musical world. I refer to the song plugger.

He is an individual with perhaps one of the most thankless jobs that anyone could have and a task that requires more cajolery, diplomacy and salesmanship combined with the ability to take more rebuffs than the proverbial insurance and book agent. From early morning until late at night his hours are spent among artists who might be the means of presenting one or more of his songs to the public.

The history of the success of a song is more complicated than that of a best seller in fiction. A successful song writer must be a keener psychologist, possibly, than any other artist.

In the first place there is the period to be considered. There are Mammy periods, Oriental song periods with subdivisions when Chinese, Japanese and Hindu songs are especially popular; Hawaiian periods; Dixie periods, closely allied to the Mammy periods; periods when the public seems ready for “nut” songs with the lyrics about Fords, bananas, ice cream, and so forth. But the public is always ready for a love song, especially a love song in waltz tempo.

Assuming that the song writer has written the correct song for the period, the next problem is to introduce it to a public spread not only over forty-eight states but over the entire world.

In the old days this tremendous task was accomplished first by vaudeville acts and traveling singers. Later, phonograph records became, with vaudeville, a successful medium. Today the radio as a means of introducing songs to the public is a thousand times more effective than either of those other two, considering that at some radio broadcasts the listening audience may number five or even ten million people. Nowadays a good song can almost be “made” by one or two broadcasts over the giant networks from coast to coast.

Once the song has become successful in America, it is purchased by foreign agents or individual publishers who in turn exploit it by radio and records. The triple hook-up of radio, records and vaudeville is responsible for the tremendous royalties paid to song writers today.

An outstanding example of this is “Sonny Boy” which in a period of a month and a half reached a sale, thanks to Al Jolson’s motion picture, of over one million sheet copies and several millions of records, which nets both the composers and the publishers a pretty penny indeed.

Thus it will be seen that the vaudeville song plugger, or publisher’s representative, who tries to persuade the acts to use his particular tunes in their routine, is practically unnecessary, as is the man whose business it was to take the recording heads out to luncheon and plead with these experts to record his tunes. Today if the orchestra leader can be persuaded to broadcast the tune to his audience of millions, it will, on its own merit go over in the various music stores, whereas the record companies are only two anxious to record the tunes for which there is a great sheet music demand.

Again, most of the vaudevillians have radios and hear for themselves just how wonderful a tune is, or get the effect of a broadcasting of this particular tune.

Then again, the motion sound picture with a reiteration of its theme song reaches almost as many as the radio, since there may be simultaneous showings of the same picture in almost every good sized city throughout the country for weeks.

The song plugger formerly included in his routine visits to the vaudeville artists’ dressing-rooms and the dance hall, where he attempted to persuade the orchestra leader to feature his tune. Often he himself would sing while he stayed there. When you heard a strange singer at a dance you could be pretty sure that he was probably a song plugger.