Tag: Guy Lombardo

Moonlight Saving Time for Us, Please!

cladriteLeave a comment

Sheet music for Moonlight Saving TimeWe’re awfully fond of the Harry Richman–Irving Kahal tune, (There Oughta Be a) Moonlight Saving Time, and we invariably think of it on this day every spring.

It was recorded by a wide variety of artists and orchestras when it debuted back in 1931, from Ambrose and His Mayfair Hotel Orchestra to Maurice Chevalier, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, and Jay Wilbur’s Hottentots, but our favorite rendition, in large part because she sings the verses as well as the chorus (unlike most of the other artists who have recorded, back then and in the years since) is by Cladrite Radio sweetheart Annette Hanshaw, who recorded the song in New York City on May 9, 1931, accompanied by Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet, Sammy Prager on piano and Eddie Lang on guitar.

Our gal Annette’s performance of the song manages to be simultaneously playful, sincere and just a little bit saucy, which shouldn’t be surprising. She was a terrific singer, and it’s a catchy and clever song. Enjoy!

(There Oughta Be a) Moonlight Savings Time

Birdies fly with new ambition,
Spring is in their song.
Soon you’ll find yourself a-wishin’
Days were not so long.
If my thought is not defined,
Listen while I speak my mind:

There oughta be a moonlight saving time
So I could love that boy o’ mine
Until the birdies wake and chime ‘Good morning!’

There oughta be a law in clover time
To keep that moon out overtime,
To keep each lover’s lane in rhyme till dawning.

You’d better hurry up, hurry up
Hurry up, get busy today.
You’d better croon a tune, croon a tune
To the man up in the moon,
And here’s what I’d say:

There oughta be a moonlight saving time
So I could love that boy of mine
Until the birdies wake and chime ‘Good morning!’

In January, the nights are very long
But that’s all right.
In happy June comes the honeymoon time;
Days are longer than the nights.

In lovetime season, the moon’s the reason
For every cuddle and kiss.
When days are longer, the nights are shorter.
Something should be done about this.

Oh, there oughta be a moonlight saving time
To make the morning glories climb
An hour later on the vine each morning.

You sorta need a moon to bill and coo,
An old back porch, a birch canoe.
A parlor lamp in June won’t do, I’m warning.

I’ve heard the farmer say, ‘I’ll make hay
While the sun is shining above.’
But when the day is done, night’s begun;
You can ask the farmer’s son, it’s time to make love.

There oughta be a moonlight saving time
So I could love that boy of mine
Until the birdies wake and chime ‘Good morning!’

Words by Irving Kahal; music by Harry Richman—1931

A Berlin Parade

cladriteLeave a comment

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.” It was recorded by Sam Ash, recording artist and Broadway star (he also played dozens of bit parts in pictures), but that recording didn’t catch on with the public, so in 1933, when creating the score for the Broadway musical revue “As Thousands Cheer,” Berlin revisited the song, composing 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 introduced 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 Sam Ash‘s 1918 recording 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

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

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.

Read More »

Snapshot in Prose: censorship

cladriteLeave a comment

For those who think outrage over lyrics and rhythms in popular music began with those decrying gangsta rap, with Tipper Gore‘s penchant for warning stickers, or even those fuddy-duddies who were outraged by the onstage antics of Elvis Presley and other rockers in the 1950s, what follows may come be an eye-opener For, while Snapshot in Prose usually profiles a popular Cladrite Radio performer at a particular point in his or her career, this week, we’re sharing a 1934 essay from Popular Songs magazine bemoaning the intrusion into the popular music and radio broadcasts of the day by would-be moral arbiters armed with newly sharpened censor’s scissors.

It’s interesting to note that the article mentions the “purification” of movies, too, given that 1934 was the year that Breen Production Code began to be strictly enforced by Will Hayes and his associates.

Censor Nonsense by Shirley Wilson

CENSORSHIP—that eugenic offspring (with full benefit of clergy) of ambitious political campaigners, zealous church organizations and dozens of clamoring societies for the prevention of this and that—is becoming quite a bouncing boy.
In fact, if some real restraint isn’t soon put upon his boisterous activities, he bids fair, like the well-known boomerang, to bounce back with such force one of these days as to bop his fond parents a swell sock on the noggin.
Authors of books and plays have long suffered the mailed fist of censorship, whenever their stories became a bit too spicy or made the fatal error of adhering too closely to the facts of life. But the real Roman Holiday of censorship didn’t really begin until the advent of, first, the movies and later, the radio.
The screen is rapidly becoming as pure as the driven snow (before it drifted!) and, for the most part, babies are permitted to arrive only after a full nine-months of legal marriage. Even then, either the stork or the family doctor’s little black bag must be given the full credit for this blessed event.
Censorship has always exercised strong control over the radio. Ten years ago, for instance, you could sing heigh-de-ho on six days of the week, but a singer had to own a hymn book to get any ether time on Sunday.
But the censors weren’t satisfied. Nay, nay, neighbor. They decided to clean up the songs on the other six days of the week as well. You couldn’t tell the world at large that “Nobody Knows What a Red-Headed Mamma Can Do,” even on a Saturday night.
Oh no! That would never do. Someone might begin to wonder just what she could do, and where would that lead us mentally? It simply wasn’t good for us to hear about a little lady who left her conscience and her mind behind when she stepped out.
And so it has gone, from year to year, with various songs justly or unjustly getting the axe from self-appointed censors.
Recently, just when radio censorship was quieting down—and movies were getting the brunt of it from the Decency Leagues—five of the most famous orchestra leaders banded together for the announced purpose of protecting the public’s delicate ears from offensive lyrics.
Some leaders called this treachery within the ranks. Others said it was just a publicity gag and would soon be forgotten. But the committee, headed by Richard Himber and including Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee, Abe Lyman and Guy Lombardo, is still with us.
After all of the censoring boards finish, one after the other, with their cutting and rehashing of our songs, here is little wonder that present-day vocalists have to resort to such lyrics as poo-poo-pah-doo, heigh-di-hi, boo-ba-ba-boo and la-de-da-da-da.
While censorship itself is no joke, some of the results attained by it are amusing, if not amazing. A current popular song is entitled, “I Can’t Dance, I’ve Got Ants in My Pants.” Can’t you just imagine the censor’s look of horror when that one was played and sung for the first time? After wracking their brains for some way in which this wordage could be purified for public consumption, they decided it would be okay, believe it or not, for the song to be sung: “I Can’t Dance, I’m Afraid to Take a Chance.” Maybe that’s an improvement, we don’t know.

Read More »