Where Does Love Go (1965) : Charles Boyer Sings!

Good morning!!

Long time no see! How've ya been? I'm peeping back in from the BLAZING, SCORCHED EARTH of Nashville, Tennessee to update you with a celebrity oddity I ran across the other day. Yep, the kind of thing only you and I would enjoy.

Confession: I cancelled my Spotify premium subscription the other day in a bid to cut down on some of the superfluous digital services we seem to mindlessly become entwined with (it's so easy to do!). As much as I love commercial-free listening, I figured with all the things out there, there had to be somewhere else I could get my music (legally, semi-legally, whatever) for free. And, in my spendthrift haze, I had completely forgotten that Freegal, a service provided by my local library, totally allows unlimited music streaming from something like 10,000 music labels, including Universal Music Group (which has subsumed SO. MANY. OLD SCHOOL. LABELS). While the user interface is barest of bare bones, hey, it's free! And no commercials. And so....many....weird things.

Such as? A contender for the prize of "Weirdest Midcentury Spoken Wordish Singing Record by a Celebrity" (the mantle formerly held by Dirk Bogarde alone)... this compilation of Gallic import Charles Boyer speak-singing, in French has flipped my wig to where it is completely on backwards.

Let's talk!

It's funny, but as with a lot of classic Hollywood stars, you don't get the full picture of Charles Boyer's movie impact in a still photograph. His receding hair and average stature, coupled with even but unprepossessing features, are nothing to write home about at first glance-- and yet put him in a movie and you're sure to be swept away by his suave, continental bearing, his smoldering glances, and above all, his dreamily pronounced French accent. Also, ascots. Boy, all the ascots. A heady combination for old school romantic movie-lovers such as ourselves.

Born in the Pyrénées in 1899, Charles Boyer became famous in America for a line from the trailer of the Pépé le Moko remake, Algiers, that never even made it into the finished film. "Come with me to the Casbah", pronounced trippingly on Boyer's tongue, became the "Come wizz meee to de Cazzbaaah" of a million celebrity impressionists, as famous in its day as "I vant to be a-lone". The sonorous, deep quality of his voice, combined with the rakish French accent, is pretty much irresistible. The year before his catchphrase was born, he played in a romantic weepy that won my heart, opposite Irene Dunne in Love Affair. That film would later be remade as the four-handkerchief classic An Affair to Remember... and if you'd have told me, pre-screening, that the person in the photograph on the left would give Cary Grant of all people a run for his money in a romantic who-played-it-best, I would have been skeptical to say the least. However! Boyer carries with him an urgency verging on pathos in most of his good scenes-- while he may start a movie haughty and remote, arch and distant, it seems as if there's always some turning point along the course of the filmplay where the music swells and you realize he's been torturing himself trying to suppress his love for you  his onscreen lady love for the better part of the movie. AND THAT, my friends, is what makes a truly indelible heartthrob in the Mr. Darcy mold. I've seen plenty of movies that were just "eh" (see: The Garden of Allah, in spite of its jawdropping Technicolor gorgeousness) in hopes of capturing one of those true heart-string tugging moments that the best of his movies include (see: All This and Heaven, Too). 

Which brings us to why I would be psyched to see his name next to a record in the Freegal holdings!

Initially, I was like "Whoa, TWO records of...wait, these are the exact same songs." Waaah. 

Is this record perfect? No, it is not. Is it totally fun? Yes it is. Is it weirdly more listenable than the Dirk Bogarde record (which, itself, has kind of grown on me)? Indeed! INDEED IT IS. My favorite part, bless my little beating francophone coeur, is that Boyer slips into French in half the songs-- "Autumn Leaves" and "La Vie Rose" both feature passages of the original French lyrics, a real treat for French speakers. I love the series of ideas that sprung to mind as I listened and sighed a swoony sigh:

1. Do old-time French actors have a specific accent that is dated by its age/time period, in the way that 1940's actors (Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, etc) have a very specific way of talking even outside of their individual idiosyncracies? People in 1940's movies, stylized or not, have a very identifiable way of speaking specific to that era, which made me wonder: if a native French speaker listened to Boyer speaking in French, would they get a sense of old-fashionedness from his in-French accent that misses us for not being born francophones?
2. Imagine going back to some dude's apartment in 1965, and he puts THIS on the hi-fi as a "mood setter"/possible makeout music? I think that's technically the intended audience for this and the Bogarde record, as a swoony-romance-y dim-the-lights music, but I would have fallen into a fit of giggles at the preposterous nature of the whole endeavor I'm pretty sure from Minute One. "Bolero" is obvious enough, but a record of a French actor speaking his way through love songs would just advertise subtlety as NOT being one of your strong suits, sixties' Mad Men era would be lothario.
3. Also, think of Charles Boyer himself giving a "I'm game" go-ahead for this album, though professing to possessing no great vocal ability. Record company: "Charles, we're going to bring you in here to do a record." Charles Boyer: "And whhhy nawt?" with an insouciant toss of his diminutive shoulders. Go on, get your life, Charles Boyer.

Give it a listen yourself, and see what you think-- you can catch a lot of these songs on Youtube or Spotify or even Freegal, if your library subscribes.

source

And if you won't take my word it being good, did you know that no less a shining star than Our Elvis Presley who art in Heaven expressed a deep love of this record around the time of his Las Vegas performances? Read for yourself:

Whaaaat. You heard it here first! Or possibly second, if you've read those two Elvis books I just grabbed pull quotes from (the latter of which, Peter Guralnick's epic two-volume bio, is essential reading). My favorite part of that passage is that no one else liked the record because of its melancholy nature-- I guess there is a kind of sad undertone to the music, but that's about the only way I like it-- dramatic, romantic, BIG!



Anyway, it's good to get a chance to check in! I've definitely missed writing and interacting over here, and as always, hope to make good my promise to return to a more regular blogging schedule as time permits. In the in-between-time, I hope you're finding lots of great stuff out at the sales and enjoying the summer months as best you can for all this oppressive heat! Stay cool, and see you again soon! Til then. :)

Valaida Snow, Jazz Trumpeter (1920's-1950's)

Good morning!!

Man alive, it has been way too long, kiddos! How in the heck are you? I'm still slinging books with greater accuracy and speed than ever--I'll tell you, this new job breaks down into 100% less transient men catcalling me at a public desk, but also 100% less free time than I had at my old government employ. So don't think I've forgotten you! I'm still to be seen each and every Saturday morning out at the better Davidson County estate sale offerings (meaning, the ones with the dustiest atics and highest density of fur coats per square foot) and I'm still hounding down "things you'd think Lisa would be interested in" both in print and the wide world of the web.... I EVEN still find time in my idle moments to dig up the best in vintage dirt for you. Being as this is one of those moments, I thought I'd dial you up and give you the run-down on this doll-eyed vintage vixen. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Valaida Snow:

Doesn't she remind you of Clara Bow? I wish someone would say that JUST ONCE about me!

A couple weeks ago I broke down and got the paid membership version of Spotify, mainly because my father-in-law and his wife were coming over for dinner and since my aged, much abused iPod finally bit the dust, I didn't want my early jazz playlist constantly interrupted by messages about Square Space and Audible.com. Don't think it didn't pain my penurious little heart, but I realized that for $7.99/month, I WOULD GLADLY pay to listen to an uninterrupted feed of my francophone swing music and obscure David Bowie recordings (I would like to report that Baal is on Spotify in its entirety, and isn't the world a better place for it). So far it's served me very well! (End unsponsored rant). The wonder of what all is out there in the world these days for you to just pull up with the click of a button. Speaking of....

I recreated a playlist of a Smithsonian Folkways jazz series compilation from the early fifties' (the music on it was vintage THEN, as it came from the twenties' and thirties'), and while I was listening, came across a song I really liked on a Doxy records compilation of work by a pretty girl singer named Valaida Snow. "What a cute little voice, she reminds me of Ethel Waters a little bit..." ((tapping toes)) "CHECK OUT THAT TRUMPET THOUGH. Wow! I wonder if it's King Oliver or Louis Armstrong or some other linear-descendant of that too-hot-to-touch trumpet tradition?"  

                            

Oh...so it turns out, the singer, the gal on the cover, and the trumpet player, are all one gorgeous multi-talented package: Valaida Snow. 

Give me just one occasion in my life in which I get to wear a tulle ruff like this...if I'm very, very good?

Valaida Snow was born around the turn of the century in Chattanooga, Tennessee, though the exact date seems to jump around a little from source to source. A multi-instrumentalist, singer, and dancer, Valaida began her professional career at fifteen, touring in America and abroad throughout the twenties' and thirties' in a number of all-black musical revues, culminating professionally in 1931's Rhapsody in Black. The star and top billed attraction of Rhapsody was none other than the aforementioned soundalike Ethel Waters, against whom a cash strapped Lew Leslie, as producer, pitted Valaida in a professional and personal rivalry that he hoped would cause the better known (and more expensively salaried) Waters to quit. Neither quit, but neither was it the congenial, all us gals together backstage atmosphere of other productions they'd appeared in together. According this book excerpt, Waters and Snow's rivalry extended to the point that New Yorkers eager to fete the women and the rest of the cast in an after party would have to throw two separate soirees, one to which Valaida was invited and Ethel wasn't; and one to which Ethel was invited and Valaida wasn't. I care less about the diva arms race and more about this passage:

At the time of Rhapsody in Black

In 1934, a thirtysomething year old Snow married one half of the Berry Brothers, a dance act. Ananais Berry was handsome, talented, and young. Emphasis on the young, as the fifteen plus year age gap between nineteen year old Berry and his bride was a serious sticking point in the media and caused controversy even within the entertainment community. I was able to find a couple articles from the time in the Afro-American newspaper, adding to the mix charges of bigamy (she may or may not have been legally separated from a teenage marriage to her first husband) along with everything else:

                      

As their marriage fell apart, Valaida decamped back to Europe, where she toured successfully and enjoyed the freedom of a beautiful, brilliant, expatriate black woman abroad. She appeared in a French film, worked with Maurice Chevalier on stage, and performed for heads of state in places as far flung as Shanghai and Luxemborg, before Nazi occupation of the hexagon seemed imminent. Old friend and Broadway costar Josephine Baker encouraged her to leave France for the states-- Valaida got as far as Denmark. As this clip points out, that would be THE FIRST of three countries to fall into German occupation. Valaida spent a harrowing 18 months in a German occupation camp, which she described in the following clippings from a 1943 issue of Afro-American (right click "open image in new window" or save the photo for a full sized version):

Could you even believe that twist? Released in a prisoner exchange, a sixty-some odd pound Valaida, down from her usual petite 100, returned to America sans the gold trumpet the queen of the Netherlands had given her or any of her glamorous possessions, but nevertheless began to rebuild her career with characteristic grit and determination. Here she is in 1946 singing and playing trumpet in a brief musical clip, looking as gorgeous and sounding as fabulous as ever:

         

Valaida's star waned into the fifties' as she accepted Catskills dates and continued working and playing concerts throughout the northeast, before passing away of a brain hemorrage in 1956. Nevertheless! THIS gal at least, in 2015, is more than impressed with the talent and fantastic backstory behind a haphazard Spotify click. Wouldn't it make a riveting movie? I'm looking forward to tracking down a copy of her biography, but 'til then, you can check out her music on Spotify or Youtube. You won't be disappointed.

So! What have you been listening to lately? Found anything completely by accident that you've fallen head over heels in love with? What little known musical gem would you recommend digging up in this marvelous age of technology we live in? I'd love to hear from you, it's been ages!

Back with more vintage tangents and tchotckes soon-- I'll try not to go so long between posting! Have a fabulous Tuesday and we'll talk soon. Til next time!

Charles Gerhardt Conducts (Classic Hollywood Film Scores on Freegal/Spotify)

Good morning!

I hope you had a good Monday. It's quiet as the grave this morning at the library-- a welcome change of pace from the clattering and clamouring of yesterday's shift on the nonfiction desk. Renovation waits for no man! Or woman, hoping to squeeze by on a non-eventful hour in the library. Too bad! Speaking of sound though, I made the best discovery online while trying to redeem my seven free downloads from the library's subscription to Freegal, a legal music download site. Folks, have you heard the good word about Charles Gerhardt's Hollywood film score records?

Nothing to get your heart pumping first thing in the morning like an Errol Flynn movie poster! (source)

Trying to recover from the disappointment of finding that Cameo's "Word Up" was only available in a weird, aftermarket 1990's re-recording of the song, I searched Freegal this weekend "Hollywood" to see if I could pull up any oddball stars-who-sing recordings (more on that later, because THE THINGS I FOUND, PEOPLE). In doing so, I came across a series of records with "Charles Gerhardt" listed as the artist, and with a few of my favorite movie titles splashed across the covers. Captain Blood (above) was the first that caught my eye, but twelve more entries in total appeared under Gerhardt's listings. People! I had struck Freegal paydirt. Bette Davis! Errol Flynn! Humphrey Bogart! Many names that are writ bold across my movie collection and my little movie loving heart, were definitely present and accounted for in Gerhardt's movie score collections, and danged if I didn't spend the rest of a productive/unproductive evening to the sounds and scores of some of my favorite movies.

Turns out, I actually had borrowed the album on the left (reissued as the album on the right) from the library in high school, having duped it on a cassette which was played when I got ready in the morning. You try choosing an outfit to the strains of the theme from Now, Voyager, and see if you don't go for an ensemble a little more dramatic than mere silence or early morning radio would encourage. It was checked out and never returned by a later patron (booooo, hisssss), and I would have just figured I'd never see it again were it not for this chance run-in with it on the Freegal site. Thanks, Freegal! Along with the aforementioned title track, there are themes on that record from Oscar winning films like Jezebel and All About Eve, as well as less well-known pictures like In This Our Life (a favorite of mine) and even the noir flop Beyond the Forest (which provided Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of the Virgina Woolf and drag impersonators everywhere the classic Bette line "What a dump..."). And Iiiiiiiiii love it. Expect me to be pinning up my hair tomorrow for work and adopting a cer-TAIN diction whilst I do so, in a fit of love for the divine Miss D. Nostalgia! It floods over me!

One of my all time favorite Bette coiffures from Now, Voyager (wikipedia)

Scanning Wikipedia, I was able to find out that Charles Gerhardt was a record producer for RCA and Reader's Digest in the sixties' and seventies'. Yep, he's the one responsible for those multi-record set Treasury of Music album folders you often find at estate sales (because everyone's grandmother had a copy of one of the other of these). Between 1972 and 1976, Gerhardt directed the National Philharmonic Orchestra through a popular series of twelve movie score albums, aimed at forties' nostalgia audiences and cinephiles alike. Those titles include:

• The Sea Hawk: The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold 
• Now Voyager: The Classic Film Scores of Max Steiner
• Classic Film Scores for Bette Davis 
• Captain from Castile: The Classic Film Scores of Alfred Newman
• Elizabeth and Essex: The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold
• Casablanca: Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart
• Gone with the Wind
• Citizen Kane: The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Hermann
• Sunset Boulevard: The Classic Film Scores of Franz Waxman
• Spellbound: The Classic Film Scores of Miklós Rózsa
• Captain Blood: Classic Film Scores for Errol Flynn
• Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin

And guess what? Each and every one of those is on Freegal and Spotify! I die. The film composers listed on these records represent some of thethe most influential movie score makers of the 20th century. Hermann, Steiner, and Tiomkin in particular are responsible for themes that will not leave your head after watching a movie-- Adventures of Don Juan and Spellbound stick out to me as ones I could hum on command. The music is as much a part of the movie as the stars in most of these cases! 

This card is from Bogart's fourth and last picture with wife Lauren Bacall, Key Largo (1948). The score is, as you would imagine, wonderful. source

I thought of something while I was listening to this film scores at home-- Matthew and I watched the movie Escape from Tomorrowland  in the last of our Netflix subscription days. I'd been excited to see the independent movie mainly based on the publicity surrounding its production-- the movie is set and largely filmed on location at Walt Disney World, shot guerilla-style on hand held digital cameras without the permission of the park itself. Fascinating, right? What really stayed with me after watching the movie, besides how surprisingly well done it was for a movie largely marketed on that anarchic quirk of its filming, was the jarring and evocative use of traditional, non-diegetic film scoring throughout the movie. You don't realize how much you miss a tender scene in a classic movie being scored to the "Love Theme From..." version of the movie theme until you see what a difference it can make in even a simple exchange on screen. 

source, source

There's a scene where the main character, a dad losing his grip on reality on the last day at the theme park's resort, is talking to a buxom parent on a park bench. The scene uses rear projection, an old Hollywood way of shooting on set but making it (kind of/sort of/not really) look like it was shot on location, and a swelling string score...and while it's not Hitchcock in the slightest, it immediately reminded me of a similar scene in Notorious, where Cary Grant talks to Ingrid Bergman on a park bench, among swelling strings, in a rear-projected setting of Rio de Janiero. The surrealness of the music, and suspension of disbelief that they are where the movie is telegraphing they are, are the same in either scene, and the music builds the tension in each way more than the actual acting could do. And reminded me of what we lose in movie magic when all movie are scored with these limp, unprepossessing ambient tracks. A bold, classic Hollywood score does a lot of the dramaturgical heavy lifting for the movie narrative! And adds, again, to the "magic" of old Hollywood studio films.

More rear projection, non-digetic sound, and Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound (source)

But I digress! You should hie thee hither and check out the recordings either through your local library's Freegal, if they have it (Nashvillians, here's ours), or Spotify if they don't! Most of these cds are available on Amazon as well. I'll get you started with Bette Davis's film scores here, but be sure to check out the rest, I promise it will make you want to watch or rewatch the pictures they represent. Also, you can read more about Gerhardt and his movie score series here.

                                             

Anyway, I've ranted and railed long enough, what do you think? What are your favorite movie scores? Do you have a soft spot for the movies of any particular classic Hollywood star (aHEM, why am I not seeing more Joan Crawford representation on this movie music series)? Have you seen any modern movies lately with aspects of classic movies that made you pine for the silver screen of old? Let's talk!

Well, I'm off to go raid the dvd collection downstairs for a few Bogart movies I need to see again. That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow (possibly with more old movie talk? You know once I get on a tear, I stay on a tear). Have a great Tuesday! Til then. :)

What Does Billie Holiday Wear? (Newspaper Article,1937)

Good morning!

How was your weekend? We had a pretty lazy one hanging around the house, drinking mimosas, and saving a snapping turtle from imminent danger (also, I may or may not be too into Instagram right now). And here I am back at work today to deliver the good word in vintage goings on. Heads up this Monday for a new vintage timewaster on the internet-- Google has a newspaper archive some hundreds of titles strong, and yours truly just last week figured out how to search the database proper, rather than occasionally stumbling across the odd article here and there. I was looking up something or other and came up with this amazing article from a 1937 issue of The Afro-American, a black interest newspaper published out of Baltimore since 1892. Reporter Lillian Johnson sat down with Lady Day herself in her dressing room of the Royal Theater, and dished something delightful over the personal wardrobe and habits of the iconic vocalist.

Take a look:

(source)

What a lead, already, by the way-- "I like ugly men...I've always had the idea that good looking men are conceited, that they think they're cute." The Coasters would agree with you! Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan in 1915, would have been twenty-two at the time of this article's publication, and spent 1937 on a difficult tour with Count Basie. I lo-o-o-ove the dishy tone of Johnson's column, and want to rifle through the other issues of The Afro-American from the time to see if I can dig up anything else on the swing/big band era stars of the time. I'm still honing my Google newspaper search skills, and haven't quite figured out how to search one newspaper's run, but somewhere in these 465 issues of the paper from the 1930's, I'm sure I'll find something else good!

Here's a photo of Holiday on stage around the time the article would have run.

Billie Holiday at the Apollo with Count Basie's band, 1937 (source)

If you're more of a visual than a text-based learner, I went through the article and tried to recreate some of the outfits from each of the lavish descriptions for you, in case you wanted to swagger out of the ball room in style like Billie did back in her heyday. I didn't always hit the nail on the head etsy-wise, but I hope I came kinda close? Here's the singer's dressing room ensemble, comprised of:

• "A peach colored dressing gown, trimmed in turquoise blue"
• "with satin turquoise mules," and
• "a ring set with nineteen diamonds".

Wonder who she was engaged to at the time? BH doesn't spill on who the lucky guy was, other to say he's "tall, sharp, and tailor made, though he isn't handsome"...while Billie married her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, in 1941, who's to say who this former beau was. Whoever he was, don't mistake him for cute, Billie seems to be insisting!

dressing gown, shoes, ring

The rest of the article continues to describe her clothes and demeanor here (click for a closeup):

Billie is described as "neat and dainty" and as doing her own hair. I second her sentiment of "I didn't take a course in hair dressing, but I kept trying until I got it just right." Preach! Her favorite colors for her wardrobe include "black, white, and green", but none of those are represented in the streetclothes described as hanging from behind the door of her dressing room. Those items include

• "A soft fleece sport coat in dark gray with a blue fox collar"
• "a gray skirt" and
• "a short woolen jacket of brick". She also wears
• "a long, slender wristwatch, lavishly set in [diamonds].

Doesn't this ensemble sound chic, chic, chic? Here's what it might look like in person, with apologies for the early fifties' suit...you wouldn't believe the time I had trying to find the right fox fur and grey suit, to boot! In the late thirties', the sleeves would have been fuller, the jacket longer and maybe belted, and the skirt a little looser/more flowy. See this image for an example.

suit, wristwatch, bolero

On to what we would have been more familiar with her wearing-- Billie's on stage clothes! I noticed the copy mentioned three gardenias in her hair, and while that sounded like about two too many, here she is rocking the triad of floral hair pieces like it was no big deal, looking gorgeous in the meantime. Again, her stage attire is described as:

• "a black chiffon, fitted evening gown with a black satin underslip, trimmed in rhinestones at the neck" and 
• "with it she wore three gardenias".

Two of my favorite songs of hers were recorded in 1937: "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" and "Me, Myself, and I". Though they're all my favorite, this period of her recording history, at least, boasts some of her best numbers. If you're a beginner Billie fan, I would heartily recommend the Lady Day box set, which covers her Columbia recordings from 1933-1944. While later albums are poignant in their own way for her raspier, deeper voice in the late forties' and early fifties', the lilting prettiness and insouciant song stylings of this period are classic Holiday at her best.

dress, gardenias, sheet music (one and two)

How about the reporter outs Billie as having plenty of tearose silk underwear around her dressing room? The article asserts she doesn't keep a maid and tidies up well after herself...yet, how is the reporter privy to the contents of her unmentionables drawer if she didn't have pairs strewn about the place? Inquiring minds want to know. Favorite perfumes and makeup?

• "Max Factor makeup blender" and
• "Emeraud and Evening in Paris perfumes".

Max Factor face powder, Emeraud, Evening in Paris, tap pants

Last but not least, the reporter describes Billie as intending to buy a Persian lamb coat and hat...these two in the photo below are from a 1937 catalog advertising the self same! Can you beat that? Billie also goes on to describe her house and being all done up in white furniture and blonde wood-- while I had several Hollywood mansions of the time period pegged to show you what this would look like (I'm almost positive Jean Harlow's bedroom was made up in all white, but maybe I'm thinking of a movie?) I wasn't able to lay hands on any from the time in color. Here's a pretty reasonable facsimile, along with what a 1930's white telephone might look like in its factory version, along with the original model black phone Holiday ruined when she tried to paint it to match the decor (see the article for details)!

coat and hat, bedroom, rare 1930's white phone

You can see the original article as it appeared in the Afro American here (right click then "open link in a new tab" for the full size version):

So! Are you a Holiday fan? What was the most exciting detail of this Baltimore write-up for you? If someone wrote a similar write-up about you, what do you think your fans would be surprised to know about your personal habits or wardrobe? Let's talk!

                                

That's all today, but go have fun looking at all these old newspapers, and I'll be back tomorrow to tell you a little bit about my weekend finds! Be good; til then.

Bonus: Have you seen Carl Van Vechten's 1949 photographs of Billie Holiday in color? They're breathtaking! Here's my favorite, but check out all Van Vechten's work over at his Yale Libraries page:

Sugar Chile Robinson (Child Prodigy Boogie Woogie Pianist, 1940's-1950's)

Good morning!

I'm glad you all enjoyed my retelling of my trip to the taping of Antiques Roadshow as much as I enjoyed going! Now everytime I watch it, I'll be looking for those starstruck little antiquers in the background with a bit more empathy than upon previous viewings. Today, what I've got for you is this pint size piano player, "Sugar Chile" Robinson, who is almost as cute as he is talented. And that's saying somethin' on either front! 

I was looking up videos of Sammy Davis, Jr. as a child performer when I came across a video labeled "Little Richard as a Child". "Huh," says I, "Wonder how he stacks up!" Upon opening the video, it turns out the performance was mislabeled-- the tiny guy on the keys was actually Frank "Sugar Chile" Robinson playing his hit recording of Louis Jordan's "Caldonia" with all the ripsnorting alacrity of a grown boogie woogie player. 

                                 

The clip was from 1946's No Leave, No Love, starring Van Johnson, but it was apparently far from Sugar Chile's first brush with fame...I was able to pull up this 1945 Life magazine article about bantam bluesman when he would have been all of seven years old. Take a look:

Ugh! Tiny baby in a sailor suit! With a rascally backwards glance at the Life photographer, Sugar Chile made his first appearance in the news as boogie woogie's first child prodigy...roll over, Beethoven! If Mozart could do it, why not Frank Robinson? While the tone of the article is a little squeamy for the minstrel-y dialect attributed to the kid, I'll give it a pass for the fact that the editors dedicated a full fledged profile on the boy in this November issue. Read all about it:

I just can't get over the idea of that part of a little baby's brain being that hyper-developed for his age. Seven years old, probably can't do much on his own yet, but set him in front of a keyboard and he can out play people twice, three times his age. To be that preternaturally talented! Notice they mention he was on his way to be in that Van Johnson movie, and that the rest of his six siblings don't have any particular interest in music or share his gifts. His father, Clarence, goes on to talk about the first time Sugar Chile played the piano at the age of three, stunning Clarence and a family friend with a pitch perfect rendition of the Glenn Miller classic "Tuxedo Junction":

How freakin' cute, that last line, "Come on, let's get this over with. I gotta play hide-and-seek." Whether he said it or not, that's adorable. Here he is playing out on his porch for neighbors. Can you imagine, in those pre-Youtube, pre-tv, pre-Internet days, how amazing it would be to see something like this in real life? Me, I'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, your kid can play the piano, COME SEE your kid play the piano, I've got stuff to do better than to-- OH MY GOD, LISTEN TO HIM!"

How good was Sugar Chile? Berry Gordy, Motown records founder and producer par excellence, actually competed in another boogie-woogie contest like the one mentioned in the first paragraph, and lost to Robinson. He recounts in his memoir, To Be Loved:

Wouldn't you have done the same? It was probably a hard knock being beat by a five year old!! Check out this pair of newsreels of Robinson, in which you can see more of the ivory tickling that made him a star. I can't get over his sweet face, and his tiny limbs as he pounds fists, elbows, and fingers across the piano:

                             

                            

In 1946, Sugar Chile was granted an executive audience, playing for President Harry Truman, a known piano man himself, at the White House. It was at this event that Sugar Chile introduced his catchphrase, "How'm I doing, Mr. President?", which, along with "Greetings, people of Earth", is about the best line you can enter a large crowd or public speaking engagement with. Robinson went on to play to audiences across the US, and in 1950, appeared in a short film called Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet. Not bad company to share a bill with, huh?

Some photos from his career (if you're ever looking for somebody who doesn't show up on Google Images very much, try tracking down publicity photos on Ebay, it feels like the Chicago Tribune or someone is ALWAYS selling original press pictures from their archives...excuse the watermark, and you can buy these photos for yourself via this link):

With bandleader Frankie Carle (2 Frankies 2 Furious)

source

As he grew older, a professional career in show business wasn't in Robinson's long term plans. This photo was taken in 1954, showing a sixteen year old Sugar Chile, focusing on school work. The caption reads:

Although he still plays boogie-woogie, 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, now age 14 [sic] and a high school student in Detroit, Mich., is more deeply interested in plans to become a doctor. Here he does his homework. He gets A and B marks in all his subjects. His professional piano playing is now restricted to holidays and vacations. He made about $1,500 Thanksgiving week at the Apollo Theatre in New York. He thinks that by the time he is ready for college he may have ended his musical career.

source

Unlike many child performers of his generation, Robinson was able to attend and complete college, having saved a comfortable amount of money from his time as musician. Ebony magazine did a "Whatever Happened To..." feature on him in 1971, where we got this update on the terminally cute kid's life since he left professional music behind:

Can you believe he's still that tiny? And TWO DEGREES, thankyouverymuch, in a time where a lot of people didn't complete high school, much less secondary education. Robinson made scattered appearances at festivals in the 2000's, including this British performance from 2007. At sixty-nine years old, he's still got it! 

                           

So! Take a listen and tell me what you think! Isn't he adorable, AND THEN so enormously talented? I know we get a glut of little kid wonders on shows like X Factor and the like these days, but I was charmed to see so sincere and precious of a performer way back in the forties' getting his slice of the pie. Do you have any novelty acts of the forties' or fifties' that are near and dear to you heart? What have you haphazardly discovered on Youtube lately? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll catch you back here tomorrow for a special Photo Friday! What could it be? Tune in Friday to find out! Take care, til then.

Midcentury Music Motherlode: Ultra Lounge Compilation cds on Spotify (1996-1997)

Good afternoon!

Getting a late start on the blog today, but you know I wouldn't leave you hanging...and boy-oh-boy did I find something worth telling you folks about this morning. :)

I spend a lot of time at work in my cubicle listening to headphones while working on book repairs and sorting not-on-shelf slips. Ah, the life of a reference associate. Things can get mondo repetitive, so I usually try to switch up what I'm listening to (music to silently pantomime "I can't hear you" at my coworkers when they address me). Favorites right now are the excellent What's the T podcast with RuPaul and Michelle Visage, Dave Van Ronk's Inside Dave Van Ronk, and episodes of 48 Hours Mystery (that's about what you'd guess I'd be listening to, isn't it?). Sometimes, though, if I'm reading during my lunch hour, I like to completely zone out with instrumentals. Arthur Lyman more than came in handy at this before, but I thought to branch out this morning into other mid century party music. "What was the name of those cds I used to get from here..." I thought, knowing that the physical copies here at NPL had long since been absconded with, but that there was a particular series of lounge music and exotica that was top notch. It was then that I discovered OH MY SWEET AND DEAR LORD EVERY CD OF THE ULTRA LOUNGE COMPILATION SERIES IS UP ON SPOTIFY. Hallelu!

From a 1958 ad for the Magnificent Magnavox console radio...I have the same one except in mahogany!

Ultra Lounge was a series of 18 cds released by Capitol Records in the late nineties', specializing in "genres such as exotica, space age pop, mambo, television theme songs, and lounge" (as per the Wikipedia entry on the set). SIGN ME UP, right?!

From the (now defunct, but accessible via Internet Archive's Way Back Machine) website in 1997:

The neon above the door reads Ultra-Lounge. By walking through the door you step back in time. Not too far back. Just a few decades. Back to a time when "revolution" meant watering down your scotch with ice. Back to an era when "evolution" meant taking out the olive and putting in an onion. When Generation X was a secret atomic weapon aimed at the White House by double agents and long-legged Russian girls whose names only Matt Helm could pronounce. 

This is a place clothed in the skins of leopards and sharks. An era bathed in high-octane hi-balls and swimming in elixirs made more potent by garish garni and dangerously curved glassware. Time here is viewed through the seductive haze of slow-burning gazes. Lipstick-kissed cigarettes ashtray-dance with cigar stubs and cherry stems. The atmosphere mambos to a soundtrack of cool. Rumbling saxophones, jazzy vibes, over-heated Hammonds, and the sexy chill of a brush across a cymbal. 

Polyester is new in this age, but not so dominant that it is cliché. In fact, these acrylics are very easy to care for-- even the ties are wash-and-wear. Think: Kramer-In-Fashion-Wonderland. This is THE spot. This is the Ultra-Lounge. Hey, isn't that Rod Serling lurking behind the cash register? 

Welcome to the Ultra-Lounge. Make yourself comfortable. Shake or stir yourself a cocktail, slip off your shoes and relax!

I mean, I'm ready to party after hearing a pep talk like that. Give me my skins of leopard and shark! Where's my hi-ball? Do you remember how many HORRIBLE Walmart and Target cds with titles like "Sounds of the Swingin' Sixties!" you would come across back in the day, where they just slapped whatever out-of-copyright wackadoodle songs they could on one cd, with maybe a single song you've heard of? This is like THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. The collection feels carefully curated and right on target for setting up an evening of Rat Pack like revelry.

Remember when websites looked like this? A vintage website about vintage music!!

To the left of the page, you can see the cheeky little subtitles of each installation of the series--Cha-Cha De Amor carries the subtitle From Mamboland to Bossa Novaville.  Saxophobia is not just Saxophobia, but Saxophobia: A Horn-A-Copia of Sax-ual Delights (you know someone was cracking UP when they came up with that). Did I mention Yma Sumac is on this compilation? Well, I have now. If that doesn't speak for the awesome kitsch and canny song selection choices of this compilation, I don't know what does.

What's really cool about the series is how you can become familiar with artists a little off the beaten path from your every day vintage cocktail compilation. While there are well known smoky-lounge favorites like sultry Julie London or snazzy Louis Prima, you also have Alvino Rey, a bandleader who got his start in big band and ended up in exotica, and  sax virtuouso King Curtis (not to be confused with my life's role model, the Wife Swap star of the same name). I know I sound like one of those old Time-Life informercials, but besides combing through old record bins, print discographies and movie soundtrack listings, I'm not sure how you could come up with such a comprehensive overview of the lounge and cocktail genre. 

I kind of got a kick out of looking at how the website for this series changed over the years-- it makes me a little nostalgic for about ten to twenty years ago! See this one, a little more updated (with flash animation!) for 2004, but not much:

And here it is in 2012:

Adorable, right? But what am I talking your ear off about, it's time to get to the business of listening to the music itself! I'm sure there was already a playlist of this somewhere on Spotify, but since I wasn't able to find it, I threw together my own of everything from the series. You all: SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT SONGS. That's 34 hours and seven minutes of Kennedy era realness. And I intend to listen to all of it, haha!

                                               

How about you? Made any marvelous musical discoveries on Spotify or the internet lately? What's your summer jam right now? Which mid century artist do you think is sorely underappreciated? Tell me all!

I gotta get gone, but will see you back here tomorrow for Photo Friday! Have a great Thursday; til then.