Denro says this one has it all — Tommy Dorsey’s band with Frank Sinatra, Connie Haines, and Jo Stafford. From June, 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, this is ‘Let’s Get Away From It All.’ It starts with Jo’s pure, clean voice and the Pied Pipers, then Frank and Connie, with her distinctly different sound, come in.
2 comments September 30th, 2008
With the death of singer Connie Haines coming so soon after the passing of the extraordinary Jo Stafford, we are getting very close indeed to the end of the Big Band era. Like Doris Day, Haines got her start when she was only sixteen. Sharing the Tommy Dorsey spotlight with Jo didn’t sit well with Connie, as recounted in the Washington Post.
In her three years with Dorsey, Ms. Haines made several solo recordings, and she bristled a little when Jo Stafford, who died in July, was recalled as Dorsey’s “girl vocalist” during the time Ms. Haines was with the band. Ms. Haines would remind people that Stafford arrived in the band as a member of the Pied Pipers when Ms. Haines was the featured vocalist. Stafford emerged as a soloist later.
A well-known recording of Haines singing with Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey band is “Oh, Look at me Now”.
4 comments September 28th, 2008
I missed noting V-J Day back on August 14, but I’ll do it now. It’s hard to believe I was born only ten years after the end of the war.
The famous photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt in Times Square wasn’t the only view of the sailor grabbing the girl and kissing her. From a different angle, Navy photographer Victor Jorgensen also caught the moment.
A song that’s strongly reminiscent of World War II is “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Don’t confuse it with “We’ll Meet Again,” that’s heard at the end of Dr. Strangelove. Liberace renewed the popularity of “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and stressless songstress Jo Stafford recorded it in ‘58.
2 comments August 26th, 2008
Fool that I am, I missed Jo Stafford in the 1943 movie “Dubarry Was A Lady,” shown recently on Turner Classic Movies. Somebody has posted a clip from it, but the quality is only so-so, especially the sound synch. Now that YouTube has blessed us with working playlists again, you’ll find Dubarry after Jo’s appearance on “What’s My Line” from October 14, 1956.
1 comment August 4th, 2008
An audio magazine I used to get, back when audio magazines existed, had a memorably succinct review of a CD release of a Mitch Miller Christmas Album — “Welcome to Hell.” Jonathan and Darlene Edwards paid tribute to the unforgettable music of Mitch Miller, as only they could, in “Baby Bumble Bee.”
Darlene’s friend, the late Jo Stafford, can be seen with Frank Sinatra in this old film clip, performing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” a song I featured at this link.
2 comments August 4th, 2008
Considering Jo Stafford’s stellar career and her versatile singing talent, it’s somewhat ironic that she won her only Grammy for a comedy record. Jonathan and Darlene Edwards were the alter egos of Jo and her husband Paul Weston. They were a dreadfully earnest — or earnestly dreadful — lounge act, with Jo’s perfect pitch helping Darlene with her tin ear utterly destroy songs with stunning off-key precision.
You’ll find a wonderfully awful collection of Jonathan and Darlene here on MySpace. The link to Jo’s label, Corinthian Records, is wrong. Use this one instead.
3 comments July 23rd, 2008