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Posted on 12/05/2014 5:46:45 PM PST by AZamericonnie
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Thanks for the Ma Rainey song. Her voice transcends the primitive recording methods of her day.
I really DON’T like those email Urban legends, especially the religious one. As if the Gospel isn’t enough to touch and change lives, people have to make up stupid stories which are easily disproved by a little research.
By when I call people on it, they think I am being cranky. (sigh)
Frances Rose Shore (1916-94) was a Jewish girl from Tennessee. As a small child she loved to sing, encouraged by her mother. Her father would often take her to his store where she would perform impromptu songs for the customers.
At 14, Dinah debuted as a torch singer at a Nashville night club – only to find her parents sitting ringside, having been tipped off to their daughter's performance ahead of time. Whoops! They allowed her to finish, but put her professional career on hold.
When Dinah was 16, her mother died unexpectedly of a heart attack, and she decided to pursue her education. She went to Vanderbilt and graduated in 1938 with a degree in sociology.
She decided to return to pursuing her career in singing, so she went to New York to audition. In many auditions, she sang the popular song "Dinah". When disc jockey Martin Block could not remember her name, he called her the "Dinah girl," and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name. She eventually was hired as a vocalist at WNEW where she sang with a skinny kid from Jersey named Frank Sinatra.
In March 1939, Dinah made her national radio debut on the Sunday afternoon CBS radio program, “Ben Bernie's Orchestra”. In February 1940, she became a featured vocalist on NBC’s “Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street”, a showcase for Dixieland and blues songs. With Dinah on board, the show became so popular that it was moved from 4:30 Sunday afternoon to 9 PM Monday night in September. In her prime-time debut, she was introduced as "Mademoiselle Dinah 'Diva' Shore, who starts a fire by rubbing two notes together."
Dinah's singing came to the attention of Eddie Cantor, who signed her as a regular on his radio show, “Time to Smile”, in 1940. Dinah credited him for teaching her self-confidence, comic timing and the ways of connecting with an audience. Cantor bought the rights to an adapted Ukrainian folk song with new lyrics by Jack Lawrence for Dinah to record. This became her first hit.
Good evening, Mac...*HUGS*...did you sally forth today? Managing the long walk to the train? Protests?
Harry James had suggested that Francis Albert Sinatra change his name to Frankie Satin, and that ended Frank’s short career with Harry. He went across the street to Tommy Dorsey.
The skinny kid from Hoboken could sing like nobody’s business. Listen to him work the bar lines the way that Bing doesn’t. What a song stylist! His career was to last nearly 50 years.
Good evening, Publius, and thank you for the great commentary about the tunes in Your Hit Parade, 1941. ((HUGS))
It’s for our troops, old and new.
We’ve nearly made it throught the first 1/2! Yay for us! :)
One more to go tonight.
Indeed. I am ready when you are. My eyes are all googly! LOL!
Thanks to both of you for your collaboration on the music for helping us remember Pearl Harbor. ((HUGS))
Charles Daly Barnet (1913-91) was a New Yorker whose parents divorced when he was two. He was raised by his grandparents, and his grandfather was a vice-president of the New York Central. Charlie attended various boarding schools, both in New York and Chicago. He learned to play piano and saxophone as a child, often leaving school to listen to music and to try to gain work as a musician, thus following the path of George Gershwin.
By the age of 16, Charlie was in New York, where he joined the Pennsylvania Boys on tenor saxophone. Always restless, by 1931 he had relocated to Hollywood and appeared as a film extra while trying to interest local bandleaders in hot jazz, which was increasingly unpopular during the Great Depression. Late in 1932, he returned east and persuaded a contact at CBS to try him out as an bandleader. He was only 18.
Charlie began recording in October 1933 during an engagement at New York's Park Central Hotel, but was not a great success for most of the Thirties, regularly breaking up his band and changing its style. Early in 1935, he attempted to premiere Swing at New Orleans' Hotel Roosevelt, but Louisiana's Gov. Huey Long, who disliked the new sound, had the band run out of town by luring them to a bordello which was raided.
Barnet took off for Havana as a gigolo to wealthy older women. Good work if you can get it! In 1936 Charlie put together another Swing band which featured the up and coming vocal quartet the Modernaires, but it quickly faded from the scene.
Charlie hit his stride in 1939 with “Cherokee". He was one of the first bandleaders to integrate his band.
That’s it for tonight. Tomorrow night, Luvie Sue and I will present the second part of our 1941 tribute to the Greatest Generation.
Great Christmas thread, Connie Lou! Must have taken hours to get all those tunes ready to roll!
OK. I’ll keep a watch out for you tomorrow night, and we’ll put it together then.
It’s been great fun! Stay tuned for more tomorrow night! :)
Works for me. I’m thinking about 8:30 central. But I’ll ping you with maybe one of my generic tunes and we’ll get ‘er done! :)
That was fun to watch....everyone is having so much fun, both performing and watching. Thanks!
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