The Great Crooners

Like Everyone Else who listened to radio or bought records in the Thirties, I was firmly convinced that there had never been nor ever would be singers to compare with the great crooners of the day--Bing Crosby, Russ Colombo and, the greatest of them all, in my opinion, Mr. Rudy Vallee. Backed by the big bands of the day, they generated the same kind of public excitement and, in Mr. Vallee's case, the frenzied hysteria we usually associate with the best rock groups of the present. But with the beginning of the Fifties, I suddenly discovered that the art of popular crooning had begun at least 20 years before Rudy Vallee first picked up a megaphone and that I had been missing out on the fabulous stars of vaudeville who'd taken America by the ears at the turn of the century and forced it to sit up and listen. Of course, most of them are forgotten today, but their greatness lives on in the recorded music they left behind and in the influence they had on the more memorable Thirties.

I was working at the Page Three, a night club in New York City, when I made that discovery--it was 1950. A friend played a record for me by Billy Murray--a terrific comic singer whose career ended in the mid-Twenties--and I instantly knew that I was on to something. There was a magazine published at the time called Record Changer that consisted mainly of lists of old 78s that were being auctioned by their owners. The readers would send in their bids and at the end of the month, the record went to the highest bidder. Well, I was so impressed with the old music I was starting to hear that I bid five or six dollars, just to make sure I got the ones I wanted. That must have been a lot of money, because I started getting answers from the magazine well before the end of the month.

Record Changer also carried commercial advertising and one ad, in particular, happened to catch my eye. It was placed by Mr. Jacob Schneider, who owned a music store near the Coliseum in New York; and when I went down there, I found that this was not only a music store but the most fantastic music store in the world. Mr. Schneider had any record you could possibly want and could tell you when it was recorded, on what label and how many copies he had in stock. But they were expensive. Original Brunswick discs cost five dollars each (Mr. Crosby's records cost up to $25 today) and so did the old Columbias and Edisons. And you couldn't bargain with Mr. Schneider, either. He was a very nice man, but if you asked him to sell you a record for less, he'd kick you right out of the store. However, I did go back to see him after I made the grade and he really surprised me. "Tiny Tim," he said, "I know I used to charge you five dollars when you were broke, but now that you're wealthy, I'm only going to charge you two-fifty." I still haven't figured that out.

I also used to buy records from the Merit Music Shop. One day, the owner, Mr. Meltzer, started showing me tons and (continued on page 204)The Great Crooners(continued from page 196) tons of new shellacs and by the time I picked the ones I wanted, the bill came to $175. The only trouble was that I was making just $40 a week at the Page Three. But Mr. Meltzer was very kind. He said, "Kid, I know you're making only $40 a week, so just give me $20 a week until you pay it off." I was desperate, so I went to the race track and prayed that one horse would come in. I must not be much of a gambler, because for the next nine weeks, I was giving Mr. Meltzer half my pay.

What records was I buying? Were they really worth the money? Well, you've got to hear not only the great crooners but pioneers such as Byron G. Harlan, Henry Burr, Arthur Fields, Irving Kaufman and Billy Murray to understand just how much they were worth to me. I sing many of their songs, but I can't really imitate them and I don't even try. It's enough for me just to feel their spirits as I sing; to know that even though most of them are gone now, I can still share something with them. After all, even as a child, I used to get a thrill just watching the shellac records spinning around on the turntable. I'd press my nose to the label and it was like magic to me. I actually felt as if I was living in the grooves--and I really haven't changed at all. Even now, when I get a big box of records, I drag them to my room, close the door, wind up my 1909 Victor phonograph (it cost $150 at Music Man Murray's in Hollywood) and listen to them straight through. Maybe I'm a living ghost of the past, but it's more than just singing to me. I go into a trance and usually end up sitting there in my room with my head lodged inside the horn of my record player.

It's like being inside a time machine. I start imagining that I can step out into the street and still see horse-drawn trolleys rolling down Broadway, Model A Fords chugging along Central Park West, actors dressed as doughboys in jodhpurs and puttees recruiting men to fight the Kaiser, angry drunks pounding on the doors of the speak-easies, and Charleston contests and Wall Street suicides and mobs of screaming women lining the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rudy Vallee outside the Brooklyn Paramount Theater. And all through those years--like a historical bouncing ball--popular music grew, improved, regressed, progressed, rose and fell with the changing times and tastes of the public, making superstars out of unknowns and forgotten relics out of superstars.

What started the ball rolling in the first place was a patent filed in December 1877 by Mr. Thomas Alva Edison. The first recordings were made on cylinder rolls. There were no tubes to burn out and no heat to warp the records. All you had to do was wind up the phonograph and keep a pack of needles on hand, to change them when they wore out. But by 1902, flat disc records had been invented and, even though they were a quarter of an inch thick, they were much easier to distribute and store than the cylinders had been. To hear a sound coming out of a box or a horn must have been an amazing novelty to the people in those days, and the entire music industry really flourished. Records cost from 50 cents to $1.25 and each company published catalogs of current selections that could be delivered by mail anywhere in the country. Besides the phonograph, nearly every home had a piano and the income from sheet-music sales was just as important as that from records.

Because it was such big business, music publishers were constantly besieged by composers and song pluggers hoping to peddle their tunes, and the popular singers and bandleaders received a fortune in bribes just to introduce new numbers to the public. Song pluggers frequently staged bizarre publicity stunts, literally shouting their songs from the rooftops, and one even went so far as to rent a big horse-drawn wagon that he drove through the streets with a band on board to play the song he was trying to sell. But it worked. Every dime store had a piano in its music department and either the customer or a professional demonstrator could play the song before the music was bought; and the sheets sold like hot cakes at ten cents each.

But the records--oh, the records. Today, if a group or a singer puts out three albums a year, you'd call that prolific. But in the pioneer days of the business, 1902--1925, a singer would often record two or three songs a day; and since the contracts were very short, he'd be working on as many as five or six different labels. Not only that but many of the greats recorded under countless pseudonyms and, even during the height of their careers, they had no reservations about singing in trios, quartets or even choruses--as long as they were paid, of course. For all these reasons, it's no surprise that some of the most celebrated singers, such as Henry Burr or Arthur Fields, performed on several thousand shellacs, and it's impossible today to get accurate totals of their output.

Henry Burr--a portly, well-groomed, English-banker type--is the perfect example. He recorded on Victor, Columbia and countless independent labels as Henry Burr, Irving Gillette and Harry McClaskey (his real name). He also recorded duets with more than 50 partners and was a member of the Columbia Stellar Quartet, the Lyric Trio, the Metropolitan Trio, the Sterling Trio and the famed Peerless Quartet, which in 1915 gave the world a song titled Cows May Come and Cows May Go, but the Bull Goes on Forever. Adding all these collaborations to his solo work, I would guess that Henry Burr performed on approximately 50,000 records from 1902 to 1930. That may be hard to believe, but don't forget that this man was one of the most popular singers of the day.

As far as I'm concerned, I would definitely include him among the earliest crooners. The sentimental nature of many of his songs and the sighing, almost crying quality in his voice made him a tremendous hit with every mother in the country. Recording such songs as Beautiful Ohio and Mother ("M is for the million things you gave me ..."), he carried the sentimental-ballad tradition of the 1890s into this century, until it was finally overshadowed by the dance crazes and ragtime that grew steadily in popularity from 1910 to 1920. Apparently, those ballads were too slow and too maudlin for a faster-paced America, but I think they're well worth remembering:

If she was what she was when she was sixteen,You'd find her again on the old village green.She's not what she was and the reason is plain,Instead of the straight road she took the wrong lane.The world may reply with its scorn and complaints,If there were no sinners, they'd never be saints;So lift her up gently and help her go cleanLike she was when she was sixteen.

by George Meyer. Sam Lewis, Joe Young. © 1923 Bourne Co. Copyright Renewed. Reprinted by Permission.

Another of the early crooners was Byron G. Harlan, who began recording cylinder rolls in the 1890s and was one of the first singers to be heard on disc records. He was better known as a rural and blackface-comic singer, but I've always been more impressed by his ballads, which is why I list him as a crooner. School Days was one of the songs he made famous on records and I'm sure people will never stop singing such other Byron G. Harlan hits as Farewell, My Nellie Darling, Sweet Kathleen, In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree and They Called Her Frivolous Sal. I didn't really start to feel the spirit of Mr. Harlan until I started singing his songs as if I had no teeth, but once I did that, I was able to bring him to life within me. Because of that toothless, quavering sound on School Days, I'd pictured him as a frail old man, and when I finally saw a picture of him, I was really stunned. He was a little more than frail--about 250 pounds more. But he was Mr. Edison's favorite when he (continued on page 334)The Great Crooners(continued from page 204) was recording for him and I can tell his records are really prized by collectors, because they're always so worn when I get them.

Mr. Edison was a little deaf in one ear, but in 1911, he heard enough of a singer named Irving Kaufman to know that he'd be a big star and signed him immediately. Kaufman was so good, in fact, that Victor signed him in 1915 and dropped Al Jolson. because they thought he'd never be as big as Kaufman. As it turned out. Mr. Kaufman's real success lasted to about 1925, but he kept working and joined the Avon Comedy Four on the radio in 1929. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year at his home in Southern California. He's 79 now, and when we sang some of his old songs together at the piano, he actually started to cry.

Mr. Kaufman's ballads were somewhat peppier than those from 1890 to 1910, but Peg o' My Heart and It's Not the First Time You Left Me, two of his most popular, really packed a great deal of feeling. Of course, from 1914 to 1918, composers and singers focused a lot of attention on America's role in World War One and Mr. Kaufman recorded what I consider one of the most interesting patriotic songs in 1015--a song directed at the immigrants who came here then to share in the blessings of our great Country.

Lust night as I lay sleepingA wonderful dream came to me.I saw Uncle Sammy weepingFor his children from over the sea.They had come to him friendless and starvingWhen from the tyrant's oppression they fled;But now they abused and reviled him'Til at last in just anger he said:If you don't like your Uncle Sammy,Then go back to your home o'er the sea--To the land from where you came,Whatever be its name,But don't be ungrateful to me.For if you don't like the stars in Old Glory,If you don't like the red. white and blue,Then don't act like the cur in the story,Don't bite the hand that's feeding you.

Words by Thomas Hoier. Music by Jimmie Morgan. © 1915 (Renewed) Leo Feist, Inc., New York, N. Y. Reprinted by Permission.

But no one expressed America's temperament during the Great War better than Arthur Fields--a boy singer on Coney Island for 15 years, and then, in 1914, a popular recording artist. He had written the lyrics to Aba Daba Honeymoon, which was a big hit for Byron G. Harlan. but he sang Irving Berlin's Along Came Ruth for his disc debut on both Columbia and Victor. Berlin thought it was one of his best, but it bombed; however, Fields did manage to score for Mr. Berlin with Stay Down Here Where You Belong, in which Satan advises his son not to journey to earth, because the War was making it worse than Hell. Another Berlin-Fields triumph was Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning, easily one of the best songs to emerge from the War. Mr. Fields had enlisted in the New York National Guard and spent much of his time using his popularity to recruit men for military service. His street-corner concerts were so successful the Edison catalog claimed that "at least 600 boys are now somewhere in France fighting for democracy as a result of the work started by Mr. Fields."

It's a Long Way to Berlin, but We'll Get There and We're All Going Calling on the Kaiser really stirred the hearts of our fighting men, and Fields also added a lighter touch to Army life with such songs as Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder (Or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee)? But one of my favorites is I Don't Want to Get Well, which he sang with the cackling trill that distinguished his voice:

I don't want to get well, I don't want to get well,I'm in love with a beautiful nurse.

Early in the morning, every night and noon,The cutest little girlie comes and feeds me with a spoon.I don't want to get well, I don't want to get well;I'm glad they shot me on the firing line--fine!The doctor says that I'm in bad condition,But oh, oh. oh, I've got so much ambition.I don't want to get well, I don't want to get well,'Cause I'm having a wonderful time.

By Howard Johnson, Harry Pease, Harry Jentes. © 1917 (Renewed) Leo Feist, Inc., New York, N. Y. Reprinted by Permission.

K-K-K-Katy, recorded in 1918, was another Arthur Fields classic, and when the War had been won, he produced two of his best and most famous--the catchy "nut" song Ja-Da and How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm. However, soon his career began to fade and he started performing on a number of independent labels under a wide variety of assumed names. In 1925, he honored the death of William Jennings Bryan with Bryan Believed in Heaven (That's Why He's in Heaven Tonight); and, in the next year, the death of the silent screen's greatest lover prompted Rudolph Valentino (The Great Director Has Called You). Unfortunately, very few people honored or even noticed the passing of Arthur Fields himself, who died several years ago at the age of 75 in a fire that swept through the old-people's home in Florida to which he'd retired.

Needless to say, it would be impossible to discuss each of the men who contributed to the spectacular history of popular music in America before 1930. I honestly don't know enough about some of them. Charles Harrison and William Robyn had really beautiful voices and on Mr. Harrison's Victor recordings, I actually think I can hear his heart beating. That's the kind of power and soul this man had. I'd really like to know more about him.

But a singer I do know something about is Billy Murray--probably the best comic singer of his time and one of Victor's hottest properties from about 1906 to the early Twenties. Though he often recorded with his friends--Burr, Harlan, Fields, Kaufman and dozens of others as well--he's best known for his duets with Ada Jones, most of which were recorded between 1907 and 1922. However, even as a soloist, he had a long list of hits to his credit. His recorded version of Harrigan in 1915 was far more successful than George M. Cohan's rendition of the song on the stage, and Indianola, done in 1918, was surely one of the cleverest of the World War One tunes. Billy Murray then helped people laugh their way through Prohibition with The Alcoholic Blues and How Ya Gonna Wet Your Whistle?; but, like most of those giants of the past, his career was sadly drawing to a close by 1930.

Oddly enough, what closed the door on these singers were the greatest technological advances to hit the music business since Edison's phonograph. The invention of the electric microphone in 1925, the premiere of talking pictures in 1927 and the growth of radio through the late Twenties all combined to make these men as obsolete as the cylinder roll. These were singers who had acquired their skills on vaudeville stages across the nation, singers whose lungs and vocal cords were trained to project a musical tone so that it could be heard in the third balcony. Consequently, most of them found it very difficult to adapt their styles to the subtlety of the electric microphone and, therefore, to the new techniques of radio. In addition to this, The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, the first mass-distribution talkie, had taken the country by storm and many vaudeville producers climbed onto the band wagon by substituting movies for the live acts they used to book into their theaters. Vaudeville was dying and taking its greatest stars with it; but radio was born, bringing new stars to replace them; and among these new talents were to be found the voices that started young couples spooning and American women swooning--the great crooners.

I would have to say that Gene Austin was the first of what most people remember as the true crooners. Accompanying himself on the piano, he sang softly in a high, pleasantly relaxing voice; and his recording of Ramona, which sold 2,000,000 copies, was the biggest hit of 1927. My Blue Heaven, done that same year, wasn't far behind in either popularity or sales. Nick Lucas, who introduced the six-string guitar to popular music and gave us Tip-Toe Through the Tulips, was another of the celebrated mid-Twenties crooners. From the way people took to this easy-listening, mild, soothing style after 1925, it was obvious that they were tired of dancing their feet off with the black bottom, the varsity drag and the Charleston; they were ready to listen to good music sung by good singers, as they'd been in the days of Burr, Harrison and Robyn. The man most able to provide that quality was Hubert Prior Vallee, who, from the beginning of his career, cast a magnificent shadow over every other crooner in the business.

Mr. Vallee began as a saxophonist in 1918 (there were only 100 saxophonists in the country at the time), having learned to play by copying Rudy Wiedoeft's technique on records. As a tribute to Wiedoeft, he adopted Rudy as his first name and began playing with a variety of bands before and during his student days at the University of Maine and later at Yale. His experience with The Yale Collegians, a Vincent Lopez touring band and a Ben Bernie ensemble prompted him to form his own eight-piece group in 1928, which played its first engagement at the exclusive Heigh-Ho Club in New York City. WABC began to broadcast his music from the club and Rudy Vallee was an immediate success.

By January 1929, Mr. Vallee and the Connecticut Yankees were playing the Palace Theater, as well as both the Brooklyn and the New York City Paramount theaters, and the response was truly stupendous. He had begun singing through a megaphone in the early Twenties and, needless to say, the women in his audience thought his high, birdlike voice was the most romantic thing they'd ever heard. Just catching a glimpse of his lips through the megaphone had them fainting in the aisles.

However, while Mr. Vallee was playing the Brooklyn Paramount, Will Osborne--another famous crooner--was playing the Brooklyn Fox and claiming that Rudy Vallee had stolen his style. That rivalry almost ended in court, but Mr. Vallee later appeased Mr. Osborne by recording one of his songs. Whether or not Mr. Osborne was first with that style is very hard to say, but it's certain that he'd never have gotten much of a settlement from Rudy Vallee, who was reputed to be a devout tightwad. In fact, when he was alternating between the New York and Brooklyn Paramount theaters, he insisted that his musicians pack up their instruments after each show and ride the subway with him back and forth. That might not have been so bad but for the fact that they were doing ten shows a day.

Rudy Vallee may not have been much of a spendthrift, but he certainly deserved every penny he earned. RKO, hoping to capitalize on his romantic stature, sent him to Hollywood in 1929 to star in The Vagabond Lover, and his billing in the ads indicated the kind of reputation he was waking for himself. "Vagabond Lover," the trailer announced, "Men hate him--women love him." And it was so true. When he came back to the Paramount in New York for a 21-month run, there were days when the lines were roped off from 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, down 42nd to Seventh, across Seventh to 43rd and back to Eighth again; and most of those in line were ladies.

Then in October 1929, he was signed for the first one-hour radio variety show--The Fleischmann Hour for Fleischmann's Yeast--and I enjoyed ten years of Mr. Vallee's broadcasts before his popularity began to slip and the show went off the air. After that, he starred on the weekly Sealtest Hour; but times had really changed and with the long reign of swing music throughout the big-band era, Mr. Vallee started developing himself as a light-comedy actor after World War Two.

But as a crooner from 1928 to 1939, he compiled a phenomenal list of achievements. By 1930, his income had soared from $3000 to $4500 a week and he was one of the few performers to become a millionaire during the height of the Depression. Not only that but he used The Fleischmann Hour to showcase many new talents and actually gave such people as Edgar Bergen and Red Skelton their first real breaks.

Now forget Rudy Vallee the radio star, disregard his 20 movie roles, ignore the lines of screaming admirers. Let's talk about music again. This was the crooner who recorded hit after hit--My Time Is Your Time, I'm Just a Vagabond Lover, A Little Kiss Each Morning, a Little Kiss Each Night, Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love), Honey, Supposin', I'm Confessin', Deep Night, Miss You, Kitty from Kansas City, Betty Co-ed, The Maine Stein Song, the Whiffenpoof Song, Marie, Lover, Come Back to Me, Good Night Sweetheart and I could go on forever, but I won't. Let me just say that this man's extraordinary fame was no publicity gimmick. Rudy Vallee had a voice that touched the souls of his audiences and mine as well.

While Mr. Vallee's fans huddled close to their radios in 1932, waiting for the familiar greeting, "Heigh-ho, everybody!," millions of people were tuning in to hear a much deeper, more manly voice croon "Boo-boo-boo-boo." Of course, it was none other than Bing Crosby, whose 1932 hit I Surrender, Dear convinced CBS that he deserved his own radio show. As a member of The Rhythm Boys, he'd sung with Paul Whiteman's band in 1927; but in 1930, the trio moved to Los Angeles to join Gus Arnheim's orchestra at the Cocoanut Grove. Naturally, when the public began to hear that mellow, rumbling voice on the Creamo Cigar Show, his stardom was guaranteed. It was absolutely chilling to hear him croon Pennies from Heaven, Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day, Sweet Leilani, Sunday, Monday or Always, While Christmas or Going My Way.

To realize the true power of that voice, just consider the fact that his radio success lasted from his debut in 1932 until the late 1940s and television. During his incredible career, he performed on all the radio networks, starred in over 40 films for Paramount and sold well over 10.000,000 records. All the blessings of heaven have been heaped on Mr. Bing Crosby and he is clearly the most accomplished, though not the most electric, of the crooning greats.

In my opinion, the only singer who even came close to Rudy Vallee in generating romantic excitement was Ruggerio Eugenio di Rudolpho Columbo--probably better remembered as Russ Colombo. When Bing Crosby left Gus Arnheim's orchestra in 1930, it was Russ Colombo who vacated his violinist's chair to fill the singer's spot. Perhaps because he sounded very much like Mr. Crosby, Mr. Colombo was an instant sensation; but it may have also been due to the fact that he was practically a Rudolph Valentino as far as his appearance was concerned. In any case, since his voice rivaled Mr. Crosby's, he was signed to sing on radio in the same time slot and the two of they really developed a musical rivalry. However, shortly after that, Mr. Colombo formed his own band and left radio in 1932 to perform in New York; the public, being very fickle, soon forgot who he was.

Although he'd made a number of beautiful records--including Call Me Darling (Call Me Sweetheart, Call Me Dear), You're My Everything, All of Me, Paradise and Save the Last Dance for Me--it was a movie role that returned him to prominence in 1933. Playing a gangster in Walter Winchell's Broadway Through a Keyhole, he captivated the women of America with his amazing looks, and once again he flourished--this time as a crooner-actor. By 1934, he was hotter than a mustard seed. When he visited Carole Lombard on one of her movie locations, it was rumored that the two were in love. America seemed determined to make an idol of Russ Colombo. For his second film appearance, he starred with Jack Oakie in Wake Up and Dream, which was scheduled to be released in September 1934.

Russ Colombo never lived to attend the premiere. On September 2, 1934, he was visiting a photographer's studio when his host struck a match on an antique French dueling pistol to light a cigarette. The spark from the match discharged a bullet from the gun, which ricocheted off a table and struck Mr. Colombo in the forehead, killing him instantly. Even though the critics panned his film when it did premiere, no one doubted that had he lived, Russ Colombo would have been the biggest star of his time. The sad finish to Russ Colombo's tragic story is that his mother was never told of his death. One of his brothers wrote letters to her every week and signed them Russ Colombo; she died believing that he had retired to a sanatorium in Europe for his health.

For those of us who swooned to Rudy Vallee's singing, crooning really began to degenerate after 1935. Vaudeville comedians were doing crooner parodies and crooning in general began to get much more commercial and far less sincere. It did manage to hang on as a style even into the Fifties, but after 1935, it was never really the same. Romance was dying in the world as Hitler was tearing up Europe and by the end of World War Two, it seemed that cynicism and despair had taken hold of the public. But not me--not with the spirit of Rudy Vallee living inside me. In fact, when I'd see a pretty girl at the Page Three, I'd rush right down to Sander's Recording Studio with an original song to croon for her. In those days, I could make a two-sided disc for four dollars, and this is what I usually recorded (this particular one was sent to one of the loveliest girls I've met in the past ten years):

Hello, Miss Snooky. This is Tiny Tim. You don't know what a thrill it was to meet you at the Page Three. When I saw your beautiful face, I couldn't find the words to tell you how I felt, so I've written this little song especially for you. I hope you'll remember me for it and give my best to your dear mother and family. Now turn this record over and let this song tell you how I feel--You Are Heaven Here on Earth to Me! And so this is Tiny Tim saying to you, beautiful Miss Snooky, happy listening!

And this is the song:

You are Heaven here on EarthYou are filled with sunshine,Happiness and mirth;Your beauty, I can see,Is oh so heavenly,You are Heaven here on Earth tome.If you ever said goodbyeI'd feel depressed, yet never cry;For you would always beIn every memory;You are Heaven here on Earth tome.

Then I'd go to the train station, take four photographs for a quarter and Scotch-tape the best one over the label. Believe it or not, there are over 50 of these records in circulation today (I was told Lenny Bruce had one), so I feel that I've been doing my best to keep romantic crooning alive. It's not really that hard. I would say it's just a matter of closing your eyes and dreaming. People may say that now is not the time for crooning, but I think that if a song is good, it's good for all time. There have been thousands and thousands of hit songs on records and sheet music--songs that deserve to be remembered forever. After all, just as much happened yesterday as is going to happen tomorrow. That's why words like then and now don't mean anything to me. It's true the great crooners have faded away, but that doesn't mean that the beauty and romance and peace they worked so hard to create has faded with them. It can still be with us--it's alive and real--in fact, I heard it just this morning.