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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A little taste of Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians....this list is of some earlier, uptempo stuff....

Fred Waring

Fredrick Malcolm Waring (June 9, 1900 – July 29, 1984) was a popular musician, bandleader and radio-television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing."  He was also a promoter, financial backer and namesake of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender on the market.

Fredrick Malcolm Waring was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1900 to Jesse Calderwood and Frank Waring. During his teenage years, Fred Waring, his brother Tom, and their friend Poley McClintock founded the Waring-McClintock Snap Orchestra, which evolved into Fred Waring's Banjo Orchestra. The band often played at fraternity parties, proms, and dances, and achieved local success. He attended Penn State University, where he studied architectural engineering. He also aspired to be in the Penn State Glee Club, but he was rejected with every audition due to "college politics" and tension between him and the glee club's director, Dr. Clarence Robinson.  His Banjo Orchestra eventually became so successful that he decided to abandon his education in order to tour with the band, which eventually became known as Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians.

He married his college sweetheart, Dorothy McAteer, in 1923, but divorced her in 1929. He remarried in 1933 to Evalyn Nair and had three children, but in 1954 they divorced.

From 1923 until late 1932, "Waring's Pennsylvanians" were among Victor Records best-selling bands. In late 1932, he abruptly quit recording, although his band continued to perform on radio. In 1933, "You Gotta Be a Football Hero" was performed on radio to great acclaim.

Adding a men's singing group to his ensemble, he recruited Robert Shaw, recently out of the Pomona College glee club, to train his singers. Shaw later founded the Robert Shaw Chorale, directed the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and became America’s preeminent conductor of serious choral music. The Waring glee club sound can be detected in some Robert Shaw Chorale recordings. Pembroke Davenport (1911-85) was Waring's pianist and arranger.

During World War II, Waring and his ensemble appeared at war bond rallies and entertained the troops at training camps. He composed and/or performed dozens of patriotic songs, his most famous being "My America." In 1943, Waring acquired the Buckwood Inn in Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania, and renamed the resort the Shawnee Inn. To promote the Inn, Waring centered his musical activities at the Inn itself. He created, rehearsed and broadcast his radio programs from the stage of Shawnee's Worthington Hall throughout the 1950s.

During the 1940s and early 1950s, Waring and His Pennsylvanians produced a string of hits, selling millions of records. A few of his many choral hits include "Sleep," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Button Up Your Overcoat," "White Christmas," "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" and "Dancing in the Dark."

In 1947, Waring organized the Fred Waring Choral Workshop at his Pennsylvania headquarters in Shawnee-on-the Delaware, which was also the home of Shawnee Press, the music publisher which he founded. At these sessions, talented musicians learned to sing with precision, sensitivity and enthusiasm. When these vocalists returned home and shared what they had learned with fellow musicians, Waring’s approach to choral singing spread throughout the nation. He taught and supervised these summer workshop for 37 years, continuing right until the day he died.

Waring expanded into television with The Fred Waring Show, which ran on CBS Television from 20 June 1948 to 30 May 1954 and received several awards for Best Musical Program. (The show was 60 minutes long until January 1952, and 30 minutes thereafter.) In the 1960s and 1970s, popular musical tastes turned from choral music, but Waring changed with the times, introducing his Young Pennsylvanians, a group of fresh-faced, long-haired, bell-bottomed performers who sang old favorites and choral arrangements of contemporary songs. In this way he continued as a popular touring attraction, logging some 40,000 miles a year.

In the 1930s, inventor Frederick Jacob Osius went to Waring for financial backing for an electric blender he had patented. The Osius patent (#2,109,501) was filed March 13, 1937 and awarded March 1, 1938. Some $25,000 later, the Waring-owned Miracle Mixer was introduced to the public at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago retailing for $29.75. In 1938, Fred Waring renamed his Miracle Mixer Corporation as the Waring Corporation, and the mixer's name was changed to the Waring Blendor (the "o" in blendor giving it a slight distinction from "blender").

The Waring Blendor became an important tool in hospitals for the implementation of specific diets, as well as a vital scientific research device. Dr. Jonas Salk used it while developing his polio vaccine. In 1954, the millionth Waring Blendor was sold, and it is still popular today.

Throughout his career, Fred Waring received many awards, but none was as illustrious as his last one. In 1983, the 83-year-old Waring — by now considered king of popular choral music — was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest honor for a civilian, by President Ronald Reagan.

Fred Waring died suddenly of stroke on July 29, 1984 at the place where it all began — Penn State University — just after videotaping a concert with his ensemble and completing his annual summer choral workshop. He conducted many such workshops at Penn State in his later years, and in 1984, designated Penn State to house his collection of archives and memorabilia. He also served his alma mater as a trustee and was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the University. Although many believe that Waring Commons at Penn State is named for him, it is actually named for his grandfather, William Waring. In Long Beach, California, there is a Fred Waring Drive named for him. Another Fred Waring Drive is a major arterial road in the Palm Desert-Indio area of Southern California (where many major roads are named for post-World War II era entertainers).

The Waring Golf Course north of Harrisburg, PA was named after Waring, and he had an ownership interest in it. It ceased operation around 1960.

Waring was a cartoon and comic strip collector, and a small Penn State meeting room by the West Wing restaurant has dozens of cartoons drawn by artists such as Al Hirschfeld in Waring's honor.
From 1943 to 1974, Waring owned the Shawnee Inn and Country Club, a golf resort located at Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania near Stroudsburg. In 1948, two years after the National Cartoonists Society was formed, Waring invited members of that organization to spend a day at the Shawnee Inn. It became an annual event, held each June for the next 25 years, resulting in a huge collection of artwork created for Waring by the cartoonists, including many drawn on Shawnee Inn stationery. The Lone Ranger artist Tom Gill recalled:
Fred Waring would hire these buses, and we would get onboard in Times Square. They would take us through the Holland Tunnel, along Route 80, to his house in Pennsylvania. We spent the whole weekend there. Ping pong, golf, tennis, swimming—he had it all.
Ed Cunard's grandmother managed the Shawnee Inn, and he quoted from a self-published book she had written:
You see, my grandmother was always a career woman. She started out working with Fred Waring at the height of his popularity (so, yes, this is going back quite a way). When she decided to settle down and marry, she left his music enterprise and went to manage the resort he owned in the Poconos. This much, I knew. I knew that she had met all sorts of celebrities and quasi-celebrities through these jobs, but there was one section that stood out to me: "It's the only autograph I have of all the celebrities I have met, except for autographed sketches by a couple of cartoonists. They came to Shawnee for an annual outing which Mr. Waring hosted every June to celebrate his birthday. When the National Cartoonists came to Shawnee, it was a time they all came together for a busman's holiday—golf and tennis during the day. After the evening entertainment provided by Mr. Waring, they charmed all of us with their inimitable style of humor and talent demonstrations. All the greats in that art field were there—Mort Walker, Stan Drake, Milt Caniff, Charles Schulz and many others. I can still visualize Hal Foster, on one of their trips, standing before a large easel in the lobby of the Inn drawing his famous Prince Valiant. In fact, I treasure a copy of that drawing which is truly more art than cartoon. We were so fortunate to witness such talent." It goes on for a while longer, detailing how the cartoonists would draw on the tables as part of their time at the resort, and that these sketches are available for viewing at Penn State's Fred Waring America Collection.
The Cartoon Room was Waring's name for the lounge room of Shawnee Inn, where the Pennsylvanians and the cartoonists assembled for food, drink and entertainment. Special tables in the Cartoon Room featured original art because Waring had the cartoonists create drawings on parchment paper, which was permanently laminated on the 30” X 30” tabletops. The walls of the Cartoon Room and the long hallway leading to it displayed numerous cartoons. Today, the Fred Waring Collection at Penn State has more than 600 cartoon originals, including over 50 of the laminated table tops.

Artists who contributed to the Waring Collection included Jay Alan, Alfred Andriola (Kerry Drake), Michael Berry, Charles Biro (Squeeks, Crimebuster, Daredevil), Martin Branner (Denny Dimwit), Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy), Milton Caniff (Steve Canyon), Mel Casson (Jeff Crockett), Chon Day, Steve Douglas, Bill Dyer (Patsy), Gus Edson (The Gumps), Eric Ericson, Gill Fox (Foodini). Frank Godwin (Rusty Riley, Patty Miles), Irwin Hasen (Dondi), Jeff Hayes (Silent Sam), Art Helfant (Patty Pinhead, Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Stan Kaye, Jeff Keate, Reamer Keller, Ted Key (Hazel), Lank Leonard Mickey Finn, Jack Markow, Jay McArdle, Bill McLean (Double Trouble), Paul Norris (Jungle Jim), Bob Oksner (Leave It to Binky), Russell Patterson (Mamie), Clarence D. Russell (Pete the Tramp), Don Trachte (Henry) and George Wunder (Hotshot Charlie).

Fred Waring was survived by five adult children; Dixie, Fred Waring Jr., William "Bill", Paul and Malcolm. Son Fred Jr. was a conductor and jazz trombonist. Grandson Jordan Waring is an orchestral composer.

 The Famed Waring Blendor

A note about the Waring Blendor:

**I collect and restore early Osterizer blenders and Sunbeam Mixmasters.  I just have to note that I'm rather biased.  I have a couple of early Waring "blendors".....I find the Early Osters to be quite superior....just my humble opinion. **  The best, most versatile blender that I've ever owned is my Osterizer Deluxe Chrome beehive-style model 403, from the late '30s. I use it nearly every day, even grinding by coffee and ice in it.......works like it was just brought yesterday. Superb.

Now, ummm, ya know......back to FRED Waring...lol:

this is from www.redhotjazz.com :

One of the enduring images of the 1920s is of the college boy in a raccoon coat, out for some jazz kicks with a hip flask and a flapper on his arm. Waring's Pennsylvanians popularized this type of image through their music, stage shows, and film appearances. The band was formed in 1918 at Pennsylvania State University by the brothers Fred and Tom Waring, and their friends Freddy Buck and Poley McClintock. They first billed themselves as the Waring-McClintock Snap Orchestra and then became Waring's Banjo Orchestra before adopting the name of Waring's Pennsylvanians in 1922. In 1923 they had a big hit with the record Sleep and the song continued to be the band's theme song for many years to come. The Pennsylvanians were very popular at colleges and often played fraternity parties, proms, and local dances early in their career and then graduated to playing at movie theatres and vaudeville houses across the United States becoming one of the sought after acts in show business. In 1925 Waring's Pennsylvanians had a huge hit with Collegiate and it remains their best-known song. The tune is a wonderful little time capsule of college life in the 1920s. By the end of the 1920s they were one of the most popular musical acts in the country and they starred in an early sound film called "Syncopation" in 1929. In the 1930s they were one of the hottest acts on radio hosting shows sponsored by Old Gold, Ford, Chesterfield and General Electric and if that were not enough Fred Waring developed and marketed the kitchen appliance the Waring Blender. The Pennsylvanians stopped making records in 1932 because they thought that they were competing against their radio show and would not do so again until 1942. The act continued to be popular well into the 1950s and were pioneers in broadcast televison. In 1949 the Pennsylvanians had their own weekly television show sponsored by General Electric. As the years went by the band's music changed and they became more of a choral group than a Jazz group, but Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians remained active and quite popular up until Waring's death in 1984. 

Soooo.....this list. There's none of the choral stuff on here, some good vocals, naturally, but none of the later stuff.  This is just a little list of some of the fun, early,  more uptempo stuff.  If anyone is interested in the later, just ask, as I do have some.  I just was more in the mood for the 20s-30s, more jazz oriented Waring. :) 

Ah! sweet mystery of life 4-17-1928
Alma Mammy  (From Paramount picture, "Sweetie")V= Clare Hanlon 12-16-1929
At the end o the road 2-27-1925
Bolshevik 8-20-1926
Butterfly 1925
Button up your overcoat from the musical comedy "Follow Thru"  1-23-1929
Collegiana 3-9-1928
Collegiate 4-4-1925
Dance selections
Dancing in the dark 5-18-1931
Farewell blues 3-28-1928
Fit as a fiddle 10-25-1932
Flying colors
Freshie 9-7-1925
Gloriana v=Clare Hanlon 12-14-1928
Good for you, bad for me (From the Musical Comedy "Flying High") v=The Three Girl Friends 1-9-1930
Hello baby (From First National picture, "The Forward Pass") v=Will Morgan 12-17-1929
Hello Montreal v=Fred Waring 3-29-1928
Hello Swanee Hello!  1-31-1927
Holding my honey's hand 6-27-1932
How about me? 11-13-1928
How'm I doin'? 4-5-1932
I heard 5-13-1932
I'm only guessin' 1-18-1932
I'll always be in love with you from the RADIO picture, "Syncopation"  2-4-1929
June night 6-6-1924
Keep smiling at trouble from "Big Boy"  12-10-1924
Laugh clown laugh! 3-8-1928
Let's have another cup of coffee w/ Chick Bullock 2-24-1932
Little white lies v=Clare Hanlon and the Three Girl Friends 7-25-1930
Looking at the world through rose colored glasses 6-3-1926
Love for sale (from the Musicaly Comedy "The New Yorkers") v=The Three Waring Girls 12-24-1930  
Maybe this is love 11-13-1928
Maytime 6-2-1924
Memory lane v=Tom Waring  3-26-1924
My lucky star 1-28-1929
Navy blues (From Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, "Navy Blues")  12-14-1929
Old Yazoo v=Frank Zullo/chorus 6-27-1932
Red hot Chicago (From the Musical Comedy "Flying High")  1-10-1930
Say that you love me from "Hello Yourself" v=Fred Waring and Chorus  11-5-1928
Sleep 10-16-1923
Stack o' Lee blues 1924
Stack o' Lee blues 10-16-1923
The dance of the Blue Danube 3-8-1928
The old man of the mountain v=Chick Bullock  6-27-1932
The Yale blues  1-24-1928
To-night's my night with baby v=Tom Waring  6-3-1926
Way back when 11-4-1927
What a night for spooning v=Clare Hanlon  9-5-1928
Who's blue now 2-14-1928
Wob-a-ly walk 11-10-1927
You scream , I scream, we all scream for ice cream 1929
You'll get by (With A Twinkle In Your Eye)  10-25-1932
Young and healthy 11-4-1932

http://www.4shared.com/file/hahwLRYX/fred_waring.html











2 comments:

  1. De nada :) I'm making a few departures into some '50-60s stuff, but my love is OTRs and my 78s....still putting some more of each up...working on a few things. Stay tuned!

    ReplyDelete