Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Julie Christie....makes me go misty (I know...that damn song)
The amazing Evie Sands...........
Evie Sands (aka "The best singer you never heard of..."...such a cruel twist of fate that she isn't as famous as so many that had less than half of her talent.)
Evie Sands is a Brooklyn-born singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career began as a young teenager in the mid-1960s. After several close calls throughout the rest of the decade, and a thoroughly hard time at the hands of the record industry, she eventually saw chart action in 1969, before mostly forgoing live performance in 1979 to concentrate on writing and production. She experienced a fashionable, Brit-led surge in cult popularity beginning in the 1990s and returned to live performance in mid-1998. Sands is still actively recording and performing today.
Evie Sands was born in Brooklyn, New York, to music-loving parents, and fulfilled sooner than expected her mother's intuition that "this baby will come out singing", cutting her first singles by her mid-teens: "The Roll / My Dog" (ABC 10458/1963), "Danny Boy" "I Love You So" /"I Was Moved". (Gold 215/ 1964). In 1965 Sands signed to the Blue Cat label of legendary Red Bird Records; she toured with Red Bird star act the Shangri-Las and began a lasting collaboration with the producer/composers Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni with the release of the single "Take Me For a Little While" (written by Trade Martin). Prior to its release, a test pressing of Sands' recording was stolen by a Chicago-based producer, who shopped it to established Chess Records recording artist Jackie Ross, who was coming off the major pop/soul hit "Selfish One". Ross — who was unaware of the duplicity involved, and who left Chess shortly afterwards — and her producers loved the song, and recorded, pressed and released the record within 48 hours, beating Sands' version to the street by a week. Backed by the marketing and promotional muscle of Chess Records, and with Ross' name attached, this version unsurprisingly received the lion's share of airplay. The subsequent legal struggle set back Sands' young career before it had had a chance to get started. By the time Chess withdrew the Ross single from the marketplace, Sands' version would only break through in the few cities (like Los Angeles) that had thus far stayed 'on the fence', waiting to see which version to play.
Sands' follow-up single, "I Can't Let Go", was lost amidst the post "Take Me" chaos, leaving Brit invaders The Hollies clear to score a hit cover in the spring of 1966. That same year, Sands debuted on Cameo-Parkway Records and would continue the pattern of songs introduced by Sands becoming successful for other artists, when in 1967, Sands' latest single, the Chip Taylor-penned "Angel of the Morning", got caught up in label's business problems. Despite the single being one of the most-requested radio songs wherever played, and the initial 10,000 copies selling out, the label's pending bankruptcy aborted the record's potential success; a few months later, the unknown Merrilee Rush would score a Top Ten single with the song. Sands' last single release on Cameo-Parkway was "Billy Sunshine" in January 1968, the tracking reaching Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart before Cameo's demise.
In 1969 Sands scored with the A&M single "Any Way That You Want Me", a Chip Taylor composition previously recorded by both the American Breed and the Troggs in 1966. A No. 1 hit in Birmingham, Alabama, Sands' "Anyway That You Want Me" also reached the Top Ten or better in Columbus, Ohio, Houston, Texas, San Diego, California, and a number of other cities; it reached No. 53 Billboard Hot 100, tying Don Ho's "Tiny Bubbles" for longevity among 1960s singles failing to reach that chart's top 50 (at 17 weeks), and eventual sales are estimated at 500,000 units. Sands' debut album, also named Any Way That You Want Me, was released on A&M in 1970, several months after the single had peaked. Evie made her recorded debut as a songwriter on the album with "It's This I Am" - covered years later by Beck and Beth Orton, respectively.
A Sands album to be produced by Val Garay for Buddah Records was announced in March 1971 but did not come to fruition: rather the 1975 release Estate of Mind on the Capitol Records Haven label ended Sands' five-year absence from recording. Produced by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, the album marked Sands' continuing as a songwriter, also collaborating with Richard Germinaro and veteran songwriter Ben Weisman. Two tracks from the album, Lambert and Potter's "You Brought The Woman Out Of Me" and the Sands-Weisman-Germinaro collaboration "I Love Makin' Love To You", both approached major hit status. They wound up peaking at No. 50, with Sands would see the latter included on the ButterFly album by Barbra Streisand. Several other Sands songs from the "Estate of Mind" album were also covered by a number of artists, including Dionne Warwick, Dobie Gray, Dusty Springfield, Frankie Valli, Gladys Knight, Arthur Prysock, The Manhattans, Cher/Greg Allman, Jose Feliciano and Phyllis Hyman.
After a final 1976 single release on Haven: a remake of "The Way You Do the Things You Do", Sands next release was on RCA who issued the album Suspended Animation - produced by Sands and Michael Stewart - in the spring of 1979; Sands had actually begun working with co-producer Michael Stewart in May 1977. The album's musicians included Toto members David Hungate, Steve Lukather and Greg Phillinganes and also Lee Ritenour and Buzz Feiten and the vocalists backing Sands included Toto frontman Bobby Kimball, Bill Champlin of Chicago and - on the track "Lady of the Night" - Dusty Springfield. Despite its prestigious personnel Suspended Animation didn't make a real chart impact for its single releases and Sands focused mostly on writing and production in the music business for almost twenty years. As with her previous album, a few of the songs were covered by several artists, including Helen Reddy, Linda Clfford, June Pointer, The Weather Girls and Shirley Bassey. Karen Carpenter recorded two songs for her solo album, but they remained unreleased.
In late 1996, Sands went to see Chip Taylor perform at a club gig and he invited her onstage to perform with him. Despite not having kept actively in touch through the previous years, the experience was so successful that the two re-ignited their collaboration - along with Al Gorgoni, resulting in the critically acclaimed Women In Prison LP, which was released in 1999 (and again in 2000) on Taylor's Train Wreck records. A more rootsy project than the blue-eyed soul of her late 1960s-70s output, the album consisted of various Sands-Taylor-Gorgoni originals, including a duet with Lucinda Williams on the track "Cool Blues Story". Several tracks fared well on UK/Euro indie charts. After the reconnection with Taylor, Sands returned to performing in 1998. Sands and Taylor did some shows in the UK and Europe when the album was released, including London, Glasgow, Brussels and several dates in Holland.
Evie's earlier albums have recently been made available on CD. Suspended Animation, Any Way That You Want Me, and Estate of Mind were first reissued in Japan in 2001 and 2003. Any Way... and Estate... were reissued again in September 2005 and June 2006 respectively, on the Cherry Red sublabel Rev-Ola in the United Kingdom. Evie can currently be found performing her own solo material as well as performing as the lead guitar player in eclectic Los Angeles based group, Adam Marsland's Chaos Band. Her most recent recorded appearance is on that band's 2007 live CD Long Promised Road: Songs of Dennis and Carl Wilson, on which she sings several lead vocals, including the first-ever released recording of Dennis Wilson's "Wouldn't It Be Nice to Live Again." She also did extensive vocal and guitar work on Marsland's 2009 double CD Go West, including lead vocals on one track.
Artists who have recorded versions of Evie Sands' songs include Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight, Karen Carpenter, Arthur Prysock, Juice Newton, Linda Ronstadt, and Dusty Springfield, who went on record citing Sands as "my favourite female singer" and in fact recorded backing vocals on "Lady of the Night", a cut from Sands' Suspended Animation LP. She also has a popular following, and huge respect, amongst Northern Soul fans. Similarly to Springfield, who underwent a British-led return to popularity in the late-1980s, Sands saw a burgeoning cult following build around her when a new wave of pre-grunge British indie bands sang her praises and recorded her songs. Amongst these were Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, and Spiritualized, whose first single was a version of "Any Way That You Want Me". Later on, Belle and Sebastian also declared themselves fans, performing with Evie on her first trip to Europe, whilst she was promoting the Women In Prison album.
Some of Sands' songs have become hit singles in their cover versions, most notably "I Can't Let Go" (The Hollies in 1966 and Linda Ronstadt in 1980) and "Angel of the Morning" (Merrilee Rush in 1968 and Juice Newton in 1981).
Karen Carpenter recorded a version of "I Love Makin' Love to You" in 1980 with producer Phil Ramone intended for her solo debut album; however, the song did not make the final cut for the album (perhaps due to the song's suggestive lyrics), and the album was not released until well after Carpenter's death. In the Karen Carpenter biography Little Girl Blue by Randy L. Schmidt, Evie Sands is quoted as saying she liked Carpenter's version: "When I heard Karen was going to cover it, I imagined her take on it would be similar to mine or closer to the mellow Barbra Streisand version. It turned out to be a perfect blend of both." (Little Girl Blue, p. 203) The track has since surfaced on the Internet and can be downloaded on YouTube, though it still has yet to be released on an album.
In more recent years, Peter Kember, aka Sonic Boom, from the band Spacemen 3, from whose ashes rose Jason Pierce's Spiritualized, also included Sands' original of "I Can't Let Go" on the Spacelines album, which compiled a varied selection of his favourite songs and influences. He even admits to lifting the middle eight of the song for his own "How You Satisfy Me" for his Spectrum project. Both Beck and Beth Orton have covered Sands' "It's This I Am I Find".
The Curse of Evie Sands, indeed......pity.....if you've never heard her, you should.....really.
And, on that note...........Ms. Evie Sands. Enjoy! :)
A Woman's Work Is Never Done
Angel Of The Morning
Any Way That You Want Me
Billy Sunshine
But You Know I Love You
Carolina In My Mind
Close Your Eyes, Cross Your Fingers
Crazy Annie
I Can't Let Go
I Love Makin' Love To You
I Was Moved
I'll Hold Out My Hand
I'll Never Be Alone Again
It Makes Me Laugh
It's this I am
Keep my lovelight burning
Lady of the Night
Love In The Afternoon
Maybe Tomorrow
One Fine Summer Morning
One Thing On My Mind
Picture Me Gone
Run Home to Your Mama
Shadow Of The Evening
Take It or Leave It
Take Me For A Little While (version 1) 1965
Take Me For A Little While 1969
The Roll
Until It's Time For You To Go
Yesterday Cant Hurt Me
You Can Do It
You've Got Me Uptight
Dig the ubiquitous Blossoms with Darlene Love on back up vox!! :)
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Another gem of forgotten 1960s Chicago Soul.......Jackie Ross !!
Jackie Ross
Ross sang gospel music as a child, and performed on a radio show run by her parents, both preachers. After her father died in 1954 she moved to Chicago and was signed to SAR Records by Sam Cooke. Her first single, "Hard Times", appeared in 1962, and following this she spent time singing in Syl Johnson's band.
In 1964, she signed with Chess Records and released "Selfish One", which reached #11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and #4 on the Cashbox R&B chart. A follow-up, "I've Got The Skill" reached the Hot 100 but stalled at #89 and the following year, "Jerk and Twine", a re-working of "Everything But Love", the song on the other side of her big hit, peaked at #85.
An album, Full Bloom, was released in 1965, which was followed by three more singles, but after disputes with her record label, she left Chess in 1967. She later recorded for several labels into the 1970s including Brunswick, GSF, Mercury, Capitol, and for Jerry Butler's Fountain Productions, but was unable to duplicate the success of "Selfish One".
One of my favourite voices out of the Chicago Soul scene....a clean, sweet soprano that is soooo Chi-Town, but have no mistake, she could bust it loose and take it to church when the music called for it....enjoy! :)
This list is for my daughter, Sarah, as she's a fan of Jackie's voice. She studies classical voice, but when she sings pop and R&B, you can hear a bit of this influence in her voice. I do like knowing that she listens to and admires singers of caliber of Ms. Ross. :)
The early stuff:
A One Woman Man
Be Sure You Know
Change Your Ways
Don't change your mind
Don't Take My Love
Dynamite Lovin'
Everything But Love
Hard Times
Haste Makes Waste
Hold Me
Honey Dear
I Dig His Style
I Had a Talk With My Man
I Wanna Hear It From You
I've Got the Skill
It's Going All The Way
Jerk and Twine
Keep Your Chin Up
Love Is Easy to Lose
Man is born
Misty
Mr Sunshine
New Lover
Selfish One
Summertime
Take Me For a Little While
Trust in Me
Walk On My Side
Wasting Time
We Can Do It
Who could be loving you
You Really Know How to Hurt a Girl
A bit of later stuff.......
A Woman (Get's Nothing From Love)
Hey Love
I Can't Stand to See You Go
I Guess You Think I'm a Fool
I Like Your Loving-w/ Little Milton
I Think I'm Losing You
I'm Gonna Make it (Without You)
I'm in Love With You-w/ Little Milton
Love Master
Need Your Love so Bad
No Matter Where You Go-w/ Little Milton
Number One Love in Your Life
One Hand Wash The Other
Patching up The Wound-w/ Little Milton
Someone Who Will Take The Place of You
Take The Weight Off Me
Teach Me-w/ Little Milton
The People Some People Choose to Love
The World Needs More People Like You
This World's in a Hell of a Shape
What Would You Give
**I'm missing a few tracks.......any info or help would be greatly appreciated**
Mercury 73185 – Glory Be / I Must Give You Time - 1971
Sedgrick 4001 – Where Does The Joy Go / Where Does The Joy Go (Inst) – 1974
Golden Ear 2292 - Cold Hearted Woman / No Part Time Love - ? (12” Single)
Another little list coming soon: Evie Sands........another great forgotten voice of '60s pop and soul....
Interestingly enough, this song was covered by Jackie Ross (who had the hit), and the original by Evie fell by the wayside.....**(btw, dig Darlene Love and the Blossoms on the backup vocals from this episode of Shindig in '65)**
Monday, August 29, 2011
Alice Faye Part 1...a bit of radio, film and studio performances......
Alice Faye
Alice Faye (May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian Phil Harris. She is also often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard "You'll Never Know", which she introduced in the 1943 musical film Hello, Frisco, Hello.
Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife, Charles and Alice Moffit Leppert. Faye's entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl (she failed an audition for the Ziegfeld Follies when it was revealed she was too young), before she moved to Broadway and a featured role in the 1931 edition of George White's Scandals. By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann Hour (1932–1934), where she may have met her future husband and comedy partner, Phil Harris.
Meanwhile, she gained her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George White's 1935 Scandals, in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. She became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protégé. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly figure such as she played in a few Shirley Temple films.
Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup, including her notorious "pencil" eyebrows. Considered less than serious as an actress and more than serious as a singer, Faye nailed what many critics consider her best acting performance in 1937's In Old Chicago. The film was also extremely memorable for its twenty-minute ending, a recreation of the Great Chicago Fire, a scene so dangerous that women, except for the main stars, were banned from the set. Her co-stars in that film were Tyrone Power and Don Ameche, two of Faye's most frequent co-stars, as it was customary for studios to pair its contract players together in more than one film.
Faye, Power, and Ameche were reunited for 1938's Alexander's Ragtime Band. Although the film was mainly designed to showcase over twenty Irving Berlin songs, Faye again received strong reviews and the film was considered a landmark from changing the status of musicals as light, frivolous fare to a respectable film genre. One of the most expensive films for its time, it also became one of the most successful musicals of the 1930s.
By 1939, Faye was named one of the top ten box office draws in Hollywood. That year she made Rose of Washington Square with Tyrone Power. Although a big hit, the film was supposedly based on the real life of commediene Fanny Brice and Brice sued Fox for stealing her story.
Because of her bankable status, Fox occasionally placed Faye in films that were put together more for the sake of making money than showcasing Faye's talents. Films like Tail Spin and Barricade (both 1939) were more dramatic in nature than regular Faye films and often did not contain any songs for Faye to sing. But due to her immense popularity, none of the films that she made in the 1930s and 1940s lost money.
In 1940, Faye played one of her most memorable roles, the title role in the musical biopic Lillian Russell. Faye always named this film as one of her personal favorites, but it was also her most challenging role. The tight corsets Faye wore for this picture caused Faye to collapse on the set several times and it shrunk her waist six inches. After turning down the lead role Down Argentine Way, for unclear reasons, Faye was placed alongside the studio's newest musical star, Betty Grable, in the film Tin Pan Alley.
During the making of the picture, a large rumor arose that there was a rivalry between Faye and Grable. Grable's popularity soon became even more immense than Faye's. Between 1940 and 1945, Grable made more films than Faye and her films consistenly made more money than Faye's. During these years, Grable was named the #1 box office star in the world. However, both actresses were very close friends and they never displayed rivalry between each other, perhaps because the two had vastly different personas in their musicals.
In 1941, Fox began to place Faye in musicals photographed in Technicolor, a trademark for the studio in the 1940s. She frequently played a performer, often one moving up in society, allowing for situations that ranged from the poignant to the comic. Films such as Weekend in Havana (1941) and That Night in Rio (1941), as a Brazilian aristocrat, made good use of Faye's husky singing voice, solid comic timing, and flair for carrying off the era's starry-eyed romantic storylines. 1943's The Gang's All Here is possibly the epitome of these films, with lavish production values and a range of supporting players (including the memorable Carmen Miranda in the indescribable "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number) that camouflage the film's trivial plot and leisurely pacing.
In 1943, after taking a year off to have her first daughter, Faye starred in the Technicolor musical Hello, Frisco, Hello. Released at the height of World War II, the film became one of Faye's personal favorites and one of her highest-grossing pictures for Fox. It was in this film that Faye sang "You'll Never Know." The song won the Academy Award for Best Song for 1943 and the sheet music for the song sold over a million copies. However, since there was a clause in her contract (as was the case with most other Fox stars) stating that she could not officially record any of her movie songs, other singers like Dick Haymes (whose version hit #1 for four weeks), Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney have been more associated with the song than Faye. However, it is still often considered Faye's signature song. That year, Faye was once again named one of the top box office draws in the world.
As Faye's star continued to ascend during the war years, family life became more important to her, especially with the arrival of a second daughter, Phyllis. After her birth, Faye signed a new contract with Fox to make only one picture a year, with the option of a second one, in order to give Faye a chance to spend more time with her family. But Faye also used this as an opportunity to campaign for serious roles, turning down numerous scripts in the process.
Faye finally accepted the lead role in Fallen Angel, whose title became only too telling, as circumstances turned out. Designed ostensibly as Faye's vehicle, the film all but became her celluloid epitaph when Zanuck, trying to build his new protege Linda Darnell, ordered many Faye scenes cut and Darnell emphasized. When Faye saw a screening of the final product, she drove away from the Fox studio refusing to return, feeling she had been undercut deliberately by Zanuck.
According to her obituary in the New York Times, "Ms. Faye handed the keys to her dressing room to the studio gate guard and drove off the lot." In 1987 she told an interviewer, "When I stopped making pictures, it didn't bother me because there were so many things I hadn't done. I had never learned to run a house. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't know how to shop. So all these things filled all those gaps."
Zanuck hit back, it is said, by having Faye blackballed for breach of contract, effectively ending her film career. Released in 1945, Fallen Angel was Faye's last film as a major Hollywood star. Ironically, for several years after, Zanuck tried to bring Faye back onto the screen with major roles in films such as The Dolly Sisters, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Razor's Edge, and Wabash Avenue, which would give her the chance to work opposite her husband, Phil Harris.
Seventeen years after the Fallen Angel debacle, Faye went before the cameras again, in 1962's State Fair. While Faye received good reviews, the film was not a great success, and she made only infrequent cameo appearances in films thereafter.
Faye's first marriage, to Tony Martin in 1937, ended in divorce in 1940. A year later, however, she married Phil Harris. This marriage became a plotline on an episode of the hit radio show hosted by Harris's then-employer, Jack Benny, which struck platinum in both Faye's personal and her professional life.
The couple had two daughters, Alice (b. 1942) and Phyllis (b. 1944), along with Harris's adopted son from his first marriage, Phil Harris, Jr. (b. 1935), and they began working in radio together as Faye's film career declined. First, they teamed to host a variety show on NBC, The Fitch Bandwagon, in 1946. Originally conceived as a music showcase, the Harrises' gently tart comedy sketches made them the show's breakout stars. By 1948, Fitch bowed away as sponsor in favour of Rexall, the pharmaceutical giant, and the show, now a strictly situation comedy with a music interlude each from husband and wife, was renamed The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.
Harris's comic talent was already familiar through his tenure on The Jack Benny Show, where he played Benny's wisecracking, jive-talking hipster bandleader. With their own show revamped to a sitcom, bandleader Harris and singer-actress Faye played themselves, raising two precocious children in and out of slightly zany situations, mostly involving Harris's band guitarist Frank Remley (Elliott Lewis), obnoxious delivery boy Julius Abruzzio (Walter Tetley, familiar as nephew Leroy on The Great Gildersleeve), Robert North as Faye's fictitious deadbeat brother, Willie, and sponsor's representative Mr. Scott (Gale Gordon), and usually involving bumbling, malapropping Harris needing rescue from acidly loving Faye.
The Harrises' two daughters were played on radio by Jeanine Roos and Anne Whitfield; written mostly by Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat, the show stayed on NBC radio fixture until 1954.
Faye singing ballads and swing numbers in her honey contralto voice was a regular highlight of the show, as was a knack for tart one-liners equal to her husband's. The show's running gags also included references to Alice's wealth from her film career ("I'm only trying to protect the wife of the money I love" was a typical Harris drollery) and occasional barbs by Faye aimed at her rift with Zanuck, usually referencing Fallen Angel in one or another way.
Faye and Harris continued various projects, individually and together, for the rest of their lives. Faye made a return to Broadway after forty-three years in a revival of Good News, with her old Fox partner John Payne (who was replaced by Gene Nelson). In later years, Faye became a spokeswoman for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, promoting the virtues of an active senior lifestyle. The Faye-Harris marriage endured until Harris's death in 1995; before that, the couple donated a large volume of their entertainment memorabilia to Harris's hometown Linton, Indiana.
Three years after her husband's death, Alice Faye died in Rancho Mirage, California from stomach cancer, four days after her 83rd birthday. She was cremated and her ashes rest beside those of Phil Harris at the mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show remains a favourite of old-time radio collectors.
Her voice, the New York Times wrote in her obituary, was "inviting." Irving Berlin was once quoted as saying that he would choose Faye over any other singer to introduce his songs, and George Gershwin and Cole Porter called her the "best female singer in Hollywood in 1937."[4] During her years as a musical superstar, Alice Faye managed to introduce twenty-three songs to the hit parade, more than any other female Hollywood movie star. During her peak years, she was often considered the female equivalent to Bing Crosby.
Although Faye has always had many fans around the globe, she was never more popular anywhere else than she was in England. In The Alice Faye Movie Book, a particular article is devoted to Faye's popularity there. The author of the article, Arthur Nicholson, mentions that Faye was enormously popular there even in her Harlow days. As opposed to other films shown in England, which were usually shown for three days a week, all of Faye's films were given the rare privilege of being played for an entire week. The article goes on to mention that, even after Faye retired in 1945, her old films still made as much money (in some cases, even more) as current releases. When Faye returned to the screen for State Fair in 1962, the film broke expected records in England. In 1966, the BBC aired Alexander's Ragtime Band on television and soon other Faye films followed. As of the writing of the article, the BBC stated that there were more requests for Faye's pictures than any other star's.
Soooooo, here's a few selections....some studio, some from film and from radio.....enjoy!
'Cause My Baby Says It's So-Alice Faye With Hal Kemp And His Orchestra
According to the Moonlight (radio)
According to the Moonlight-Afraid To Dream (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Blossoms on Broadway (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Chica Chica Boom Chic-w/ Don Ameche (deleted scene from That Night in Rio....movie version later sung by Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche)
Cross Patch (radio)-With Hal Kemp
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm-w/ Dick Powell (from "On the Avenue" 1937)
Dinah (radio)-With The Mills Bros.
Dont Play With Fire (radio)-With Hal Kemp
Gather Lip Rouge While You May (radio)-
Get Out And Get Under-(from 'Tin Pan Alley')
Good Night-w/ Don Ameche
Goodnight, my love-w/ Cy Feuer Orch.
Happy As The Day Is Long ((radio)-
Hats Off; Mimi; The Scat Song-
Have You Got Any Castles.Baby-With Hal Kemp
Hello Frisco, Hello-(from the movie)
Here's the key to my heart-w/ Freddy Martin and His Orchestra
Heres The Key To My Heart -(from a film w/ Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees)
Honeymoon Hotel-
I Could Use a Dream-w/ Tony Martin
I Wanna be in Winchell's Column (radio)-With Hal Kemp and Skinnay Ennis
I'll see you in my dreams-
I'm Shooting High-
I've got my love to keep me warm-w/ Cy Feuer Orch.
I've Got The World On A String-
It's a Natural Thing to Do-With Hal Kemp
The Moon Got In My Eye-(radio)-With Hal KempFriday, August 26, 2011
Brooding on the potential apocalyptical weather? Nooo! Have a drink, and dig some Chet Atkins!!
Earthquakes, hurricanes....ashy skin, varicose veins...what's next, locusts? The Four Horsemen?
F*ck it........come swing awhile with some early Chet..........Do!! :) It's some Nashville-politan awsomeness........(is that a word? whatever..........)
Here 'Tis............
A Gay Ranchero
Avalon
Barber Shop Rag
Barnyard Shuffle
Blue Gypsy '53
Bug Dance
Canned Heat
Caravan
Centipede Boogie
Confusin' '50
Dance Of The Goldenrod
Dizzy Strings
Don't Hand Me That Line
Downhill Drag
Galloping On The Guitar
Gone, Gone, Gone
Guitar Blues
Guitar Waltz
Hybrid Corn '51
I Know When I'm Blue
I'm Gonna Get Tight
I'm Pickin' The Blues
In Her Own Peculiar Way
In The Mood '51
Midnight '52
Mister Sandman
Money,marbles And Chalk
Old Man River
Rainbow '52
Red Wing
Save Your Money
South
Standing Room Only
The Nashville Jump
Wednesday Night Waltz
Lest we begin thinking that we've never seen anything like Hurricane Irene before.......
Ahem....Americans.....no one is better at knowing nothing of our own history quite like us.....*sigh*. That, of course, is another novel for another time...........hence, a post on the Category 5 New England hurricane of 1938.
A bit of history, courtesy of Wikipedia:
The New England Hurricane of 1938 (or Great New England Hurricane or Yankee Clipper or Long Island Express or simply The Great Hurricane of 1938) was the first major hurricane to strike New England since 1869. The storm formed near the coast of Africa in September of the 1938 Atlantic hurricane season, becoming a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale before making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Long Island on September 21. The hurricane was estimated to have killed between 682 and 800 people, damaged or destroyed over 57,000 homes, and caused property losses estimated at US$306 million ($ 4.77 billion in 2011). Even as late as 1951, damaged trees and buildings were still seen in the affected areas.To date it remains the most powerful, costliest and deadliest hurricane in New England history.
Before the 1938 hurricane it had been several decades since a hurricane of any significance adversely affected the northeastern Atlantic coastline. Nevertheless, history has shown that several severe hurricanes have affected the Northeast, although with much less frequency in comparison to areas of the Gulf, Florida, and southeastern Atlantic coastlines.
- The Great September Gale of 1815 (the term hurricane was not yet common in the American vernacular), which hit New York City directly as a Category 3 hurricane, caused extensive damage and created an inlet that separated the Long Island resort towns of the Rockaways and Long Beach into two separate barrier islands.
- The 1821 Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane, a Category 4 storm which made four separate landfalls in Virginia, New Jersey, New York and southern New England. The storm created the highest recorded storm surge in Manhattan of nearly 13 feet and severely impacted the farming regions of Long Island and southern New England.
- The 1869 Saxby Gale affected areas in Northern New England, decimating the Maine coastline and the Canadian Outer Banks. It was the last major hurricane to affect New England until the 1938 storm.
- The 1893 New York hurricane, a Category 2 storm, directly hit the city itself, causing a great storm surge that pummeled the coastline, completely removing the Long Island resort town of Hog Island.
The years spanning 1893 to 1938 saw much demographic change in the Northeast as large influxes of European immigrants settled in cities and towns throughout New York and New England, many of whom knew little, if anything, about hurricanes. Most people at the time associated hurricanes with the warmer tropical regions off the Gulf Coast and southern North Atlantic waters off the Florida coastline, and not the colder Atlantic waters off New York and New England. The only tropical storms to affect the area in recent years had been weak remnant storms. A more common weather phenomenon was a noreaster, which is a powerful low-pressure storm common in the Northeast during fall and winter. Although Noreasters can produce winds that are similar to those in hurricanes, they do not produce the storm surge that proved to be the 1938 storm's greatest killer. By 1938, most of the earlier storms were hardly remembered.
The storm was first spotted south of the Cape Verde Islands on September 10. Over the next ten days, it steadily gathered strength and slowly tracked to the west-northwest. By September 20, while centered east of the Bahamas, the hurricane is estimated to have reached Category 5 intensity. In response to a deep trough over Appalachia, the hurricane veered northward, sparing the Bahamas, Florida, the Carolinas, and the Mid-Atlantic. At the same time, a high pressure system was centered north of Bermuda, preventing the hurricane from making an eastward turn out to sea.
The hurricane was effectively squeezed to the north between the two weather systems, and late on September 20, this set-up caused the storm's forward speed to increase substantially. During the early hours of September 21, the storm, centered several hundred miles to the southeast of Cape Hatteras, weakened slightly. By 8:30 A.M. EST, the hurricane was centered approximately 100 miles (160 km) due east of Cape Hatteras, and its forward speed had increased to well over 50 m.p.h. This rapid movement did not give the hurricane a sufficient amount of time to weaken over the cooler waters before it reached Long Island. During the 9:00 A.M. EST hour, the hurricane sped through the Virginia tidewater. Between 12:00 P.M. and 2:00 P.M. EST, the New Jersey coastline and New York City caught the western edge of the hurricane. At the same time, weather conditions suddenly began to deteriorate along the southern New England coast as well as on Long Island. The full force of the hurricane started to reach Long Island after 2:30 P.M. EST, and the eye made landfall at Bayport in Suffolk County shortly after 3:00 P.M. EST. By 4:00 P.M. EST, the eye had crossed Long Island Sound and was making a second landfall just east of New Haven, Connecticut.
Modern analyses reveal that the hurricane was at Category 3 intensity at both landfalls and place the maximum sustained winds in the 120–125 m.p.h. range. After crossing Long Island Sound, the hurricane sped inland. By 5:00 P.M. EST, the eye moved into western Massachusetts, and by 6:00 P.M. EST, the hurricane reached Vermont. Both Westfield, Massachusetts and Dorset, Vermont reported calm conditions and partial clearing during passage of the eye, which is a rather unusual occurrence for a New England hurricane. As the hurricane continued into northern Vermont, it began to lose tropical characteristics. Still carrying hurricane-force winds, the storm crossed into Quebec at approximately 10:00 P.M. EST while transitioning into a post-tropical low. The post-tropical remnants dissipated over northern Ontario a few days later.
The majority of the storm damage was from storm surge and wind. Damage is estimated at $6 billion (2004 USD), making it among the most costly hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland. It is estimated that if an identical hurricane struck today it would cause $39.2 billion (2005 USD) in damage.
Approximately 600 people died in the storm in New England, most in Rhode Island, and up to 100 people elsewhere in the path of the storm. An additional 708 people were reported injured.
In total, 4,500 cottages, farms, and other homes were reported destroyed. An additional 25,000 homes were damaged. Other damages included 26,000 automobiles destroyed, and 20,000 electrical poles toppled. The hurricane also devastated the forests of the Northeast, knocking down an estimated 2 billion trees in New York and New England. Freshwater flooding was minimal, however, as the quick passage of the storm decreased local rainfall totals, with only a few small areas receiving over 10 inches (250 mm) of rain.
Maryland and Delaware
The western periphery of the hurricane brought heavy rain and gusty winds to Delaware and southeastern Maryland. Damage, if any, is believed to have been minimal.
New Jersey
The western side of the hurricane caused sustained tropical storm-force winds, high waves, and storm surge along much of the New Jersey coast. In Atlantic City, the surge destroyed much of the boardwalk. Additionally, the surge inundated several coastal communities; Wildwood was under 3 feet (0.91 m) of water at the height of the storm. The maximum recorded wind gust was 70 m.p.h. at Sandy Hook.
New York
New York City received a glancing blow from the hurricane. Wind gusts up to 75 m.p.h. blew throughout Manhattan causing the East River to flow three blocks inland. The winds reportedly caused the Empire State Building to sway. Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau Counties, located on the western end of Long Island, were hammered with wind gusts in excess of 100 m.p.h. but escaped the worst of the wind and storm surge due to being on the storm's weaker west side. Power was lost throughout the city.
Eastern Long Island experienced the worst of the storm. The Dune Road area of Westhampton Beach was obliterated resulting in 29 deaths. A cinema at Westhampton was also swept out to sea; about 20 people at a matinee, and the theater — projectionist and all — landed two miles (3 km) into the Atlantic and drowned. There were 21 other deaths through the rest of the east end of Long Island. The storm surge temporarily turned Montauk into an island as it flooded across the South Fork at Napeague and obliterated the tracks of the Long Island Rail Road. As a result of the hurricane the Westhampton Beach School District changed its school's nickname from the Green Wave to the Hurricanes.
The surge rearranged the sand at the Cedar Point Lighthouse so that the island became connected to what is now Cedar Point County Park. The surging water created the present-day Shinnecock Inlet by carving out a large section of barrier island separating Shinnecock Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The storm toppled the landmark steeple of the tallest building in Sag Harbor, the Old Whaler's Church. The steeple has not been rebuilt. Wading River suffered substantial damage.
In Greenport, on the North Fork of Long Island, the storm blew down the movie theatre located on Front Street.
Rhode Island
The storm surge hit Westerly, Rhode Island at 3:50 p.m. EDT, resulting in 100 deaths there alone.
The tide was even higher than usual because of the Autumnal Equinox and full moon. The hurricane produced storm tides of 14 to 18 feet (5 m) across most of the Long Island and Connecticut coast, with 18- to 25-foot (8 m) tides from New London east to Cape Cod. The storm surge was especially violent along the Rhode Island shore, sweeping hundreds of summer cottages out to sea. As the surge drove northward through Narragansett Bay, it was restricted by the Bay's funnel shape and rose to nearly 16 feet (15.8) feet above normal spring tides, resulting in more than 13 feet (4.0 m) of water in some areas of downtown Providence. Several motorists were drowned in their autos. Due in part to the economic difficulties of the Great Depression many of the stores of downtown Providence were looted by mobs, often before the flood waters had fully subsided.
The impact of the storm was strong enough to be recorded on seismographs in California and Alaska.
Many homes and structures along the coast were destroyed as well as many structures inland along the hurricane's path. Entire beach communities on the coast of Rhode Island were obliterated. Napatree Point, a small cape that housed nearly 40 families between the Atlantic Ocean and Little Narragansett Bay just off of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, was completely swept away. Today, Napatree is a wildlife refuge with no human inhabitants. One house in Charlestown was lifted and deposited across the street, where it stood, inhabited, until it was demolished in August of 2011. The only structures lying directly on the coast that survived the storm were the immense stone mansions in Newport, mostly because the largest mansions were along the Cliff Walk, high above the waves, though several, including The Breakers and Carey Mansion (known at that time as Seaview Terrace) still bear scars from the high winds of the storm.
A few miles from Conanicut Island, keeper Walter Eberle lost his life when Whale Rock lighthouse was swept off its base and into the raging waves. His body was never found.
Connecticut
Eastern Connecticut was in the eastern side of the hurricane. Long Island acted as a buffer against large ocean surges, but the waters of Long Island Sound rose to unimaginable heights. Small shoreline towns to the east of New Haven had nearly complete destruction from the water and winds. To this day, the 1938 hurricane holds the record for the worst natural disaster in Connecticut's 350-year history.
In the beach towns of Clinton, Westbrook, and Old Saybrook, buildings were found as wreckage across coastal roads. Actress Katharine Hepburn waded to safety from her Old Saybrook beach home, narrowly escaping death. She stated in her 1991 book that 95% of her personal belongings were either lost or destroyed, including her 1932 Oscar which was later found intact. In Old Lyme, beach cottages were flattened or swept away. Along the Stonington shorefront, buildings were swept off their foundations and found two miles (3 km) inland. Rescuers later searching for survivors in the homes in Mystic found live fish and crabs in kitchen drawers and cabinets.
New London was first swept by the winds and storm surge; then the waterfront business district caught fire and burned out of control for 10 hours. Stately homes along Ocean Beach were leveled by the storm surge. The permanently anchored 240-ton lightship at the head of New London Harbor was found on a sand bar two miles (3 km) away.
Interior sections of the state experienced widespread flooding as the hurricane's torrential rains fell on soil already saturated from previous storms. The Connecticut River was forced out of its banks, inundating cities and towns from Hartford, to Middletown.
African American novelist Ann Petry drew on her personal experiences of the hurricane in Old Saybrook in her 1947 novel, Country Place. Although the novel is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Petry identified the 1938 storm as the source for the storm that is at the center of her narrative.
Massachusetts
The eye of the storm followed the Connecticut River north into Massachusetts, where the winds and flooding killed 99 people. In Springfield, the river rose 6 to 10 feet (3 m) above flood stage, causing significant damage. Up to six inches (152 mm) of rain fell across western Massachusetts, which, combined with over four inches (102 mm) that had fallen a few days earlier, produced widespread flooding. In Chicopee, flash flooding on the Chicopee River washed away the Chicopee Falls Bridge, while the Connecticut River flooded most of the Willimansett section. Residents of Ware were stranded for days and relied on air-dropped food and medicine. After the flood receded, the town's Main Street was a chasm in which sewer pipes could be seen.
To the east, the surge left Falmouth and New Bedford under eight feet of water. Two-thirds of all the boats in New Bedford harbor sank. The Blue Hills Observatory registered sustained winds of 121 mph (195 km/h) and a peak gust of 186 mph (299 km/h).
The New Haven Railroad from New Haven to Providence was particularly hard hit, as countless bridges along the Shore Line were destroyed or flooded, severing rail connections to badly affected cities (such as Westerly) in the process.
The New Haven Railroad from New Haven to Providence was particularly hard hit, as countless bridges along the Shore Line were destroyed or flooded, severing rail connections to badly affected cities (such as Westerly) in the process.
Vermont
The hurricane entered Vermont at approximately 6:00 P.M. EST. Hurricane-force winds caused extensive damage to trees, buildings, and power lines. Over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of public roads were blocked, and it took months for crews to reopen some of the roads. Despite the damage, the storm only killed 5 people in Vermont.
New Hampshire
Even though the storm center tracked further west through Vermont, New Hampshire received appreciable damage. As in Vermont, very high winds brought down numerous trees and power lines, but rainfall totals in New Hampshire were significantly less than those in other states. Only one inch (25 mm) of rain fell in Concord. But damage at Peterborough was worse; total damage there was stated to be $500,000 (1938 USD, $6.5 million 2005 USD), which included the destruction of 10 bridges. Much of the lower downtown burned because floodwaters prevented firefighters from reaching and extinguishing the blaze. Other communities also suffered considerable damage to forest resources. In New Hampshire, 13 people perished. At the Mt. Washington observatory, peak 5-minute sustained winds reached 136 m.p.h.Maine
Damage in Maine was mostly limited to fallen trees and power outages. Storm surge was minimal, and winds remained below hurricane strength. The storm did not claim any lives in Maine
Quebec
As the hurricane was transitioning into an extratropical cyclone, it tracked into southern Quebec. When the system initially crossed into Canada, it continued to produce heavy rain and very strong winds, but interaction with land had taken its toll. Nevertheless, the hurricane managed to blow down numerous trees throughout the region. Otherwise, damage was generally minimal.
Post 1938 Hurricanes
In contrast to the long span of relatively mild hurricane activity that preceded the 1938 hurricane, subsequent storm activity would prove to be much more frequent. In the ensuing years following the storm, the northeastern United States would get hit with a number of hurricanes, notably the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Edna, and Hurricane Hazel in 1954, the flooding remnants of Hurricane Connie, Hurricane Diane, Hurricane Ione in 1955, Hurricane Donna in 1960, more recently Hurricane Gloria in 1985, and later Hurricane Bob in 1991.
A few pictures:
A bit on Katharine Hepburn and her home, Fenwick:
Courtesy: The Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Connecticut
http://www.katharinehepburntheater.org/blog/tag/1938-hurricane/On September 21st, 1938, it came without warning. As the story goes, Katharine Hepburn was out playing golf in Fenwick as the monster storm was approaching. Hepburn and many other rode out the storm in Fenwick.
There was no radar or satellite or buoys. Nobody had any idea about what was about to roar ashore. Many experts today believe it would be likened to what we now know as a category 4 Hurricane.
Nearly 700 died in the storm. Along coastal New England 9,000 homes were destroyed including the Hepburn place in Fenwick.
These pictures, from the Connecticut Historical Society, show Kate sifting thru the ruins. So vast was her love of Fenwick, she would rebuild the home within one year, raising it several feet to try and keep any more storms at bay and stronger, out of brick, not wood. Nearly 60 years later that brick has held up just fine, leave it to Kate.
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