Recently I had to do a computer repair for my friend Bryan and it got me thinking about a blahg I wrote in 2012 when I had to do my own computer repair and was given some bad advice from a computer salesperson. Needless to say, I didn’t take the salesperson’s advice and figured out for myself the repair, which he said couldn’t be done, and I was successful and got a blahg out of it. The original blahg was ADVICE FOR THE NEXT 50: THINK FOR YOURSELF. It was a blahg not only about the computer repair but celebrating the fact that I had turned 50 and that I could still think for myself with positive results. Next month, I will turn 59 and I’m still thinking for myself but my body has other ideas of it’s own when it comes to pain and arthritis. Too early to write about that stuff here.
Before I get too far off topic, or into the topic, let me talk about the repair I did on Bryan’s laptop. First, his laptop is a brick. It’s a few years old and large and heavy and running Windows 10. After a recent Windows update it would no longer load into Windows. Bryan just kept getting the spinning blue wheel of death. I know, I know, the image to the left is not a spinning blue wheel but it belongs to death so who am I to argue. Bryan got the spinning blue wheel of death and his laptop would no longer load into Windows. He asked for my help. In the past, when he had the same error he was able to fix it himself so I knew that this time would be a bit of a challenge.
I took his laptop home and tried to load it up but I too got the spinning blue wheel. I left it alone and eventually an error message similar to the one below was displayed:
That gave me a reference point to try and begin to fix the problem. By the way, clicking OK or CANCEL did nothing and the same error eventually came up again. Searching for different answers suggested trying to do a System Repair or a System Restore. Of course if you can’t load into Windows then how do you get to these options. There is another way.
What Windows doesn’t tell you is that getting into these extra options or even a Safe Mode of Windows is not like it used to be. I remember with Windows XP and I believe Windows 7 all you needed to do was tap F4, F8, or some Fn’ key (get the play on words) and you would get some other options to boot your computer. Pressing any of those keys didn’t help. What I found was you had to power on the laptop then turn it off once it started to load into Windows. Do this two times and on the third reboot, the Advanced Options loads. Choose “Troubleshoot” then “Reset This PC” if you want to Reset PC without repairing or choose “Advanced Options” after “Troubleshoot” to get to “System Restore” or “Startup Repair”. Unfortunately neither “System Restore” or “Startup Repair” worked for me.
It was at this point that some websites were suggesting getting into Safe Mode to try some other options. So getting into Safe Mode is another set of instructions I had to research. So, when you get into “Advanced Options” you have to choose “Startup Settings”, Windows 10 then will say that you can restart your device to change advanced boot options, including enable Safe Mode. Press Restart. After Windows 10 restarts one more time, you get a screen that lets you choose boot options. Select 4 or F4 to start in Safe Mode. Once I had Safe Mode, I was able to look at all of the options that other websites were suggesting.
The LogonUI.exe error message was very specific and some technical support sites were suggesting that I could rename the LogonUI.exe file to LogonUI.old and then copy a fresh version from a different directory and paste it into the Windows/System folder. You can research that for yourself but I’ll tell you right away that you can’t do any of that from Safe Mode. The suggestions tell you to enter Command Prompt in Safe Mode but these system files such as LogonUI.exe are protected. I couldn’t even run a “chkdsk” (this is actually CheckDisk that verifies the logical integrity of the file system) because it too won’t run in Safe Mode.
In my previous blahg, ADVICE FOR THE NEXT 50: THINK FOR YOURSELF, I talked about a disk called a Hirens Boot CD. It allows you to run a mini-version of Windows XP from the disk. I still had that Hirens CD from 2012 and I was able to boot into the mini version of Windows XP and rename the LogonUI.exe and copy a fresh version over from a different folder and put it in the Windows/System folder. Unfornately that didn’t change a thing. I still would get the LogonUI.exe error when I tried to boot into Windows 10. I even tried “chkdsk” while in the mini version of XP but that wouldn’t work either. It was at this point that I put the laptop away for the night.
I thought about the problem the next day and all of the suggestions I had tried and that failed. I had emailed Bryan and he told me not to bother further and he was just going to remove everything and reinstall Windows 10 fresh. I didn’t want to give up that easily. It meant that I had to accept defeat and, like 2012, I wasn’t prepared to throw in the towel. It was a battle of wits against the computer with the computer taunting me and me wondering what it would take to get this computer working properly again.
The solution to the problem was easier than I thought. I had eliminated all of the things that didn’t work and it was a matter of finding a method that would work. I was sure that running “chkdsk” was the answer because usually “chkdsk” would find errors and repair them. The problem was finding a way to get “chkdsk” to run in Safe Mode. The quick answer is you can’t do that. The error I was getting when trying to run “chkdsk” in Safe Mode was:
“A function call was made when the object was in an incorrect state for that function. A snapshot error occurred while scanning this drive. Run an offline fix.”
Before you begin reading all the posts on that Forum, let me just draw your attention to a post by a user by the name of “Jason Dale” dated July 2, 2017. His reply was almost four years after the Forum was created with the problem of trying to run “chkdsk” in Safe Mode. Here’s what he posted:
The /scan option might not be available in safe mode. Use chkdsk /f c: if a virtual disk (VM) or chkdsk /r c: if physical (if you don’t know, it’s probably physical). /r implies /f – /f fixes file system issues, /r repairs sectors.
I know this is 4 years old but all these BS answers are frustrating.
Focus on the direction to go into a Command Prompt in Safe Mode and type “chkdsk /f c:” (without the quotes). The problem is that your system is using C:, and “chkdsk” can’t repair things that are in use. You will get a message that looks like this:
Answer Y for Yes and then reboot your system. CHKDSK will run before Windows starts so it can repair the drive before Windows starts using it. That’s what I did. Bryan’s laptop restarted and started to run “chkdsk”. It was going to take some time so I walked away and watched television for an hour. When I walked past the laptop, I tapped a key to wake it up and was very surprised to find that it had booted into regular Windows 10. I shut it down and restarted it and it booted into Windows 10 again. Success!
So what did I learn from this? First, never give up, never surrender. That’s a reference to a line from the movie “Galaxy Quest” in case you were wondering. Second, stop overthinking. All of the suggestions I tried were other people’s suggestions and were sending me down the wrong rabbit hole. Third, think for yourself. When I started thinking about “chkdsk” and believing it was the key then all I had to do was find the way to run it. Then user “Jason Dale” may have offered me the right solution but I was the one who found it after placing my faith in the notion that there had to be a way run “chkdsk” outside of Safe Mode. Think For Yourself. I said 9 years ago and it’s still working for me today.
When I went back and re-read ADVICE FOR THE NEXT 50: THINK FOR YOURSELF, I discovered something else that I was recommending in that blahg besides thinking for yourself. I talked about a singer I had discovered by watching the television series ‘Stargate Universe.’ I wrote that “one of the great talents I have discovered from watching Stargate Universe is the singer, Deb Talan. In one episode, they used Deb Talan’s song ‘Comfort’… If you research Deb Talan you will learn she is a member of the group “The Weepies”. I didn’t know that and I don’t know who they are but I’ve listened to a few of their tracks and I enjoy them… As always, if you like a singer, especially an independent artist who doesn’t get the airtime like some of those others who should go back to street singing, in my humble opinion, then go out and buy their CDs or attend their concerts…I don’t know if she’s going to come to Canada anytime soon but if she does, you can bet I’ll be there.” Nine years later and I’m still listening to Deb Talan and I’m still listening to The Weepies. In that time, they have released the album “Sirens” and Deb released her solo CD “Lucky Girl.” They’ve also performed in Toronto twice and you can bet I was there.
On the album “Sirens” The Weepies did a cover of Tom Petty’s “Learnin’ To Fly.” I was skeptical when I heard they were doing a version but I think it works for them, the way they did it. Check it out:
It’s funny that Deb Talan would revisit the flying motif on her album “Lucky Girl.” Give a listen to “Losing My Fear Of Flying”:
I could go on an on about Deb Talan, Steven Tannen, and The Weepies but you need to think for yourself and see if they’re for you. Here’s another track to try and convince you. This is their cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Back Streets” from the CD “Born To Uke.” This time Steve’s taking lead vocal:
The Weepies only did the one song for “Born To Uke” but if you like it, maybe you’ll like the entire CD. Check it out…or don’t. Think For Yourself. Never stop.
There are many things that strike me as funny. I’m a bit of an odd duck when it comes to comedy. I actually wanted to write a book called “Odd Ducks.” It was going to be part of a trilogy of books with the word “Duck” in the title but none of them would be related. About 20+ years ago I wrote my novel “False Ducks”, which is unpublished, about a radio sketch comedy group. You can read samples of it at http://www.falseducks.com/false/falsies.html. I started a second book entitled “Odd Ducks” about a woman who accidentally gets left behind on the highway when her husband stops at a rest-stop on the highway and drives away without checking to see that his wife, sleeping in the back seat, is no longer there. It’s based on a true incident. Here’s what I wrote on it:
ODD DUCKS
by Scott Henderson
If Donald had only kept on driving, if Donald had only stopped at a full service gas station, if Donald hadn’t had the Big Gulp at the last rest stop, if Donald had have approached his car from the rear, if Donald hadn’t been so hell bent on getting back on the road, if Donald had have taken a cursory glance in the back, if Aunt Maisie hadn’t dropped dead in the middle Sunday dinner, if the new job didn’t pay so much, if Clara hadn’t insisted on sleeping in the back, if Jenny had have exhibited a little more teenage angst and insisted on the back seat for herself and further if Jenny had have given a rat’s ass about anyone else for even one moment, if Clara had a stronger bladder, if Clara had have left some note or sign to flag Donald’s attention that she left the car shortly after him then maybe, just maybe, and still that was a long shot outside chance, then maybe none of what followed would have followed.
Thursday 5:45 a.m.
Clara managed to exit the Curly Q just in time to see Donald drive away. She had been left behind.
The Previous Sunday 8:14 p.m.
Clara let the phone ring 3 times before picking it up. If Donald had been home he would have barked at her after the first and she’d have answered it. Donald hated hearing the phone go past one ring. “It might be important,” he’d say. “Someone might have died or something,” he’d add. His mind ran that way.
Donald was out though. He’d gone for a walk. Oh, he didn’t fool Clara, he was smoking again. He always smoked when things changed. Donald was like a smoke stack when he was nervous and he was nervous when the routine of his life was altered in any way.
Donald was up for a new job. He was being considered for the position of Media Relations person for Dynaco Nuclear Electric. It was a big step up from Safety Engineer but that’s what the bigwigs at Dynaco wanted. They wanted someone who knew what they were talking about and could translate that knowledge into a well meaning but believable pack of lies about the better quality of life to be derived from Nuclear energy. In other words Dynaco wanted a good liar.
Jenny would have answered the phone if it had been for her. The fact that it rang more than once meant it wasn’t for Jenny. Camped out in her room, Jenny would have rolled over to glance at the call display screen and then just as quickly would have rolled back in total disinterest. Jenny was 15, that was the only explanation necessary.
Clara tossed aside the book she’d been reading and picked up the phone.
“Hello,” she said in her best someone might have died answering voice.
“Clara?”, the voice on the other end asked before continuing. “Aunt Maisie’s dead. She dropped dead right before dessert. It’s awful. There’s gravy everywhere. She took a seizure and fell right over. There’s gravy everywhere. And I’d baked such a beautiful cake too. Right out of Cottage Living magazine.”
“Abbey,” Clara broke in. “Slow down. What happened?”
“Well, there’s gravy everywhere if that gives you a clue,” Abbey continued. “We were eating dinner, you know, a nice family dinner, mom and dad over and they drop by with Aunt Maisie, well I don’t mind because she is family and she does have money, but to drop dead right before dessert and with such a nice cake waiting straight form Cottage Living Magazine.” Abbey paused for a breath.
During the brief intermission Clara switched the phone to her other ear. Abbey was not only talking quickly she was stuck on a higher volume.
“Well, the ambulance attendants said it must have been an aneurism or a burst blood vessel or some little thing but Albert thinks she choked on a lump in the gravy but that can’t be because I strained the gravy. You remember how mom always strained the gravy and we said mom you don’t need to strain the gravy but she kept on straining it, well now I strain the gravy because it makes it smoother and I guess mom was right and Albert was wrong. Watch the gravy, don’t track it all over the carpet Albert!” Abbey was shouting this last piece of direction to someone else.
“Abbey,” Clara tried to interject.
“Don’t worry Clara I’ll save the cake for the funeral. It’ll keep for a few days. You will come though won’t you? I’d hate to have such a nice cake go to waste on just Albert and I. Albert doesn’t really need it you know, the poor dear, he’s gained fifteen pounds since last Christmas. Nothing, Albert dear, I’m just talking to Clara about poor Aunt Maisie. Mind that gravy Albert” Abbey said aside. “You wouldn’t know it but there are beets in the cake. That’s what it is. It’s a Chocolate Beet Cake right from this month’s Cottage Living Magazine. Of course they’re canned beets, you have to have the syrup to make the cake. You are coming aren’t you Clara?” Abbey halted abruptly.
Clara switched the phone back to her original ear. Abbey was starting to give her a headache too.
“How’s mom?”, Clara thought to ask. Aunt Maisie was actually Great Aunt Maisie because she was their mother’s aunt.
“As well as can be expected. Oh I know she’s disappointed about the cake and I’m sure she feels responsible. After all she was the one who practically dragged poor Aunt Maisie here tonight. You know I was just saying to Albert after she died that she didn’t look at all well. But you didn’t say if you were coming Clara.” Nothing got past Abbey.
“To the funeral?”
“Of course, I didn’t mean for dinner. It’s too late for that and even if you did come I don’t think it would be appropriate to eat the cake.”
“When?”
“After the funeral of course. Everyone will be absolutely famished. They always are at funerals. I’ll have to make some sandwiches and you can bring that marvellous potato salad with the peas in it. Better plan on a dozen people. It will be a small intimate luncheon. We won’t invite just everyone. I only have the one bathroom downstairs and I certainly don’t want everyone traipsing through the house to the one on the second level. I just wont’ have it.”
“When’s the funeral I mean?” Clara was trying hard to keep pace with her sister.
“Oh I don’t know, what’s good for you? Please don’t say Tuesday though because I have to have the carpets cleaned and I know on such short notice I’m not going to be able to get anyone in here until Tuesday. Does gravy stain? Wednesday’s probably best but definitely not Thursday. Thursday, Albert and I have counselling.” Abbey lowered her voice to a whisper before continuing. “Sex, Clara. I insisted on the sessions. Albert simply doesn’t want to do…well you know, not that I want to either really but we should be doing something I suppose, after all we are married and there are the children and we wouldn’t want them to grow up strange because Albert and I weren’t perfect role models.”
“Abbey, I think you better let mom and dad make the arrangements for Aunt Maisie.” Clara couldn’t possibly imagine what was going through Abbey’s head. Here she was babbling on about her petty little life while everyone else was probably very upset over Aunt Maisie. Clara didn’t enjoy conversations with her sister and any kind of visit was always strenuous.
Abbey and Albert lived in Niagara Falls. It was far enough away from Ottawa, where Clara and Donald lived, which was alright by Clara and even more alright by Donald. Donald could not stand Abbey and could tolerate Albert only somewhat. They did not spend holidays together. Since Clara and Donald had married they’d only visited a handful of times.
“I hope mother’s cousin Dillard isn’t invited to the funeral. He’s absolutely uneducated and that wife of his has to be at least ten years younger than him. What was he thinking taking such a young bride? I mean really Abbey, you would think the man could find someone more his own age. Well at least she has manners which is more than I can say for mother’s cousin Dillard. Then there’s those twins of theirs. Unmarried at their age and absolutely no good looks to speak of. That’s totally unacceptable in two bachelors still living at home in their early forties. There’s some genetic flaw somewhere that’s married into the family. Oh I just dread the thought of mother’s cousin Dillard anywhere near me.”
Clara thought back to her last visit with her sister. Albert and Abbey had stopped by on their way to Montreal for a convention of Amusement Museum Managers. That was Albert’s occupation. He managed two very successful tourist museums in Niagara Falls and had been positively written up in several of the well circulated tourism magazines including Cottage Living Magazine.
On that trip Albert and Abbey had only been in the house twenty minutes before Donald had to feign some excuse which allowed him to nip down the block and have a cigarette. Clara always knew when Donald was smoking and she didn’t blame him a bit when it came to visits with Albert and Abbey. Clara would have indulged herself if she smoke but instead she would usually sneak a drink during a bathroom break in the visit and would come back that much more pleasant to her sister and her husband.
And Abbey’s children were no better. Clara wondered why Abbey went on about mother’s cousin Dillard’s twin boys when she had twin terrors of her own. Not that Abbey saw them as anything other than angels. “Fallen angels, is more like it,” Donald would always says later. “Those two brats of hers would give Satan a run for his money.” Donald always exaggerated but in this case he was closer to the truth.
Alexander and Andrew were ten going on twenty-five to life. Arson, extortion, theft, profanity and cruelty toward animals were some of their more minor vices. They’d never been convicted by their mother however.
“And the way they dress. None of them have any fashion sense. There’s more to life than denim. I just won’t have them at the funeral is all and certainly not at my home. The Chocolate Beet cake right out of Cottage Living Magazine would not be safe around them.”
And Alex and Andy were fat. Abbey always said well fed but they were still fat. Spoiled rotten on candy and treats. Bribery no doubt for good behavior; promises never kept by the twins.
“And their car. Can you imagine that thing in the funeral procession? I would die. I would just die.”
Clara cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder and rubbed awkwardly at her temples. It was then that Donald walked in.
Clara immediately smelled the distinct aroma of peppermints and cigarettes.
“Is that for me?” he asked, gesturing with a free hand toward the phone. In his other hand was a bag of peppermints and a magazine.
“It’s Abbey.”
“Who’s died this time?”
Clara just stared at him. This wasn’t unusual for Donald. He always said that Abbey only called when someone died or that she wanted to boast about some contribution that Albert had made to the betterment of Amusement Museums everywhere. Actually Abbey had never called before about someone dying but Donald and Clara had tired of Albert’s unending string of new exhibits that always, according to Abbey, rocked the establishment of Amusement Museums right down to their wax foundations.
“Aunt Masie died, right in the middle of Sunday dinner.”
“And there’s an article in there too about Albert’s new Hindenberg exhibit. Albert says this is the one that will put them over the top. He says this one will rock the establishment right down to their wax foundations.” Abbey had switched topics again in that moment she had spoken to Donald.
“Your Great Aunt Masie? God, what happened?” Donald was striking the magazine against the side of his leg. He always did this when caught off guard with a rolled up magazine in his hand.
“I don’t know,” Clara said. “Something about an aneurysm and gravy and now something about Albert’s new Hindenberg exhibit.”
Donald stopped striking the magazine against his leg and tossed it into Clara’s lap. “Yeah, I know. It’s in the new Cottage Living magazine I bought you down at the store. There’s also an interesting recipe in there for a Chocolate Beet Cake we should try.”
———————
Chapter Two
Thursday 5:45 a.m.
Clara managed to exit the Curly Q just in time to see Donald drive away. She had been left behind.
Clara did not break into a mad run, nor flail her arms about wildly, nor call frantically after Donald. She just stood there blinking…and wondering. Wondering if maybe she shouldn’t break into a mad run, or flail her arms about wildly, or call frantically after Donald. By the time she realized a combination of all three was best, it was too late. Donald and the car were already out of sight.
Clara just stood there blinking. And then very slowly she began to rub her eyes and tried to wake herself up. This had always worked before. She remembered times like this, not being left behind at a Curly Q on the highway, but times when she knew instinctively she was asleep and that if she tried hard enough she could wake herself up but that when she woke up she was always disappointed to learn later that she hadn’t really been awake and that she had only dreamed she had managed to wake herself up. This was like those times, she thought, except she was at a Curly Q on the highway and Donald had left her behind.
Rubbing her eyes did not help. And she did not wake up. She decided she must really be awake and that the logical thing to do was to tell someone she had been stranded here at the Curly Q.
So Clara walked up to the Curly Q drive-through menu sign and said in clear voice “I’ve been left behind here at the Curly Q”, and without thinking she added “and a Curly Q Dodger, please.”
Several seconds passed before the menu barked at her in a barely audible but clearly disinterested voice. “Welcome to the Curly Q, home of the Dodger, may I take your order?”
Clara blinked again but with resolution repeated herself. “Yes, I’ve just been left behind,” and again without thinking, “and a Curly Q Dodger, please.”
“The grill closed at 5:30. Will there be anything else?”
Again Clara blinked. That’s odd, she thought, the menu doesn’t say anything about the grill closing at 5:30. She peered closely, blinking, at the picture of the Curly Q Dodger. It looked like all of the pictures on the menu except that on top it seemed to have something that looked suspiciously like cheese without clearly resembling cheese.
“Your sign doesn’t say the grill closes at 5:30.” Clara spoke clearly into a small mesh hole that looked like a place where you spoke into if you wanted to order something or question why the menu didn’t say anything about the grill closing at 5:30 in the morning.
The voice spoke again, in another barely audible but clearly disinterested voice, from the small mesh hole where orders were taken or complaints was lodged. “The grill closes at 5:30 to begin preparation for the breakfast menu.”
Clara blinked and glanced around at the huge sign and found the small breakfast menu printed on the right.
“Okay then, I’ll have a Curly Q Breakfast Dodger,” Clara said in a very determined voice, “and I’ve been left behind and need to use your phone.” Clara wasn’t sure whom she should call. She just wanted out of the drive-through and back into her car.
The disembodied voice of the mesh hole droned again. “The breakfast menu is not available until six a.m. Will there be anything else?”
Clara poked at the mesh hole. She wasn’t sure if it was that the grill had closed at 5:30 and that the sign did not state that the grill closed at 5:30 or that the breakfast menu wasn’t available until six or that she had failed to noticed the small letters that stated that the breakfast menu was only served between six and ten or that Donald had left her behind but she was beginning to feel very upset. “You don’t understand, I’ve been left behind and I don’t really care if your grill closed at 5:30 or that the breakfast menu isn’t available until six. I want to get back in my car and I want the largest coffee you’re allowed to sell by law!” She really did want the largest coffee they were allowed to sell by law.
“Thank you, please pull ahead.” Did Clara detect even more disinterest in the barely audible voice from the small mesh hole?
Clara walked around the sign, following the arrow markings on the pavement, and up to a sliding window.
The window slid upwards and a young girl not much older than Jenny stared straight ahead at something on a computerized screen and said, in that clearly disinterested voice, “that’ll be a dollar thirty-five.” Then the young girl turned, looked at Clara, and blinked. “I’m sorry, the drive-through is for vehicles only. The restaurant is open for pedestrian convenience.” The window slid closed. Obviously at the Curly Q, a pedestrian in the drive-through was not an uncommon occurrence.
I also wanted to write a story called “Peeking Duck.” I know, you’re thinking that I meant to say “Peking Duck” about the food delicacy but I spelled mine to reflect the story. It was going to be about a filmmaker who goes undercover with a homeless person and loses himself in that world. Thus the title, “Peeking Duck.” I thought I had never written anything on that but I recently found a synopsis I had put together:
Peeking Duck
This is a story idea about a documentary film maker who films a street guy named Larry he used to go to school with. Written in first person. The twist is at the end another documentary maker goes out to film a street guy that turns out to be the film maker. “Standing next to Larry was the ugliest guy I’d ever seen with no neck. His head was attached directly to his shoulders. If he hadn’t been standing there, Larry would have been the ugliest guy I’d ever seen.”
Maybe someday, I’ll get back to these two stories.
I had been struggling to come up with an idea for a blahg this week when I came across a printed error that struck me as very humorous and inspired this blahg. As I have noted before, I post daily THIS DATE IN SINATRA HISTORY logs to other Sinatra fans. One of today’s entries was “July 23rd, 1992 Sands, Atlantic City, New Jersey.” I usually try to include clippings of reviews or advertisements but today I found the following notice that inspired me for this blahg:
In case you didn’t catch it, Frank Sinatra is billed as a Comedian. Yes, Frank Sinatra, Comedian, with such great jokes as “Did You Hear The One About The Traveling Salesman?”, “Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road,” and “What Time Is It When An Elephant Sits On Your Watch?” In fact, some of Frank Sinatra’s song titles could be the basis for comedy routines: “Everything Happens To Me,” “That’s Life,” “Somethin’ Stupid,” and “How Little We Know.” Of course you might get some traction out of a routine called “My Way.” So why was there this mistake in billing? If I expand the original advertisement, you will see that there was someone else appearing at the Sands on that date in 1992:
Elayne Boosler was a top comedian in the 1980s and 1990s. I think she was the one that was supposed to be billed as Comedian at the Sands. Here’s an early appearance of her on the Merv Griffin show:
She’s no Sinatra but I found her funny.
I want to share a couple of pictures with you. These are shots of a big shelf of DVDs I have in my home, a smaller shelf next to it, and some items that hang on my wall.
The Sons of the Desert poster was given to me by my daughter Emaily and the Babes In Toyland is a framed LP of the soundtrack. The bottom pencil and charcoal picture, drawn by my daughter Abbie, is of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock in the movie “Safety Last.” I also house my friend Bryan’s DVD collection in other parts of my house but this big shelf is really the center of my collection. If you look closely you can see DVD collections of Charley Chase, Max Linder, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Charlie Chaplin, Edgar Kennedy, The Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Our Gang/Little Rascals, Roscoe Arbuckle, Thelma Todd/Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd/Zasu Pitts, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Eddie Cantor, and great comedies directed by Preston Sturges. The smaller shelf also has some comedy DVDs of Jerry Lewis and The Three Stooges. These people are what I call funny and some are what I call geniuses. I often re-watch many of these DVDs because they hold up well and entertain better than most “so-called” comedies today.
If I tried to do a blahg honoring these great comics and legends, I am sure I wouldn’t do any justice. I thought I would share some samples of video and audio of these people who make me laugh. There is no particular order to my tribute but lately I’ve been watching some Laurel and Hardy shorts and movies. For a while most of Laurel and Hardy’s earlier classic material was not available in North America. There were poor versions and colorized material but I had to purchase a box set from the United Kingdom:
This beautiful 21 disk set contains many of their early feature films as well as all of the silent and short films they performed in together. There are some extras of colorized versions of shorts as well as foreign language versions where Laurel and Hardy spoke their lines in German and Spanish. There has been a box set of their material restored and released in North America as “Laurel and Hardy: The Essential Collection” which only has two features and their sound shorts. Another set, “Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations” has 18 shorts and two features. So, for a good deal the UK box contains more. Of course, you’ll need a region-free DVD player or find a hack to make your DVD player region-free. There are also North American releases of later films they made at Fox and I own those as well. It’s not easy being a completist.
I have a few records in my collection that contain routines by Laurel and Hardy but on one record is the routine that was put out on a 78 rpm record in 1932 to coincide with their first trip to the United Kingdom. Someone has posted it on YouTube:
In the same year, 1932, Laurel and Hardy made the only short for which they were awarded an Academy Award, “The Music Box”:
Laurel and Hardy were not only funny but they were true friends to the end. Even their worst films have fun moments and are better than the foul language filled toilet humor movies we get today. By the way, my favorite Laurel and Hardy feature is 1936’s “Our Relations.” Stan and Ollie have identical twin brothers named Bert and Alf that they haven’t seen in years and presume are dead. Unfortunately Bert and Alf have been at sea and they’ve landed in Stan and Ollie’s town. Hilarity ensues with mistaken identities all around until they meet up at the end of the film.
This past week I have taken time out at work twice to watch a couple of Our Gang/Little Rascal shorts. I receive updates from https://www.classicflix.com/ and they are currently working on restorations of these fun shorts. Volume 3 will be released in October and the email I received had a link to watch some of the restoration of the 1932 short “Pooch.”
The next day I had to watch 1932’s “Free Wheeling”. My daughter Abbie and I watched all of the Our Gang/Little Rascal sound shorts and we both loved the really young “Spanky” character in “Free Wheeling.” The gang have a donkey operated taxi and Spanky and Jacquie Lyn want a ride. They have no money so they decide to shake down a monkey for some change. It’s hilarious because the monkey is just there and they approach it and ask it if it has any money. I think there was a sleeping Organ Grinder under a tree but it’s hard to tell. The children then begin to literally shake it down for loose change. Quite often, Abbie or I will say to the other “Hey Monkey, got any money?” The line might not be accurate but it still makes us laugh.
By the way, the little girl, Jacquie Lyn, costarred with Laurel and Hardy in the very funny “Pack Up Your Troubles.” There is a very interesting story of what happened after she left Hal Roach studios. This is from her Wikipedia entry:
Lyn’s short career at Hal Roach Studios ended when her stepfather demanded more money for her services. She grew up, married, changed her name to Jacquelyn Woll, and was not heard from until the early 1990s. Woll’s son had purchased a Laurel & Hardy videotape for her; the tape was introduced by Stan Laurel’s daughter Lois, who related that Laurel & Hardy fans worldwide were searching for the whereabouts of Jacquie Lyn. Woll contacted The Sons of the Desert, the official Laurel & Hardy fanclub, and was reintroduced to the public, becoming an honorary member of the organization.
Jacquie Lyn passed away in 2002 at the age of 73.
It’s funny how some things tie together. Jacquie Lyn tied into Laurel and Hardy and so do the next two comics. The first is the Master of the Slow Burn, Edgar Kennedy. Kennedy was part of Hal Roach’s stock of players so he often showed up as an adult or police officer in both Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts as well as Laurel and Hardy shorts and features. There’s a great book about Edgar Kennedy called “Master of The Slow Burn” by Bill Cassara.
This is an insightful and invaluable book on Edgar Kennedy with an extensive filmography. Some of my favorite Edgar Kennedy shorts are part of his “Average Man” series that ran from 1930 to 1948. In all there are 103 RKO “Average Man” comedy shorts and I’ve been slowly trying to track as many as I can. Alpha Video put out six volumes of the shorts and recently they’ve started a new “Rarest Comedies of Edgar Kennedy” with two volumes of rare shorts with most being from the “Average Man” series. The Average Man series had two formats. The first had Edgar Kennedy with a wife played by Florence Lake, a meddling mother-in-law played by Dot Farley, and a lazy/scheming brother-in-law first played by William Eugene and then by Jack Rice:
The second format featured Edgar Kennedy with a wife played by Vivian Oakland and a scheming Father-In-Law by Bill Franey:
One of the earlier shorts in the series to view online is “Camping Out” from 1931. William Eugene is featured in this one as the Brother-In-Law:
An example of the Average Man short with Vivian Oakland and Bill Franey is 1940’s “Sunk By The Census”:
There is the odd Average Man short in which neither Florence Lake nor Vivian Oakland played his wife. This didn’t happen that often and in fact, a young Irene Ryan, who played “Granny” on “The Beverly Hillbillies” played Edgar’s wife in two shorts. Get the book, find the shorts, watch what you can. Some are considered lost or maybe not found but quite a few are on YouTube and the aforementioned DVDs. There’s even a group trying to find and restore all of the Average Man Shorts. You can check them out here: https://www.fesfilms.com/edgar.html.
Jumping ahead to “Charley Chase” and referencing his early character, “Jimmy Jump,” there’s a great box set of early Charley Chase films put out in 2009 by VCI with the title “Becoming Charley Chase.”
Charley Chase was born Charles Joseph Parrott in 1893. Eventually he would change his name to Charley Chase. The earliest shorts in the “Becoming Charley Chase” set range from 1915 to 1925. The set included shorts in which he was the star and some he directed. Charley Chase directed some of the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts and even directed a short of his own entitled “On The Wrong Trek” from 1936 in which Laurel and Hardy make a cameo:
I like Charley Chase in both his silent and sound shorts. Sadly, there was no booklet included with “Becoming Charley Chase” but you could download it online. I’m glad I did because it’s no longer available to download. If you buy this set, let me know and I’ll send you a PDF of the booklet.
There are quite a few collections of Charley Chase’s sound shorts. The most recent is “Charley Chase: At Hal Roach” with two volumes already released and a third due in August of this year (2021). Volume 3 includes the last set of shorts he made at Hal Roach studios from 1934 to 1936. Chase would make his last shorts from 1937 to 1940 at Columbia Studios and these have also been released in two volumes on the Sony Home Pictures label. Sadly, Charley Chase would pass away in 1940 at the age of 46. Here’s another fine example of Charley Chase’s comedy with his 1937 Columbia short, “The Big Squirt.”
I could go on and on about my DVD collection or the comics and comedians I enjoy watching or hearing. Some of my past blahgs mention some of these artists. You can check out HAVE YOU READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?, R.I.P. JERRY LEWIS 2017, or even REMEMBERING PHYLLIS DILLER; THANK YOU BEN AFFLECK. I might talk about some of my other favorites in future blahgs but the title of this blahg is “What’s So Funny?” I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention again my own dealings in a radio sketch comedy show in the 1990s called “Dead From The Neck Up” with my friend Steve Dafoe and producer and occasional writer and voice talent, Bryan Dawkins. Before we were “Dead From The Neck Up”, we tooled around with the title “Two Guys In Short Pants.” Here’s our debut show under that title:
We had quite a few funny sketches and these two are comedy commercials for “Two Guys Proxy Service”:
Two Guys Proxy Service # 1:
Two Guys Proxy Service # 2:
Of course we sometimes leaned toward the bizare in such sketches as “The Man Who Married A Balloon”:
Or our parody of “Batman” known as “Hatman”:
I think some of our best sketches were actually commercials. Here are a couple more examples:
Bryan played John Kennedy with Steve playing Robert Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy. I was doing my older Ronald Regan imitation.
Our show lasted about three seasons with three Christmas specials from 1993, 1994, and 1995 and many can be heard here: http://www.falseducks.com/dead/readdead.html. Last year for Christmas 2020 we recorded new material for the first time in 25 years and we edited together our “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special”. Here’s a video/audio of the remastered show:
In our later seasons we got into longer sketch stories such as “The Big D” and “10W-30, The Alvin Parsley Story.” I haven’t got around to digitizing those but when I do, I’ll update this blahg to include those minor classics. I’ll leave you with the only known videos of us in the studio:
What do you write a blahg about when you’re not sure what to write about? Does that make sense? Here it is the first full week of July, 2021, in a heat-wave and I need a brain-wave. I’ve done the inspirational recently and looked at the world situation until I’m tired of looking at it. I got my second vaccine last week, Moderna, and had no reaction. So that story is put to bed. By the way, get a vaccine. So what do I want to talk about? Well you know me, it’s all about the music.
This blahg is going to be another of those, “gee, I haven’t even heard of them” blahgs. At the end of April I published “SOME FORGOTTEN BANDS…WITH A NOD TO LINDA KEENE” and brought to life some information and songs by some long lost bands. This time I thought I would look at some of the lost singers from around the big band era. Recently I was cleaning out an email folder and there was this email that I had sent myself with the subject “Kay Foster.” I don’t know when I sent it to myself or even why. That was probably the inspiration for this blahg so I’m going to start with her. This is her obituary from The Washington Post on April 20th, 2002:
Katherine Peterson
Big Band Singer
Katherine Peterson, 84, who as Kay Foster sang in the 1930s and 1940s with the big bands of Artie Shaw, Tony Pastor, Les Brown and Benny Goodman, died April 14 at her home in Madison Heights, Mich., after a heart attack.
Mrs. Peterson, a soprano, was married to Chuck Peterson, a trumpet player in bands led by Shaw, Pastor, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman and Benny Carter.
She made headlines in 1937 when Bruno of Hollywood, the photographer, told reporters Mrs. Peterson had “the best-looking legs of any girl band vocalist in America.”
If you look at Kay Foster’s Discogs entry, you get this:
I know this isn’t complete by any means because I found the following song, “It Never Entered My Mind” that Kay Foster did with Tony Pastor in 1940.
I wasn’t able to find a location to stream “Louisiana Purchase” or “On A Simmery Summery Day” which Kay Foster also recorded with Tony Pastor. Moving on to her recordings with Georgie Auld and staying with 1940, I was able to find “Angel”:
Here we’ll have to rely on a YouTube Audio Video:
The flip-side of “Angel” was “I Want My Mama”:
Here’s another one that Kay Foster also recorded with Georgie Auld, “Imagination”:
If you check the limited discography for Kay Foster from Discogs, listed above, “Imagination” is listed with the notation following “and 4 more.” As far as I can tell, the “4 more” were “With The Wind And The Rain In Your Hair” and “Shake Down The Stars.” In this case, the “4 more” also included “Angel” and “I Want My Mama.” So here are the two I haven’t covered from the “4 more”, “With The Wind And Rain In Your Hair” and “Shake Down The Stars”:
Apparently in 1943, Kay Foster was appearing with Jan Garber and His Orchestra because I found two songs she performed on the Treasury Star Parade radio program in 1943. They are both on YouTube and they are “May In Mexico” and “I Don’t Want Anybody At All”:
There isn’t much else I could find on Kay Foster and I couldn’t find a picture of Kay Foster showing off her famous legs. From her heyday, however, here’s a nice clipping of her from July of 1940 when she was appearing in Cleveland, Ohio:
Moving on to another forgotten songstress, next up is Ruth McCullough. Again, we find another obituary from the Washington Post but this time it’s June 18, 2001:
Ruth McCullough Dyer, 80
Ruth McCullough Dyer, 80, a Washington and former Hyattsville resident who under the name Ruth McCullough had been a singer with big bands in the 1940s, died of congestive heart failure June 15 at a hospital in San Diego. She had lived in San Diego since leaving the Washington area in 1995.
Mrs. Dyer, a graduate of Eastern High School and the Washington School for Secretaries, began singing professionally as a teenager. After singing with such local groups as the Rod Raffell band in the 1930s, she went to New York. There, she performed with the Sonny Dunham and Isham Jones bands as well as the Mitchellaires before joining the Tony Pastor Band.
Pastor, himself a novelty singer whose work often highlighted his Italian heritage, led a band until 1959. In the early and mid-1940s, Mrs. Dyer was a leading singer with the band, recording such hits as “Bell Bottom Trousers.” Other songs she recorded with the band included “I’m Beginning to See the Light” and “Walk a Little, Talk a Little.” Another song the band recorded featured Mrs. Dyer and her husband, Richard Dyer, on vocals. He was a singer and trumpet player with the band.
In addition to singing with the Pastor Band, Mrs. Dyer also had opened for her friends the Andrews Sisters on some of their singing engagements. When Mrs. Dyer left the Pastor Band in 1946 to raise a family, she was replaced by two Ohio sisters, Betty and Rosemary Clooney.
Mrs. Dyer was a member of St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Hyattsville.
Her husband, whom she married in 1944, died in 1989.
Survivors include two sons, James and Steven Dyer, both of San Diego; a daughter, Joan Marks of Spotsylvania, Va.; and four grandchildren.
Note that the obituary mentions Ruth McCullough was another singer who had recorded with Tony Pastor. The main song they mention is “Bell Bottom Trousers”:
“Bell Bottom Trousers” is the only entry that Discogs has for Ruth McCullough despite her obituary mentioning other recordings with Tony Pastor. The obituary does mention that Ruth McCullough recorded “I’m Beginning To See The Light” with Pastor but I could only find a live version that appeared on an album of live songs released on the Onwards To Yesterday Label. The album is “Tony Pastor And His Orchestra – (1945-49) Selections Never Before On Record”:
From that album comes “I’m Beginning To See The Light” with an air date of March 13, 1945:
Keeping with Tony Pastor, I found another recording of Ruth McCullough on “Walk A Little, Talk A Little”:
In 1944 Ruth McCullough was performing with Sonny Dunham and his Orchestra. I do not believe they made any recordings together but there exists a recording of a radio performance that Ruth did with Sonny Dunham from the Hollywood Palladium on August 17th, 1944. The song is “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” and appears on the album “One Night Stand With Sonny Dunham.” The majority of the album is devoted to Sonny Dunham’s appearance at the Hotel New Yorker on July 16th, 1945 but the last three tracks on the second side of the album are from the Palladium date. Here’s Ruth McCullough singing “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City”. Pay particular attention to that song title because it will surface again in this blahg.
I found another listing for the song “Shoo-Shoo Baby” which Ruth McCullough performed with Mitchell Ayres and His Fashions in Music. I don’t know the date of this performance, although it appears to be from a live radio show, and I could only find one release containing that version. It is a CD put out by the Collector’s Choice label appropriate titled “Spotlighting Mitchell Ayres and His Fashions In Music”:
The song can be heard on YouTube:
I could find no other songs related to Ruth McCullough but found this lovely picture of her when she was appearing with Tony Pastor in 1945:
I mentioned earlier in this blahg that Kay Foster recorded a song called “On A Simmery Summery Day” with Tony Pastor. I couldn’t find that recording but in my research I turned up a version sung by Sally Richards, the next artist to be featured in this blahg. Before we get into any information about Sally, here’s her recording of “On A Simmery Summery Day” with Tommy Reynolds and His Orchestra from 1940:
Sally Richards recorded a number of sides with Tommy Reynolds and His Orchestra. Below is what I could piece together as a discography of the tunes Richards and Reynolds recorded together. In this discography, vSR represents a vocal by Sally Richards.
From this discography we can see that Richards performed vocal on 13 songs during her time with Tommy Reynolds. From her first session, February 28th, 1940, here is “Whispering Grass”:
From her second session with Reynolds on April 17th, 1940, I’ll offer up “Sierra Sue” and “I Can’t Love You Any More”:
From the May 14th, 1940 session that brought “On A Simmery Summery Day” comes “I Love To Watch The Moonlight” followed by a YouTube Audio/Video of “The Sailor With The Navy Blue Eyes” from June 10th, 1940:
From her final session with the Tommy Reynolds Orchestra are her last two recordings. The first is a YouTube Audio/Video of “Stop Pretending” followed by the audio for “I’ll Tell It To The Breeze”
So, who was Sally Richards? Where did she come from? What happened to her? I can find very little information about her. Here’s a quote from a website entry on Tommy Reynolds and His Orchestra: “Sally Richards had taken over as the band’s female vocalist, and Gene Sanders was hired as male singer that June; they were replaced by Mary Ann McCall and Ralph Young, respectively, no later than September.” I found references to her up in Boston in 1946 appearing at a couple of nightclubs but nothing substantive. I couldn’t find an obituary nor any photos when she was with Tommy Reynolds. There was a Sally Richards making the rounds in 1934 and 1935 as a blues singer. Check out the advertisement to the left from February 12th, 1934 in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Sally Richards, Blues Singer, was on the bill at the Breen Hotel Winter Gardens. If anyone knows anything else about Sally Richards, let me know. For now, we’ll have to leave off with Sally.
Dorothy Claire, my next entry, had more recognition than our previous songbirds. She even has a Wikpedia entry, although very limited:
Dorothy Claire (born Marietta Wright, January 5, 1925) is an American former singer on Broadway and with big bands.
Early years
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Wright, Claire was born in La Porte, Indiana. At age 4, she began singing, joining her sisters to form a trio that performed at parties and on WSBT radio in South Bend, Indiana. She later attended La Porte High School, where she was a cheerleader.[1] Career
Orchestra leader Ayars Lamar hired Claire as a singer when she was 16, changing her name from Marietta Wright to Dorothy Claire. Two of her sisters later adopted that last name for their own professional work. She debuted professionally when she appeared with Lamar’s orchestra in Indianapolis at the Indiana Roof. She went on to sing for notable band leaders including Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Sonny Dunham, and Bob Crosby. Her rendition of “Perfidia” with Miller’s orchestra sold more than 1 million records.
Breaking away from orchestras, Claire began singing in night clubs in Chicago, including Chez Paree and The Palmer House, then performed at the Copacabana in New York. She sang on Bing Crosby’s radio program and on Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club. She also had her own program on radio station WJZ in New York City and toured in vaudeville. Her work on television included appearances with Jack Carter and Paul Winchell.
On Broadway, Claire performed in Face the Music (1932), Finian’s Rainbow (1947) and Jimmy (1969).
Further research on the Bandchirps.com website added the following:
As the 1950s rolled around, Claire began billing herself as both a singer and a comedienne. She played heavily on the nightclub circuit and in 1950 also began appearing regularly on television’s The Paul Winchell Show. She made guest appearances on many other television programs as well. She continued performing into the 1970s, mainly in nightclubs, also appearing in two films, as a singing prostitute in Cat Ballou (1965) and in the low budget 1970 Lenny Bruce biopic Dirtymouth. Dorothy Claire passed away in 1982, age 62.
On another site there was information from a cousin who added “Dorothy moved back to LaPorte in the late 1970s and opened her own restaurant, “Dorothy Claire’s Place.” She passed away in the mid 1980s. ‘She was a great lady.’ “ The following is a discography that I found at https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/308658/Claire_Dorothy:
Recordings
Company
First Recording Date
Title
Primary Performer
Description
Role
Victor
2/19/1941
A little old church in England
Dorothy Claire ; Ray Eberle ; Glenn Miller Orchestra ; Modernaires
Jazz/dance band, with female-male vocal duet and male vocal quartet
vocalist
Victor
2/19/1941
Perfidia
Dorothy Claire ; Glenn Miller Orchestra ; Modernaires
Jazz/dance band, with female vocal solo and male vocal quartet
vocalist
Victor
2/20/1941
The air minded executive
Tex Beneke ; Dorothy Claire ; Glenn Miller Orchestra
Jazz/dance band, with female-male vocal duet
vocalist
Decca
12/14/1939
Two little doodle bugs
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
12/14/1939
How many times?
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
2/14/1940
Easy does it
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
2/14/1940
Busy as a bee
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
4/2/1940
‘Deed I do
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
4/2/1940
If I could be the dummy on your knee
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
4/2/1940
Slow freight
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
6/24/1940
Can’t get Indiana off my mind
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
6/24/1940
Stop pretending
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
7/19/1940
That’s for me
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
9/4/1940
Take care (of you for me)
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
4/29/1941
Nighty night
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
4/29/1941
I found a million-dollar baby
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
6/18/1941
You started something
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
6/18/1941
Down, down, down
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
Decca
7/18/1941
It’s you again
Bobby Byrne Orchestra
vocalist
The earliest entry in the discography is from December 14th, 1939 with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra when she recorded “Two Little Doodle Bugs” and “How Many Times.” Here they are:
Dorothy Claire continued to record with Bobby Byrne and His Orchestra in 1940 and 1941. I want to offer up some well known songs performed by Dorothy Claire. Here are ” ‘Deed I Do” and another version of “Stop Pretending” from YouTube which you can compare to the one I posted above recorded by Sally Richards.
Here are a couple of her 1941 recordings with Bobby Byrne. From April 29th, 1941 we have “I Found A Million Dollar Baby”, on which she duets with Stuart Wade, and her last recording with Byrne from July 18, 1941, “It’s You Again.”
Dorothy Claire’s obituary information mentions her time with Glenn Miller but the discography only details three recordings, “A Little Old Church In England,” “The Air Minded Executive,” and her million copy selling rendition of “Perfidia.” Here are the three recordings she did with Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.
There exists a radio recording of Dorothy Claire’s first live appearance with Glenn Miller and His Orchestra on January 11, 1941 from the Cafe Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania in midtown Manhattan. In it, Dorothy Claire performs “Swingin’ at the Seance.” Here it is from YouTube:
I found the following photo of Dorothy Claire when she was a vocalist with Boyd Raeburn and his Orchestra. I believe that Dorothy was with Raeburn around 1944.
The only recording that I could find of Dorothy Claire with Boyd Raeburn and His Orchestra was a V-Disc she did with his outfit in 1944. Here’s a YouTube Audio/Video of the song “Who Started Love?” with Dorthy Claire and Boyd Raeburn as well as the flip-side featuring Harry James on “Crazy Rhythm.”
I could not find any other recordings of Dorothy Claire with Boyd Raeburn but I did find that she recorded at least 4 songs around 1947 with Emmett Carls and his Orchestra. Here are “Love Makes The World Go Round,” “The Coffee Song,” “Sooner Or Later,” and “Does Your Heart Beat For Me?”
Dorothy Claire also sang with Sonny Dunham’s band around 1943 and 1944 but the only recordings I could find were issued on a CD on the Circle label, shown at left. The two songs on the CD sung by Dorothy Claire are “Wo Ho” and “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City.” “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” was presented earlier in this blahg as a live radio transcription of Ruth McCullough singing it with Sonny Dunham. The band is the same this time but the vocal is by Dorothy Claire. Luckily someone has uploaded these to YouTube:
The only information I could find about these two recordings of Dorothy Claire with Sonny Dunham comes from the back of the CD: “Originally recorded for Lang – Worth Transcription in New York City December 21, 1943.” This means that Dorothy Claire sang “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” with Sonny Dunham almost eight months before Ruth McCullough warbled it live with Dunham at the Hollywood Palladium in August of 1944. Other versions of “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” have been recorded by Julie London and Peggy Lee. Julie London’s version makes you wonder why this blues song has all but disappeared. Dorothy Claire’s version of “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” is a good note to end off her entry here and move on to another by picking up a thread inspired by the same song.
When I was researching the song “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City,” I came across another version recorded by a singer by the name of “Frantic” Fay Thomas. Here again is another singer that seems to have been lost to time. Again, however, she is someone with a limited Wikipedia entry:
Fannie Crawford (September 14, 1922 – July 5, 1978), known as “Frantic” Fay Thomas, was an American pianist and vocalist. She recorded for Exclusive Records in the 1949.
As a teenager, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan. Her father Elijah Crawford and her brother Bayless Crawford were cooks. On March 12, 1940, she married George Thomas in Cleveland, Ohio.
Thomas began performing at Detroit’s Four Horsemen Club in 1940. She was discovered by Earl Carroll, who gave her the stage name “Frantic Fay.” Thomas was featured with Earl Carroll’s Vanities in the spring of 1944 and played eight months at Harry’s Show Bar in Detroit. She was managed by Delbridge & Gorrell. Thomas played piano by ear. Billboard magazine described her style as “individual, with a jive touch,” adding that “she is at her very best in an interpretation of the deep blues.” Through the 1940s, she had appearances at hotels and bars around the country.
In 1949, Thomas recorded four songs for Leon René’s Exclusive Records in Los Angeles: “I’m In Town,” “Waga-Waga,” “I Don’t Want Your Money, Honey,” and “Lover Man.” Her first single “Waga-Waga” / “I Don’t Want Your Money, Honey,” was released in June 1949. Reviewing the single, Billboard wrote: “New thrush-88er packs a dynamite live style with something of Rose Murphy and Nellie Lutcher and plenty of her own. Her piano work is of pro caliber, too. The record “I Don’t Want Your Money, Honey” was Cash Box magazine’s Race Disk O’ The Week. They noted that track was a “surefire clickeroo if ever there was one. Jut listen to this gal skim thru the 88’s and gurgle, chuckle, giggle and sing, and make more sounds than you’ve heard in a month of Sundays.” The single did well in local markets, but it did not chart nationally. Her second single, “I’m In Town” / “Lover Man,” was released in September 1949. Later that year, Thomas had another session with Exclusive and recorded four more songs. The single “Thinking Of You” / “I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City” was released in December. That month, Exclusive declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in January 1950. Thomas never released another record.
In the 1950s, Thomas performed gigs around California. She married Lonnie I. Riggs in 1954. By the 1960s, Thomas had relocated back to Detroit; she performed around the Midwest. She died in Detroit on July 5, 1978. Years after her death, Thomas’ songs were featured in the soundtracks of a few movies. “I’m In Town” was used in the films Men Of Honor (2000), Lonely Hearts (2006), and Trumbo (2015). One of her unreleased Exclusive tracks, “I Only Want You” was used in the films Lovelife (1997) and Second Skin (2000).
The author of the website, http://www.uncamarvy.com/FranticFayThomas/franticfaythomas.html, Marv Goldman, supplies a little more information about Fay Thomas but even admits there isn’t much out there to draw on. So, I’m going to focus on the music. Her Wikipedia entry states that in 1949, “Thomas recorded four songs for Leon René’s Exclusive Records in Los Angeles: “I’m In Town,” “Waga-Waga,” “I Don’t Want Your Money, Honey,” and “Lover Man.” Here are three of those songs:
Unfortunately I could not find a source from which to stream “Lover Man.” Her later 1940 session at Exclusive Records produced “Thinking of You” and the aforementioned “I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City.” Here are those two songs:
The Wikipedia entry for Fay Thomas also mentioned that “one of her unreleased Exclusive tracks, “I Only Want You” was used in the films Lovelife (1997) and Second Skin (2000).” Here is Faye Thomas’ rendition of “I Only Want You”:
There isn’t much else to say about Fay Thomas. Even Marv Goldman from his website ends with these words:
“I like Fay Thomas’s music; I wish she’d made more recordings (and I really wish she weren’t so difficult to research). There were relatively few documented appearances and sometimes huge amounts of time elapsed between them. (This is really strange because she never seemed to have gotten a negative review.) She must have been working somewhere, else how could she support herself? Frantic Fay Thomas: a true enigma.”
I guess I can’t add anything more.
Getting back to the female big band vocalists, I want to first offer up the following video. It is a Soundie that was filmed August 2nd, 1943:
The band in this short is Johnny Long and His Orchestra and the girl singer is Helen Young. She will be my final entry in this blahg. Here’s a nice photo of Helen Young when she was associated with Johnny Long:
The earliest listing here are for two sides she did with Ted Hanson and His Normandie Orchestra in 1934. Here are those two songs, “I Met My Waterloo” and “My Old Flame”:
It was difficult to find any biographical information on Helen Young. I had to start by searching old newspapers and I found an article from the Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Massachusetts, from December 4th, 1935 that provides some good information on the then young singer
Working ahead, I found the following information from the April 10, 1943 issue of Billboard:
DAVIES- YOUNG -Cpl. Ogden Davies, former member of Johnny Long’s ork, to Helen Young, vocalist with the same band, last year in New York, it was revealed last week.
Having now established that she was married to Ogden Davies, I was able to track down Helen Young’s obituary:
I found that obituary in the September 19, 1966 issue of “Broadcasting – The Business Weekly of Television and Radio.” Searching a little more, I found a full obituary published in the September 8th, 1966 edition of The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania:
It is sad that she died so young. Her longer obituary mentions her singing with the Raymond Scott Orchestra but I could not find any recordings that she did with that band. Raymond Scott did have a radio program in the fall of 1943 and I found reference to four shows where Helen sang the following songs: “In my arms,” “You’re Either Too Young or Too Old,” “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” and “Put Your arms Around Me.” Unfortunately I could not find anywhere to stream these programs.
Helen Young’s longest association with any band was with Johnny Long’s Orchestra from 1937 to 1942. The video I posted earlier in this blahg of Helen Young with Johnny Long’s Orchestra performing “My Girl Loves A Sailor” is only one of a few videos on YouTube attributed to Young and Long. Here’s another entitled “Daddy”:
This next video is audio only, another Soundie, this time from October of 1943, with Helen Young and Bob Huston singing “Let’s Get Away From It All” with Johnny Long and his Orchestra:
According to “The Soundies Book – A Revised and Expanded Guide to the ‘Music Videos’ of the 1940s” by Scott MacGillivray and Ted Okuda, Helen Young appeared in other Soundies with Johnny Long including “Johnny Peddler” March 1941, “Swingin’ at the Seance” from May of 1941 (yes, the same song that Dorothy Claire performed live with Glenn Miller in January of 1941), as well as the aforementioned “Let’s Get Away From It All” and “My Girl Loves A Sailor.” I could not find a place to stream “Johnny Peddler”or “Swingin’ at the Seance.”
The remainder of the selections I will offer up now are from Helen Young’s recording years with Johnny Long. From her first session with Long in 1940, here are “Stars Over The Campus” and “Swing Me Bach”:
From May of 1941 come two selections, “Miss Johnson Phoned Again Today” and “I Take To You”:
And finally two selections from July of 1942 before Helen Young left Johnny Long’s Orchestra. Here are “Constantly” and “Why Don’t You Fall In Love With Me?”:
Helen Young had a pleasant voice but if you look at the titles of her songs, they were mostly novelty tunes with hardly a standard among the songs she recorded with Johnny Long. There is one exception, her singing on the ballad song “I Give You My Word” of October of 1940 is beautiful. I just wish she had recorded more of these types of songs.
In case you’re wondering about the 1934 recordings that Helen Young did with Ted Hanson and His Normandie Orchestra, she would have had to have been 13 or 14 when she recorded those. Maybe she did or maybe it’s a different Helen Young. Take it all with a grain of salt.
I hope you enjoyed this blahg. I try to do my best to cobble together information from different sources to provide an enjoyable reading experience. I learned from my three blahgs on Linda Keene that there is information to be found if you dig for it. There’s also great music out there if you only look for it. Check out some of the other recordings of the great singers I’ve presented here. Time may have forgotten them but in this blahg, at least, I’ve heralded their return.
Unlike Mel Brooks’ “History of the World, Part 1,” some things having to do with the world do get a sequel. The day before Christmas in 2012 I wrote a blahg with the title WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD? and thought I would not need to revisit the theme. Little did I know that almost 9 years later I would be thinking about those words again…or rather uttering them out loud. I thought it was time to ask the question again and to see if my solutions have held up or if I have better ones to offer.
My blahg last time had to do with the Sandy Hook massacre and other world issues as well as the fact that someone had hacked my website and inserted malicious code. Here’s what I offered up as solutions at that time:
So what can we do to make this world a better place? Speak out! Everyone has an opinion and a voice and it’s your duty to speak out against injustice and stupidity. Many voices raised in song have done better to heal than those who sit at the back of the room and just mouth the lyrics…The last time I checked, we are all free to be. Free to be whatever we wanted, believe what we wanted, worship how we wanted, love how we wanted. You get the message…Look at your loved ones, your relatives, your friends, and tell me you wouldn’t want more time with them if it meant giving up your stubborn opinions. I think we all know the answer to that. Let’s move on…There are some good things in this world. There is love and family and laughter and we need to embrace it during these troubling times. I don’t want to be preachy but sometimes we forget to think of all we are blessed with.
I could go on listing all of the problems in the world and war and death and Covid 19 but I think everyone is tired of hearing about it. I’d rather focus on the solutions.
News flash. I don’t have any solutions. I thought love, laughter, and happiness were the cure-alls but many people don’t have those in their lives. Sometimes when I’m looking for an answer, I turn to music. You know a lot of my blahgs are full of music and I thought I would look at some songs that give inspiration or hope or maybe offer up some suggestions that might lead to solutions.
I really like the artist, Sara Groves. I discovered her from the soundtrack to the movie “The Ultimate Gift.” If you want to see a really inspirational movie, check it out. I’m not going to use her song “Something Changed”, from that movie, in this scenario because it’s more a religious experience and one person’s religion should be that one person’s religion. I’ve been thinking more lately about her song “Roll To The Middle.” Essentially the song is about a couple who just had a huge fight and the singer is wondering how they will get beyond the hurt. Part of the lyrics go “All the complicated wars, they end pretty simple. Here when the lights go down, we roll to the middle.” Rolling to the middle is where we find compromise and begin to heal. Here’s the video to that song:
I’m going to be a little sappy for a moment. “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong is uplifting as well. It’s not about “What’s Wrong With The World?” but more about What’s Right. I won’t go on about it but will instead offer up a live performance of Louis singing the song. Not only is the song infectious but Louis’ smile could melt a hardened heart down to butter.
I’m going to sneak The Weepies in here. Readers of my blahgs, if there are any, know that I’m a huge fan of Steven Tannen and Deb Talan, husband and wife team, better known as The Weepies. The following video is for the song “The World Spins Madly On,” which is true but it fits the theme.
The song that cheers me the most is their song, “I Was Made For Sunny Days.” I used to hear this song piped into a local thrift store and found myself singing along. I’ve seen The Weepies twice in concert but I can’t remember if they sang this song. At the core is the theme that sunny days are better than grey days.
I could go on filling this blahg with songs that mean well and mean a lot to me but we might disagree on some of these. The last song is one I think we can all agree on. It’s just fun and it was part of our culture and our history. If you don’t like the Monkees then look away but it doesn’t matter because they’re too busy singing to put anybody down.
Okay, okay, just one more. I know you didn’t ask for it but if I’m going to put forward one more World song then it has to be the one that’s so basic in message that we shouldn’t forget. It’s a Coca Cola commercial and I’m not a fan of the drink but the song “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” still packs a punch.
The world is full of hate and fear and confusion and depression and loathing and terrorism and nepotism and nimbyism (look it up) and shouting and crying and living and dying. But those are all words. Chop up the words and they’re just letters and those letters spell better things like loving and hope and resilience and caring and trust and future. Try it for yourself. Take all the bad words and twist them around to make good ones.
I was looking for something to end this blahg with that wasn’t a song. I looked back through my own writing, even further back than the original blahg WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?, and I found a poem that I wrote on March 25th, 1986. Surprisingly, it’s about taking apart words to find an all purpose cure. I don’t know what that cure is or what you’ll use it for but if you put in the effort to make positive change then the result is its own reward. Try not to read too much into the poem. I was 23 at the time and the following year I would be married and on another March 25th, being 1994, my son would be born. Take apart the poem if you like and reuse the words. Kinder words spread thicker than all the negative comments stacked together.
AN ALL PURPOSE CURE
Don’t think I
don’t care about
all the world’s illnesses
because I do and
I want to do something about them.
It’s not all physical
I know
but then all the answers
aren’t either.
It’s not all broken bodies
and worn out organs
and dead tissues
but then all the cures
aren’t whole.
I think I’ve got a cure
that’ll better any problem
but it involves some work
and I’m not sure it
might not cure things
you want left as are.
If you could chop up this poem
and swallow it
letter by letter
maybe it would spell out
and all-purpose cure
and surprise you with
the good it can do
In this poem
is every letter you’d need
to help you
and if it could survive
minor digestion
then maybe you’ll be alright
I know it’s a chance
but just being alive
is one of those
and who knows
if it might not give you something to believe in;
but that’s relying on
intelligence being a disease – q.z.x.
It’s been three weeks since that little poke in the arm laid me out flat. You can read more about all of that in my previous blahg ASTRAZENECA VACCINE — MY CAUTIONARY TALE. I don’t want to revisit that but now that they’ve halted AstraZeneca, I’m not sure what will be my second dose. Hopefully, whatever it is, it won’t make me ill. I’m moving on.
Recently, I was contacted by a fellow Canadian, currently in England, who had read my AstraZeneca blahg as well as a previous blahg that I wrote in October of 2011 about Frank Sinatra at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in September of 1984. That previous blahg was SINATRA ALMOST GOT ME KILLED and you’ll really have to read that blahg in order to understand the title. The blahg was more about my experience with the concert and not Sinatra’s or Toronto’s experience. My Canadian colleague was doing some research on that concert and had emailed me about some articles from that time period. In responding, I realized there was really more of a back-story to the 1984 concert that had to be taken into consideration. So, I’ve decided that this blahg will be the chance to provide more insight into the 1984 concert and why Sinatra was behind the eight-ball before he even appeared on stage.
In the email, explaining about the back-story, I had only backed up to 1983 and explained some of the events leading up to the 1984 concert. To be fair, I need to back up as far as 1949 so I can provide true context. A quick note about 1940 and 1941 would provide even more insight. This is all about Sinatra in Toronto and his first appearance with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was at the CNE in September of 1940. The band would play from September 4th-7th, 1940. Sinatra would not receive credit in any of the news clippings during his appearance at the CNE. Here’s one of the ads that ran in the Toronto Star on September 5, 1940. You can click on the advertisement to view a larger image.
A rare 15 minute radio transcription of Sinatra and Dorsey’s performance from September 5th, 1940, the same day as the above advertisement, has recently surfaced. Give it a listen:
The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra with Sinatra would return to the CNE again in August of 1941. That year, it was only for two days on August 22nd and 23rd, 1941. Again, Sinatra’s name would not appear in local media advertisements. The following ad appeared in the Globe and Mail, Toronto, August 21st, 1941.
By September of 1942, September 3rd, 1942 being his last day, Sinatra had left Dorsey and the band did not play the CNE in Toronto that year. Dorsey and Sinatra would only make one Canadian stop in 1942 and that was on May 6th at the Forum in Montreal.
Are you still wondering about 1949? Wait no longer. The explanation is that Sinatra’s first appearance as solo vocalist in Toronto was at the Mutual Arena on August 7th and 8th, 1949. It had been eight years since his last visit to Toronto at the CNE in August of 1941. Finally, Sinatra would make a two evening performance in the city.
Reviews for Sinatra at the Mutual Arena were good.
One article even mentioned Sinatra’s previous Toronto appearance with Dorsey in 1941:
Sinatra even got his picture in the Globe and Mail newspaper on July 8th, 1949 noting how he flew in to a local airport and was met by fans and still how it had been eight years since he was last in Toronto.
And you’re probably still asking, “what’s the significance about 1949?” Well, I’ll tell you. After the 1949 concert, Sinatra would not return to Toronto until 1975. Yes, 26 years would pass before Sinatra would perform again in Toronto. During those 26 years Sinatra had appeared from February 6th to 15th, 1953 at the Chez Paree in Montreal and gave two concerts at the Vancouver Forum in Vancouver on June 8th, 1957. The 1957 Vancouver concert would be issued on CD on the Acrobat label in 2010, mistaking the venue as the Orpheum, and is a splendid example of the 1950s swinging Sinatra. Toronto missed out on the swinging 1950s Sinatra and the 1960s Summit Sinatra with pals Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. When Sinatra retired in 1971, it probably left Sinatra fans thinking they would never see the great singer perform in their city again. It would be a new generation or maybe the old generation waiting for him to come back.
Jump to 1975 and on January 28th, the Toronto Star runs a two part article announcing Sinatra’s return to Toronto on May 10th. The first part would mention Sinatra’s 25 year absence from Toronto. The second part of the article would talk about the absence and some animosity towards Sinatra.
The Toronto Star ran a full-page spread on Sinatra on May 5th, 1975 and provided some details about the previous 1949 appearance in Toronto. You could tell by the article that some excitement was building regarding his appearance and that it was in part due to his long absence from the city.
The stage was set for an exciting evening.
So what went wrong? It started with an editorial by Gary Lautens in the Toronto Star on February 25th, 1975; less than a month after it had been announced that Sinatra would appear at Maple Leaf Gardens in May.
Mr. Lautens wanted to dig up the whole issue Sinatra had had with the press in the past.
Then there was the issue with tickets. Before tickets went on sale, most of the top seats were already gone:
But that issue was quickly solved by Sinatra agreeing to add another show on May 10th.
Of course there was that “50-cent service charge” added to tickets that made some people angry. It was the issues of service charges and ticket scarcity that made some angry but the press wasn’t finished with Mr. Sinatra.
On the day of the concert, May 10, 1975, an incident of violence was reported in The Toronto Star:
This was the type of press Sinatra didn’t need. Gary Lautens had already taken on Sinatra about violence towards reporters and now it was being alleged that Sinatra’s bodyguards were attacking media persons. So what was Sinatra to do? Well, he gave his concert that people paid to see and hear but he also took the opportunity to call out the media and suggest that the punching incident never happened.
The Canadian Press wire service even picked up the thread and published a picture and article of Sinatra holding a copy of the Toronto Star before ripping it up to cheers from the audience.
Of course, the media took shots at Sinatra as well in their reviews of the two concerts. The Globe and Mail said Sinatra was a “vocal has-been” but acknowledged that he still held sway with his fans:
Two days later, on May 12th, 1975 the Globe and Mail acknowledged even more so that Sinatra was no “has-been” to his fans:
On May 12th, the Toronto Star also finally got around to covering Sinatra’s appearance by publishing a full page with three articles and photos. The articles covered everything from the fan adoration, the press thinking Sinatra’s performance was lacking, and that punch or no punch incident.
Frank Sinatra would return to Toronto later in 1975 to perform at the CNE on August 21st. Just a few months after the May concert and none of the articles make reference to any of the issues that occurred while Sinatra had appeared at Maple Leaf Gardens.
There was no mention of the earlier 1975 concerts or the problems associated with Sinatra’s appearance at Maple Leaf Gardens. This was the first time that Sinatra had appeared at the CNE since his 1941 performances with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Even the reviews of Sinatra at the CNE in 1975 were better. The Toronto Star said this was the concert he should have performed at the Gardens earlier that year.
The Globe and Mail also praised Sinatra at the CNE:
Definitely, the CNE was a better venue for Sinatra in 1975.
Sinatra came back again to Maple Leaf Gardens on May 1st of 1976 with very little fanfare.
Reviews were mixed again for his 1976 engagement at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Notice that The Star felt Sinatra had given a better performance at the CNE the previous year. The CNE Grandstand was an open-air venue where the Gardens had been closed in. Was that the secret of his success? The Globe and Mail gave a similar review:
So now we get to what went wrong with the 1984 CNE concert. Sinatra had performed well and the reviews were good for his August 1975 concert at the CNE compared to the ones he performed at Maple Leaf Gardens. But 1984 is a considerable time after 1975 and 1976. Again, people were starting to wonder if Sinatra was ever coming back to Toronto. The rumour of his return started again in 1983 and concluded with a scheduled date in 1983. On June 3rd, 1983, Peter Goddard with the Toronto Star reported on rumours of Sinatra appearing at the CNE in 1983 although Sinatra’s office denied any plans of Sinatra returning to the CNE that year:
By June 30th, 1983, both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail reported that Sinatra was indeed appearing at the CNE in 1983 and the date had been set for August 27th:
On August 5th, however, it was announced that Sinatra had to cancel, or postpone, his performance at the CNE that year.
To be fair, Sinatra did not have another gig on August 27th of 1983. Sinatra’s last summer performance was at the Universal Amphitheatre on June 19, 1983 and he would not perform again until September 20th at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. There was one exception and that was August 5th at the Sporting Club in Monte-Carlo, Monaco which was a benefit for the Red Cross and he performed with his pal, Sammy Davis Jr.
I have yet to find any other reason for Sinatra’s cancellation of the 1983 CNE appearance but his cancellation started to raise a furor in Toronto.
The first suggestion of any backlash over the cancellation of the 1983 concert started with an article in the Toronto Star on August 11th, 1983.
Bob Yuill the North York Controller was the one spouting off. Remember the name Bob Yuill because his voice will be heard again in 1984 when Sinatra returned again to the CNE. It should be noted that not everyone associated with the CNE was as angry as Bob Yuill. David Garrick, with the CNE Entertainment Committee, and the person who was responsible for booking Sinatra at the CNE in 1975, wrote a letter to the Toronto Star disagreeing with Bob Yuill’s position.
Garrick’s rebuttal of Yuill seemed to quiet things down because there was no further mention of Sinatra or even a Sinatra ban during the rest of 1983.
In April of 1984 the first rumour started that the CNE was looking to have Sinatra back in 1984. On April 11th, 1984 Sinatra’s name appeared briefly in a Toronto Star article reporting on possible acts for the 1984 CNE:
On July 18, 1984, the Toronto Star announced Sinatra’s appearance at the CNE that year to be official. The date was set for a September 2nd concert by Sinatra but the Toronto Star still had to drag out some of the press issues Sinatra had prior to the 1975 concert at Maple Leaf Gardens:
Ticket prices were much higher for Sinatra in 1984 with the top seats going for $75 compared to the top price of $25 when he last appeared in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1976. Notice as well that Bob Yuill’s name popped again with Yuill doubting that Sinatra would follow through with his September concert. He was even waging money that Sinatra would not appear. The Toronto Star followed up with another article on July 19th dedicated to Yuill’s skepticism toward Sinatra’s concert at the CNE:
The wagering of money offered by Yuill was taken up by someone two days later as noted in an article in the Toronto Star on July 20th, 1984
This time, Frank Sinatra’s defender was Bill Ballard who was head of the Concert Productions International who had booked Sinatra into the CNE for 1984. Bill Ballard was also the son of Harold Ballard who was instrumental in booking Sinatra into Maple Leaf Gardens in 1975. Even fans came to Sinatra’s defence and asked that things be left to the past. The following letter to the Editor of the Toronto Star appeared on July 27th, 1984:
Tickets finally went on sale on on July 30th, 1984:
In my previous blahg about the 1984 concert, SINATRA ALMOST GOT ME KILLED, I detailed my ordeal to secure tickets to this concert. It’s a fun read and since I’ve mentioned that blahg and linked to it twice in this blahg, then you really should check it out. Despite my own issue with trying to obtain a ticket to the concert, the issues that plagued fans at previous concerts didn’t seem to occur in 1984. One fan was happy he only had to wait 4.5 hours to get his ticket. This article comes from the August 3rd, 1984 edition of the Toronto Star:
The remaining articles leading up to Sinatra’s appearance were relegated to advertisements and nothing critical from Bob Yuill nor anything more about his possible wager with Bill Ballard.
I don’t think I’ll detail much more than I’ve said about the actual concert. If you haven’t checked out my previous blahg, SINATRA ALMOST GOT ME KILLED, now plugging it for a third time, then I’ll re-post what I said then about the concert:
The concert was great despite what you can read in the reviews. Here was Sinatra, in the pouring rain, no protection, with lightning flashing all around, and him just singing as if this was all commonplace to him. I kept thinking “my god, he’s standing in a puddle, it’s pissing down rain, and he’s holding a metal stand, he’s going to get electrocuted.” If there’s anything to the old adage that the show must go on, Sinatra lived by it. It was as if nothing phased him. He sang some of the songs from his new album, “L.A. Is My Lady” and thrilled the audience with some great standards. I think the greatest thrills were when he sang songs that mentioned the rain. When he sang “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “Pennies From Heaven” with the opening line, ‘Every time it rains, it rains, pennies from heaven’, more cheers went up from the crowd than when he belted out “New York, New York.” The only thing that would have made it perfect was if he had performed “September in the Rain” or “Stormy Weather.”
The whole concert only lasted 46 minutes. Sinatra left the stage and within a minute, you could see his limo, followed by a police car, driving off to drier parts unknown. Many people were upset about the shortness of the concert but not me. I had almost died and I had gotten soaked by rain but those were the only downsides. In the plus column, I had lived, I had made it to the concert, I had sat beside a beautiful girl, and I had seen and heard Sinatra live in concert. I had no complaints.
I still don’t think I could have summed it up better than that. I mentioned that opening line of “Pennies From Heaven” and this is what it sounded like almost 37 years ago. This is actually Sinatra singing “Pennies From Heaven” at the CNE on September 2nd, 1984:
If you thought the storm on the night of the concert was bad enough, the storm of bad press that followed the concert took everything to the next level. The review from the Toronto Star on September 3rd, 1984 tried to be kind but hinted at the anger towards Sinatra:
The Toronto Star also devoted their front page of the September 3rd edition to the problems associated with the shortened concert and how fans felt:
The Globe & Mail’s coverage was very much like the Toronto Star’s leaning on the disappointment of the fans:
Notice that in the Globe & Mail article from September 3rd, that the North York Controller is mentioned but this time it’s Esther Shiner. Was there more than one North York Controller? The Globe & Mail at least published a defence of Sinatra by the CNE in the September 4th edition:
Risking his life in a thunderstorm by holding a microphone? Didn’t I say that? Of course the Globe & Mail had to add their two cents worth about that issue in the September 5th issue:
The United Press article from September 8th, 1984 was even less kind:
The Toronto Star, meanwhile, published an article on September 4th that highlighted the blame game of who was not taking responsibility for the problems with the concert, putting some of the blame on Sinatra, and even invoked Bob Yuill’s name again:
And what of Bob Yuill? He obviously lost his bet that Sinatra would not appear. In the same September 4th edition of the Toronto Star, Bob Yuill is heard from again and this time he’s proposing another ban on Sinatra:
Of course Bob Yuill did not get his ban. Personally, I can understand the anger of some fans but Bob Yuill had complimentary tickets so what did he have to complain about? Me? I was one fan who was happy. But what did other fans think of the concert? Here are some the letters to the Editor of the Toronto Star:
For the record, I think Roger Wyatt is mostly correct. In 1975 Sinatra was heralded for his appearance at the CNE but it didn’t rain then. If Sinatra had appeared indoors, maybe not Maple Leaf Gardens, then the story would have been quite different. Other fans continued to support Sinatra:
The question about whether Sinatra would be invited back or if Bob Yuill would have his way was finally answered in a Globe & Mail article on November 22, 1984:
There was one more article that dealt with some disgruntled fans who had organized a rally to try and get refunds. The following article from the Globe & Mail on September 24th sums up how that fizzled out:
So what have we learned from all of this? Toronto had a love/hate relationship with Sinatra. Certainly the press never made it easy for him. His long absence from Toronto between 1949 and 1975 was one strike against him. The attacks from the media because of Sinatra’s own love/hate relationship with the press was another strike. You’d think issues with ticket sales and venues would have been the third or more strikes against him. But this is Sinatra. He might have received three strikes but he never struck out. Would you have called out on Sinatra? The die-hard fans never did and to most he put on great shows. And he kept coming back.
Sinatra would return to Toronto again in 1989 with Liza Minnelli at the then Sky Dome and again in 1991 with Steve and Eydie at Maple Leaf Gardens. I’ve detailed about those in another blahg SINATRA:TORONTO, ROUND 2 or “DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?” so you can check that out and read also about his last Canadian concert in Hamilton in 1993. I’m lucky to have seen Sinatra three times in Toronto in 1984, 1989, and 1991. I also attended that Hamilton concert in 1993 and have copies of fan recorded versions of those concerts so I can relive the memories.
I started out once to detail information about all of Sinatra’s appearances in Canada and even finished part one. The first part provides information, clippings, and reviews starting with his very first appearance as part of “The Hoboken Four” with the Major Bowes touring group at the Capitol Theatre, Victoria, B.C., November 6th and 7th, 1935 and concluding with the famous June 8th, 1957 concert at the Vancouver Coliseum. The file also includes artwork for posters for concerts that were cancelled as well as extensive information on Sinatra’s USO tour with Phil Silvers when they spent ten days touring military bases throughout Newfoundland in May and June of 1945. I’m going to post the link here for the PDF of part one but in doing so, I noticed that I must have included some material for what would have been part two. The current file actually starts with the Victoria 1935 appearances and ends with his appearance at The Forum, Montreal, Quebec, May 9th, 1975. The link to read or download is http://falseducks.com/theblahg/images/SinatraInCanada(2021).pdf. Maybe I’ll get motivated and eventually finish part two which includes not only the Montreal Forum concert in 1975 and all of the Toronto concerts I’ve mentioned in this blahg but also other concerts in Montreal as well as Vancouver, Calgary, Hamilton, and a cancelled concert in Edmonton from 1991.
I hope you enjoyed the story behind the 1984 ill-fated CNE concert. Me, I think it was fine. I paid for my ticket and had nothing to complain about. I think Sinatra showed great class in going on that night. I wonder if Bob Yuill would have been happier if Sinatra had cancelled or if Mr Yuill would have been outraged by the cancellation. I don’t think Sinatra could have won either way. The real fans support his memory and I’ve said it before, “It’s Sinatra’s World, We Just Live In It.”
This blahg is not the blahg I intended to publish this week. I had another blahg all mapped out in my mind with lots of audio recordings. I won’t spoil it by giving anything away. That blahg will be coming in the next month. Part of the problem in the delay was that I lost my motivation and began to suffer some depression last week. When you’re feeling low, everything you want to accomplish either gets pushed aside or seems unaccomplishable. That’s a real word. Look it up!
A few things happened this week to take me out of my funk and inspired this blahg. I haven’t talked much lately about my mental health or even wanted to talk about mental health in general. I’ve been hearing and reading all the news about mental health and the current pandemic and I just didn’t want to tackle that topic. I wasn’t planning on avoiding it but I like my blahgs to be uplifting, inspiring, or at least entertaining. Depression to me was like something from the Seniors’ menu at a restaurant where you skip over it because it doesn’t apply to you. Me, I like to order from the kids’ menu and get that hotdog that they won’t let us adults order. Why are restaurants hiding the hotdogs? Cut it out!
My recent bout of depression was brought on by some detractors who don’t want me to fill in on a job contract for a colleague who is expecting a baby in June. I haven’t done anything wrong but sometimes the peanut gallery gets it in their mind that they think they know something or heard something and never thought to check to see if any of it is true. That’s enough of that. I should know better than to listen to the voices of the detractors but I’m human and you just want to yell “DAMN IT, I’M LIKEABLE”. I didn’t do that and so it was hard to get out of my own head and stop flailing myself with the “POOR ME.”
Last week I had an encounter with my colleague who is expecting. She had been in a virtual meeting which I had not attended but where my name was being put forth as a replacement for her while she is away on maternity leave. I was trying to feel her out on how that went without directly asking what people thought of me as her replacement. She didn’t really elaborate but I got a sense she was trying to protect me from some of the negativity. I had it confirmed later from another colleague but I began to feel guilty later that I had put my female colleague on the spot. No, it really wasn’t guilt about that as much as it was that I didn’t even ask her how she was feeling or how the pregnancy was going. Later, I went back and apologized to her and said I shouldn’t have tried to pry information from her and that I was even more sorry that I didn’t ask her how she was doing. She seemed to appreciate that and I was determined that in future encounters I was going to make sure I focused more on her.
So, this is where this blahg begins. A few days ago I saw my colleague again and made it a point of asking her how she was doing. We chatted briefly about the pregnancy and I asked casually if she had any cravings. Her answer was surprising. She said she hadn’t had any cravings but everything she ate recently seemed to her to be the best of that particular things she had ever had. She gave this example of snacking on M&M candies in the evening. She said she’s always had a bowl that she snacks on in the evening but eating them recently made her feel that these M&Ms were the best M&Ms she’s ever tasted. I commented that wouldn’t it be great if you could keep that feeling all the time and that no matter what you were eating or viewing or hearing or experiencing at any given moment was the best. It would be the ultimate ‘living in the moment’ experience you could ever have. After that, I didn’t give that notion much thought.
On my way home that afternoon after discovering this new philosophy, I stopped to gas up my vehicle and I bought a PLINKO instant scratch ticket. This ticket had instant prizes but if one of your lucky numbers matched one of the scratched and uncovered numbers with the corresponding word “CHIP” then you could take it into your local retailer to reveal your prize. I learned that a video would play at the retailer and I could win up to $10,000 instantly or a “PLINKO” chip that I could play on the real board for a minimum of $100,000 up to a maximum of $500,000. The big board is of course at the Ontario Lottery offices in Toronto and is similar to the PLINKO game we’ve all seen on the game show “The Price Is Right.” I was excited. It took me two days before I got back to the retailer and I had convinced myself that I was going to get that “PLINKO” chip for the big board. I knew the odds were against me and ultimately they were with me only winning $10 which doubled my money from the $5 I had paid for the scratch ticket. It was a disappointment but for those two days I lived that fantasy and dreamed big.
This morning, while shaving, something else happened that reminded me of that “best of something ever had” idea. I don’t know what it is but I always get great ideas while I’m shaving. Some of my short story ideas occurred while I was shaving and so did ideas for my blahgs. I probably should concentrate more on what I’m doing if I don’t want to cut myself. Usually when I’m shaving I have my I-pod playing my music on shuffle. I have such a wide range of music on there that I never know what I’m going to hear. This morning I heard “When I Am King” by Great Big Sea. The lyrics really struck me. Here they are:
Wake up
Without a care
Your head’s not heavy, your conscience clear
Sins are all forgiven here
Yours and mine
Fear is gone without a trace
It’s the perfect time in the perfect place
Nothing’s hurting, nothing’s sore
No one suffers anymore
The doctor found a simple cure
Just in time
All these things if I were king
Would all appear around me
The world will sing when I am king
The world will sing when I am king
Oh, she walks right in
She don’t even knock
It’s the girl you lost to the high school jock
She shuts the door, turns the lock
And she takes your hand
She says she always felt a fool
For picking the captain over you
She wonders if you missed her
Said she always told her sister
Oh, that you’re the best damn kisser
That she’s ever had
All these things if I were king
Would appear around me
The world will sing when I am king
The world will sing when I am king
Daylight waits to shine until the moment you awaken
So you never miss the dawn
No question now, you know which road you’re taking
Lights all green, the radio plays just the perfect song
Well, the war’s been won
All the fights are fought
You find yourself in just the spot
It’s a place where everybody’s got a song to sing
Just like the final movie scene
The prince will find his perfect queen
The hero always saves the world
The villains get what they deserve
The boy will always get the girl
When I am king
By the way, Great Big Sea was an awesome Canadian band. Below is a video of them singing “When I Am King.” It turns out the video is from a concert that was held at the Empire Theatre in Belleville, Ontario in 2006. I live south of Belleville but I work there. I’ve been to concerts at the Empire but sadly I missed this one.
As I said, the lyrics struck me. They’re about everything being great but unfortunately they depend up the singer becoming king. Immediately the lyrics struck me as the best of everything and reminded me of the conversation I had had a few days earlier with my colleague. It also reminded me of that PLINKO fantasy I had lived in for two days.
Shortly after hearing this song, I was getting ready to go into Belleville to work and I couldn’t shake the “best of everything” thought. I asked my Google speaker to play “When I Am King” again. It was at that moment that all of these puzzle fragments of thought slammed together into a clearer picture for this blahg. I was going to ask Google to play me another song in particular by Great Big Sea but then the speaker launched into “Consequence Free” by the band. Here’s another song with poignant lyrics:
Na na na, na na na na na!
Na na na, na na na na na!
Wouldn’t it be great,
If no one ever got offended?
Wouldn’t it be great,
To say what’s really on your mind?
I’ve always said,
All the rules are made for bending.
And if I let my hair down,
Would that be such a crime?
I wanna be consequence free!
I wanna be where nothing needs to matter.
I wanna be consequence free!
Just say: Na na na, na na na na na!
Oh! Na na na, na na na na na!
I could really use,
To lose my Catholic conscience.
Cause I’m getting sick,
Of feeling guilty all the time.
I won’t abuse it,
Yeah I’ve got the best intentions.
For a little bit of anarchy,
But not the hurting kind.
I wanna be consequence free!
I wanna be where nothing needs to matter.
I wanna be consequence free!
Just say: Na na na, na na na na na!
Oh! Na na na, na na na na na!
Oh! I couldn’t sleep at all last night,
Cause I had so much on my mind.
I’d like to leave it all behind,
But you know it’s not that easy.
Oh! But for just one night,
Wouldn’t it be great,
If the band just never ended?
We could stay out late,
And we would never hear last call.
Wouldn’t need to worry about approval or permission.
We could slip off the edge,
And never worry about the fall.
I wanna be consequence free!
I wanna be where nothing means to matter.
I wanna be consequence free!
Just say: Na na na, na na na na na!
Oh! Na na na, na na na na na!
Oh! Na na na, na na na na na!
There’s a theme here of “wouldn’t it be great” and of course, living “consequence free.” Here’s the video for that song:
It was coming together. Great Big Sea was selling me on writing this blahg. I drove to work humming the songs I had heard. I also started to write part of this blahg over lunch. As if that wasn’t enough, on my way home, CBC radio played excerpts from a March of 2009 concert that Great Big Sea played at the Mile One Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland. They of course played “Consequence Free” but they also played the song that I hadn’t had a chance to ask my Google speaker to play earlier in the day. The song is “Ordinary Day”:
I’ve got a smile on my face and I’ve got four walls around me
I’ve got the sun in the sky, all the water surround me
Oh you know, yeah I win now and sometimes I lose
I’ve been battered, but I never bruise
It’s not so bad
And I say way-hey-hey, it’s just an ordinary day
And it’s all your state of mind
At the end of the day
You’ve just got to say it’s all right
Gina sings on the corner, what keeps her from dying
Let them say what they want, she won’t stop trying
Oh, you know
She might stumble, they push her ’round
She might fall, but she’ll never lie down
It’s not so bad
And I say way-hey-hey, it’s just an ordinary day
And it’s all your state of mind
At the end of the day
You’ve just got to say it’s all right
It’s all right, it’s all right
It’s all right
In this beautiful life there’s always some sorrow
And It’s a double-edged knife, but there’s always tomorrow
Oh, you know
It’s up to you now if you sink or swim
Just keep the faith that your ship will come in
It’s not so bad
And I say way-hey-hey, it’s just an ordinary day
And it’s all your state of mind
At the end of the day
You’ve just got to say
I say way-hey-hey, it’s just an ordinary day
And it’s all your state of mind
At the end of the day
You’ve just got to say it’s all right
It’s all right, it’s all right
‘Cause I’ve got a smile on my face, and I’ve got four walls around me
Here’s the video for that song:
Finally, the theme was clear. It’s all a state of mind and it’s just an ordinary day and it’s all right.
The point I want to hammer home is also that it can be more than just all right. Okay is just okay but what if moments could be the best of whatever it is we are experiencing? That’s what it’s all about. Find a moment or take a moment and say this moment is the best. It might not be the best that’s ever been or will ever be but it’s the best right now and that’s all right. I’m no philosopher and I struggle to even call myself a poet but experiencing the moment like my colleague does, sounds pretty good to me.
I had started off 2021 on a good note. There was that Ramble video from my blahg, THE FALSE DUCKS VIDEO BLAHG #4: OH, DIDN’T I RAMBLE and the subsequent explanation of that video in the follow-up blahg THE RAMBLE UNPACKED that explained what I wanted to accomplish this year. So far, I have fixed the cuckoo clock, listened to all of the records, started reading “Roses Are Difficult Here” by W.O. Mitchell, and averaged two blahgs a month with the goal of reaching 100 blahgs over the past ten years. The motivation was with me and I was living the moments by enjoying what I was doing. I even re-edited the “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special” that I posted last December. By the way, if you haven’t listened to the “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special” then check out this video below containing the remastered version of our special. It’s just the audio from our program set to images of my Christmas display this past Christmas.
When we recorded the special last December and when I was editing it in December and remastering it in January, I felt this was the best work we had ever done. Of course it probably isn’t but I enjoyed it so much that I continue to listen to it at least 2 to 3 times a week while I’m driving to work. It makes me feel happy and each time I hear it, I think “that’s the best we’ve ever done.” I’ll hold onto that thought for a while. We hope to record a new special later this year and it’ll probably be the best…at least in my mind.
When thinking about the theme for this blahg and ultimately the title, “The Best of Everything”, I was reminded of another blahg I had written in late January MY FATHER’S VOICE where I talked about needing to find a cassette that contained my late Father’s voice. It was a tape of speeches from my wedding in 1987. What I didn’t detail in that blahg was that my double cassette deck was found to be non-functioning so I decided to purchase another one off Ebay. I received that tape deck last month and immediately began to locate all of the cassettes I used to enjoy over the years. I remember that I practically wore out three of my favourite tapes once upon a time. The first was “Graceland” by Paul Simon. The second was “Cloud Nine” by George Harrison. And the last was the 1984 release of “L.A. Is My Lady” by Frank Sinatra. The Sinatra cassette was the first of the three that I had purchased and I still think it’s a great album. It seems like I might have gone off topic but really it all connects. One of the great songs on “L.A. Is M Lady” is “The Best of Everything”. I know, I’m brilliant. Still, if you want to understand everything, read some of the lyrics:
The best of everything – that’s (that is) what I wish you all
The best of everything – a Rembrandt (hanging) on your (the) wall
A yacht that wins you cups
Skateboards with style and speed
Show dogs or loving pups
The pride of the pound or the pedigreed
I hope you win that prize – pass that blue ribbon test
I hope your good keeps getting better – ’til your better’s best
The best of everything – that’s (that is) what I wish you all
The best of everything – a Rembrandt (hanging) on your (the) wall
A yacht that wins you cups
Skateboards with style and speed
Show dogs or loving pups
The pride of the pound or the pedigreed
I hope you win that prize – pass that blue ribbon test
I hope your good keeps getting better – ’til your better’s best
If you haven’t heard the song then do yourself a favour and check out this audio/video:
See? It all came together. This is the song that wishes us “The Best Of Everything”. The truth really is, though, that we already have the best of everything…we just have to realize it in the moment. I think that’s the best mental health advice I can offer in this moment.
Here it is February 3, 2021 and I’m posting a new blahg. This isn’t going to be a long blahg but I accomplished something today that I want to share with everyone. Blahgs don’t have to be long and this will count towards that 100 blahgs mark I want to reach this year.
I usually write a short Christmas story every year and end up posting it in one of my blahgs. Most of them are fictional but 2019’s entry “MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS” was a Christmas Entertainment based on real events. In 2020, I was so busy writing and recording for the “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special” that I didn’t get around to writing a new story. I guess writing the fictional Christmas themed comedy sketches counts but it isn’t exactly the same.
By the way, if you haven’t listened to the “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special” then check out this video below containing the remastered version of our special. It’s just the audio from our program set to images of my Christmas display this past Christmas.
After Christmas, I got thinking about the idea of someone having a Christmas by stealing everything they needed for the holiday. It was inspired by all of the news stories of stealing parcels off people’s porches over the holiday season. This of course, has inspired the term “Porch Pirates.” I’m not condoning the practise but the thought did spark the germ of an idea for a short story. The result is the story below “A Stolen Christmas.”
It took me more than a month to complete the story. Procrastination was my best friend and motivation was my enemy. I usually write from start to finish and then edit. I think this is the only story where I wrote a snip of a beginning, part of the middle, and part of the end. Today I went back and finished the ending, went back and fleshed out the beginning, and then completed the connecting pieces in the middle. Am I happy with it? I think I am. Writing a story is like getting a gift. Until you’re finished it, you never know what you’re going to end up with. So here’s a late for 2020 or early for 2021 Christmas story. I hope you enjoy it.
The Stolen Christmas
by
Scott Henderson
It was nearing the end of November before Brad realized it was almost Christmas again.
“Do you realize it’s almost Christmas again?” he hollered out to Carla.
Carla was in the bedroom that also doubled as her home office. Brad’s home office was in the spare bedroom. He and Carla both were able to work from home during the pandemic. She was part of a team who developed online advertising and Brad did coding for video games. It sometimes made for tight quarters but if staying home and staying safe were necessary then they would make it work.
“It seems to steal up on us earlier every year,” she shouted back.
“What’s that?” Brad inquired, leaning into their bedroom.
“You asked me if I realized it’s almost Christmas again and I replied it seems to steal up on us earlier every year. Say, aren’t you supposed to be working.”
“I’m on a break,” he replied. “It’s one of the perks of working from home.”
“I could use a break, too,” she offered in return.
“Coffee run?” Brad asked as he stretched in the doorway.
“Hot Licks it is,” she replied.
Hot Licks, was the neighbourhood ice-cream and coffee shop. It was one of the few businesses offering curbside pickup. Brad and Carla could have just as easily made coffee at home but one of the perks of working from home certainly was not seeing the same walls day in and day out. Both made it a point to go out for a walk at least once a day to get exercise and a change of scenery.
It had been challenging this past year working from home. Oh, having home work stations was easily accomplished and their Internet was fast enough to handle their needs. It was the social aspect that was the most difficult. In the past few weeks, it had just been the two of them and not getting on each other’s nerves was a conscious effort for both of them. They took walks together, yes, but they also took walks alone or made excuses to run errands without the other. Carla enjoyed going to the grocery store alone and Brad had taken to early evening coffee runs on his own.
“What was that you said about stealing Christmas,” he asked of Carla when they were down on the street.
“I didn’t say anything about stealing Christmas, silly. I said Christmas seems to steal up on us earlier every year.”
“Oh,” Brad replied. “Still…”, he said trailing off and looking at some of the houses on their way to Hot Licks. “Still,” he began again. “I wonder if it could be done?”
“If what could be done?” Carla inquired. He was making no sense.
Brad stopped and pointed to the porch of a bungalow. “Look at that package sitting there. Obviously some courier left it when he realized no one was home. Anyone could just walk up and steal it.” Brad seemed overly excited about the notion.
“What are you going on about? “ Carla asked. “You’re not thinking about stealing that package?” She tugged at his arm to try to remove him from the temptation.
“No,” Brad said, resisting her efforts to pull him along. “I’m thinking bigger. I was wondering if it were possible to steal Christmas.”
Carla stared at him. What was he saying?
“What are you saying?” Carla asked, speaking her thoughts aloud.
“Well,” Brad began. “Every year we have a pretty good Christmas and I have no complaints but there’s no challenge in it. We spend what we spend and we get each other what we get each other. Maybe it’s the whole pandemic but I want things to be different.”
“Things are different. There’s a pandemic and we’re in a lockdown,” Carla said, stating the obvious.
“I know,” Brad began again. “But what if we stole our Christmas? Nothing store bought or ordered. Everything has to be stolen. No ordering online either. It can be done. Just look at that package on that porch, for example. It would be so easy and every gift is a surprise box.”
Carla couldn’t believe what he was saying. Was he really serious about this?
“I’m serious about this,” Brad continued. “Let’s do it. I’ll take care of the tree and decorations and you take care of the Christmas dinner menu.”
“We can’t,” Carla answered in reply. Still, she didn’t have a rational reason why they couldn’t. A moral reason yes but Brad seemed so intent on the idea. Could she really go along with this? The idea was insane but Brad was right, it was a challenge and they had so few of those other than those imposed by the pandemic and the lockdown.
“Just say you’ll think about it,” Brad implored. He was squeezing her hand now.
“You won’t get a PlayStation 5 for Christmas, then,” was all she could think to say.
“Neither will you, unless one of the mystery porch presents contains one. I know you want a PS5 just as badly as I do.”
“What about that coffee?” she asked pulling at his arm again. “I have work to do and so do you.” She hoped that removing him from the sight of the porch parcel would eventually aid in him forgetting about his stealing Christmas idea.
They eventually made it to Hot Licks and back home again. Nothing more was said that day about the crazy idea.
————
Nothing more had been said about the Christmas stealing for almost a week until one evening Brad came in with a Christmas Tree. It had obviously been a struggle to get it in the elevator let alone the building. It was fully lighted and decorated with ornaments.
“How do you like that!” Brad declared.
Carla was taken aback. There was Brad standing there with a seven foot artificial Christmas Tree and a grin almost as big. It wasn’t the fact that he was standing there with this tree but that she recognized it. The tree was the one outside of Hot Licks. It still had some of the coffee themed ornaments adorning its limbs. She recognized the star on top and even the red metal stand. Brad had thought of everything.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like it?” Brad began. “Do you know what it took to get it up here? The stares alone were enough to stop me in my tracks but I was committed. Someone once said ‘don’t steal anything small’.”
“Oh yeah who was that?” Carla decided it would be best to play along.
“I don’t know, but somebody did,” Brad replied.
“Hey Google,” Carla shouted out to their Google Nest Hub. “Who said, Never Steal Anything Small?” It not only controlled lights and electrical devices in their home, but through its connection to the Internet, it was a wealth of information.
“James Cagney,” Google replied. “Never steal anything small marked the last time James Cagney sang and danced on screen.”
“There you go,” Brad remarked triumphantly. “Never steal anything small. Do you want to me sing and dance?
“No thanks,” Carla replied, “I’ve seen you sing and dance. I’d rather watch the tree.”
Brad took that as his cue. He went to the kitchen and rifled through a drawer and came up with an extension cord. He plugged it into a spare outlet and then connected the tree. Immediately the apartment was ablaze with the glow of the coloured lights.
“Hey Google, turn off all of the apartment lights,” Brad shouted.
The result was stunning. The glow from the tree was breathtaking.
“Will you look at that,” Brad exclaimed.
Carla was. She was looking at the tree…a tree that should have been outside Hot Licks. He was right, though, it was a sight to behold…certainly better than watching Brad dance. Of course, Brad had set up the tree in the middle of their living area but she could adjust that later. Right now, she would let him have this moment.
That night, Carla lay in bed thinking about the tree. This stealing business was now a thing and it was getting serious. The tree outside of Hot Licks was a source of pride in the neighbourhood. What would people say when they noticed it gone? Should Carla say something to Brad? How could she? Brad had been so proud of himself. Did this mean she was now committed to the stealing Christmas scheme? Could she really do it? Brad had made the first move. Now it was up to her.
The next day during her lunch break, Carla made an excuse about having to get some air. She made sure that on her walk, she passed by Hot Licks. She was right, the tree was gone. On the door there was a sign that read: ‘Merry Christmas everyone, closed until further notice.’
Carla was taken aback. What did this mean? The store had been open yesterday. She had bought coffee there for her and Brad. Did this single act of theft bring about the closure of the store? Had the owners taken it that hard? Maybe it was a sense of betrayal to them.
Carla felt sick. She stepped into an alley and threw up.
When she returned to the apartment she was very pale. Brad was still working. Carla went back to work. She was still feeling nauseous. Later, it passed. She said nothing to Brad.
————
The gifts began to appear beneath the tree. There were small things at first and then Brad had placed a larger gift under the tree. It was a square box shape and had some heft to it. Carla couldn’t help herself. She stopped short of shaking it or tearing off a small piece of the wrapping to get an idea of what might be inside.
Was this one of those porch parcels? She didn’t know when Brad had acquired it. It just showed up beneath the tree one day. Did this make Brad a Porch Pirate? The phrase was all over the media. When she thought about it, she really didn’t want to know. The uneasiness was back in her stomach again.
A few days later, there was a large Christmas gift for Brad underneath the tree. He too, had tested the weight of the present. It was heavy enough and it set his mind wondering what it was. He also wondered where Carla had picked it up. Had she picked it up…off someone’s porch maybe? Brad didn’t want to think about it. Christmas was going to be very interesting this year.
————
Brad began to notice a change in Carla. It had started after he had brought home the Christmas Tree. It was subtle things. She was quieter. She didn’t like to take as many walks as she once did. Maybe it was Christmas. Maybe it was the pandemic. Brad didn’t push her on it.
If it was Christmas, Carla didn’t say anything about it. The whole idea of stealing Christmas was an insane idea but Carla seemed to be taking it in stride.
It started with the canned goods. One day after one of her infrequent walks, the kitchen counter displayed cans of pumpkin, cranberry sauce, water chestnuts, and mushrooms.
“I understand the cranberry sauce and the pumpkin but what’s with the chestnuts and mushrooms?” Brad asked. It was safer asking her these types of questions. It was clear she didn’t want to talk about personal issues.
“It’s a new stuffing recipe I want to try,” was all that Carla would say.
“Don’t you need a turkey for that?” Brad asked.
“Just you wait,” Carla answered.
Brad didn’t have to wait long. A few days later, there was a frozen turkey in the refrigerator.
“How…” Brad couldn’t finish the question. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But he did know. She had gone out in sweats and then there was the turkey.
“No one questions a pregnant lady at the grocery store,” Carla casually replied.
Brad conjured up the image. Shoplifting was becoming an art with her. Should he be concerned? He had started all of this. A stolen Christmas. Wasn’t that his suggestion after all?
Brad looked at her. He leaned in and gave her a kiss. He’d have to let this thing play out.
————
Christmas day came with many revelations.
It started with the gifts.
“Go ahead, open it,” Brad said after placing the large gift at Carla’s feet. There was that big grin like the one he had sported after he had brought home the Christmas Tree.
“I can’t imagine what it is. I suppose it will be something totally useless,” Carla began as she tore into the wrapping. “Porch presents never are all that good. People always order the stupidest of things that they don’t really…” Her voice trailed off. Her removal of the wrapping revealed a PlayStation 5.
“Surprised, hunh?” Brad asked.
He wasn’t wrong. She was surprised. She couldn’t believe it. This was too much. The Christmas Tree was one thing but stealing a PlayStation 5 was too much. This was a Christmas present meant for someone else and not for her. There was no way this came from somebody’s porch. There was no way that Brad could have known that someone had ordered a PS5. But where else could he have gotten it?
Carla had so many questions but she felt if she asked them then it would ruin everything for Brad. Instead, she gently set aside the PS5 and quietly grabbed up the large bag and handed it to Brad.
“Oh boy, I just love Christmas. I know I’m just a big kid but…” Brad’s voice had trailed off too after he had opened his gift. Inside was another PlayStation 5. The grin from Brad’s face faded and was replaced by a look of confusion.
“Merry Christmas,” Carla offered up in a quiet crackling voice. The time had come for the truth.
“I don’t understand,” Brad began before being interrupted by Carla.
“Okay, okay. I bought it.” Carla watched Brad’s face. Was he unhappy with her for not stealing it? She couldn’t tell. The look of confusion on his face grew more intent.
“There’s no way. It was sold out everywhere.” If Brad was disappointed that it wasn’t stolen, he didn’t show it.
“Remember last month when I went to visit my sister?” Carla asked?
“Yeah, you told me she was going through something and you went as moral support.”
“The truth is I was in line at Gamer Station. They’re one of my clients. They tweeted out that they had received some stock. I was the second in line. I had to wait all night.“ Carla was still expecting that look of disappointment from Brad. “I’m sorry I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t steal Christmas.”
Brad’s face brightened and the grin returned. “Neither could I.”
“I don’t understand.” The look of confusion was now on Carla’s face.
“Compare your PS5 to the one you gave me,” Brad replied.
Carla set both gifts side by side and then she saw it. Brad’s gift to her was a PS5 bundled with “Grim Reaper Redux.”
“It’s your game! I mean it’s that game you used to play. But that game was more than ten years ago.” Carla was even more confused.
“That’s what I was working on earlier this year,“ Brad offered. “It’s the old game remastered with better graphics and more levels. Sony decided to do a special bundle of the game with the release of the PS5. I received a free console for my work.”
“So you didn’t steal yours either then?” Carla pointed out.
“Like you, I couldn’t steal Christmas either.”
“But what about the tree?” Carla queried.
“Oh, Nico gave me that.” Nico was the owner of Hot Licks. “Or rather he sold it to me for a dollar.”
Carla was relieved. But why did Hot Licks close? “But why did Hot Licks close?” she shot back.
“Nico thought it was safer to close over the holidays. He didn’t want to put any of his staff or customers at risk. I saw him putting up the notice one evening and we got to chatting. I asked him what he was going to do with the tree. He told me to take it and hoped it would make my Christmas brighter. I told him I couldn’t just take the tree for nothing so I offered him a dollar. That way I could claim it was a real steal.” Brad seemed very pleased with himself.
“And the other gifts under the tree?” Carla inquired.
“Ordered online. It turns out I’m no thief.”
“Same here,” Carla responded.
The rest of the presents weren’t as extravagant as the PlayStations. There were clothes and the requisite socks and underwear, as well as books and DVDs and other items ordered online and not stolen. Carla laughed to herself thinking about someone possibly stealing someone else’s underwear.
The day was perfect. They had found out what type of people they really were and amazed themselves at the same quality in their partner.
“No one questions a pregnant lady at the grocery store,” Brad said with a laugh later that day over Christmas dinner. “Here I was imagining you with a turkey stuffed in your clothing.
“Oh, that part’s true,” Carla casually replied.
“What!?” Brad exclaimed. “I thought you said you didn’t steal anything?”
“I didn’t. I said the part about no one questioning a pregnant lady at the grocery store was true.”
“I don’t get it,” Brad replied. It took him a few seconds but Carla’s smile explained everything.
“You mean..?” Brad uttered awkwardly.
“Merry Christmas Daddy,” Carla said through her huge smile.
Carla had known for a few weeks but she waited until Christmas to give Brad the news. She had suspected the pregnancy after that day she had vomited in the alley near Hot Licks. The morning sickness had continued after that and a home pregnancy kit had confirmed it. Blood work requested by her Doctor revealed the same. The most difficult thing had not been the morning sickness but keeping the secret from Brad.
Brad was quiet for a moment with the thought of it all. It was a perfect Christmas and nothing had been stolen. Brad decided that the appropriate reply to Carla’s revelation was to reach over to her and steal a kiss. He didn’t think she would mind that he’d stolen something after all.
Today is January 16th, 2021 and this is my first official blahg for the year. I have actually filmed two videos this year and they are going to be the bulk of this blahg. I mention some Dvds and books, and records in the actual False Ducks Video Blahg #4 but I’m not going to detail that information here. I’m going to save all of that for another blahg. That way I get two blahgs out of the same information. Clever and frugal!
The first video I shot this year was actually shot by my wife. It’s of my daughter Abbie and I doing the Polar Dip at North Beach in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada on New Year’s Day, January 1st, this year 2021:
The next video I made was actually a remastering of the video I made to accompany the audio of “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary, Covid 19, Quarantine Special.” I should have added the word “Christmas” somewhere in there because it was a Christmas comedy special. I wasn’t totally happy with the mix on our special and I fixed a couple of flubs I made and punched up the sound effects on one sketch and normalized the audio on others. I’ve left up the old version on Youtube which you can view in my last blahg, CHRISTMAS IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT. Here’s the remastered version:
Finally, we come to the official “THE FALSE DUCKS VIDEO BLAHG #4: OH, DIDN’T I RAMBLE”. I think it speaks for itself or I speak for myself…oh you know what I mean:
Now, one last thing I will add is a song to go along with the title of this blahg. There is a great jazz standard called “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble”. My title is a riff on that song title. Of course “riff” is also a music term of you’re in the know like hep cats like me. Give a listen to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and their version of “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble”:
Well, it’s the day before Christmas and, as usual, I’m cutting it close to finish this Christmas blahg.Today is December 24th, 2020 and I haven’t written a new blahg since my last one, TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 3: ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD, way back in September. Frankly, that blahg series tired me out and I’ve had other things to keep me busy. Living in the time of a world wide pandemic, Covid 19, hasn’t helped and it’s part of the theme of this blahg. Christmas is a little different this year and we’ll have to make the most of it; any way we can.
Last year’s Christmas blahg, MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS, detailed how I had to change some of the plans I normally have for this time of year. I had to miss the live Nativity in Bloomfield last year and had to find a new place to cut down our real Christmas Tree. This year, we’ve had to adapt to doing things differently. Emmanuel Baptist Church in Bloomfield, Ontario still had their Nativity this year but it was a drive-through experience. We waited an hour to drive by all of the stations from the announcement from the angel to Mary about her impending birth, through Joseph’s visit from the angel, to the shepherds, on to the magi, and onward to Bethlehem. There were ten stations in all and at the beginning we were give a CD with 10 tracks to play; one at each station. We were also given a bag of cookies and either hot chocolate or hot cider. I’m glad I didn’t have to miss it and that Emmanuel Baptist found a way to make this season a little bit more enjoyable with us all keeping our social distance.
The hunt for this year’s Christmas tree was also very different. Carol’s Christmas Tree Farm in Napanee, where we cut our tree last year, was closed this season due to the pandemic. That left me no other options than to pursue a tree at a local nursery. My daughter Abbie came home from University on December 9th and I waited until she was home before turning to the tree issue. My wife had suggested Lockyer’s Country Gardens in Picton. I remember years ago, probably close to 20 years ago, I bought one there and paid $30 back then which I thought was pricey. Still, my options were limited so Abbie and I set out on Friday, December 11th and headed to Lockyer’s. We were surprised when we saw no trees outside and even more surprised when we found no trees inside. I asked a young guy who worked there where they kept their Christmas trees. He didn’t laugh but he apologized and said they were all sold out. He also said the local firemen who sold trees by the fire-hall were also sold out. I asked where we might find one in the County, being Prince Edward County where I live and where Picton is relatively in the center. He said he didn’t believe I could find one in the County but there might be a tree farm north of Belleville. I doubted any tree farm would be open during this pandemic and I certainly didn’t want to drive the hour it would take to find the farm he was suggesting.
Abbie and I were a little disappointed but were still determined. Lockyer’s was on the outskirts of Picton so we drove into Picton proper to scout around. The first place we passed was the Metro grocery store and there were about 10 trees stacked against the front door of various sizes. The price at Metro was $45. There were a couple that were over six feet and we thought they might be suitable. We decided to drive around to the other grocery store and by the fire-hall in case the fellow at Lockyer’s had been wrong about the firemen. There were no other trees to be found in Picton. Driving in from Lockyer’s we had passed the No Frills grocery store and Canadian Tire but we could see from the road that they had no trees for sale. As we drove into Picton, we saw some nice ones growing on people’s lawns that looked suitable but I didn’t have an axe nor the inclination to ruin the Christmas of someone else. We settled on a purchase from Metro. When we drove back to the store, we saw someone carting off one of the trees. Luckily, it was not one of the larger ones.
We were able to easily fit the tree inside our Hyundai Sana Fe with the back seats folded down. Carrying in the tree and setting it up was a breeze. It was only after we had it seated in the stand when I cut the twine that was bound around the tree. The tree did not unfold. It probably had been tied so long that it was going to hold its bound shape unless I did something. I searched the Internet about “how to relax a Christmas tree.” I thought about getting it drunk to see if it would relax but someone else suggested “just stick your arms in and push down on the branches. Go around the tree doing that and it should open up.” I still thought that getting it drunk would lessen the tree’s inhibitions. After all, it was more uptight that depressed. I did, however, like one person’s suggestion about trying to make the tree depressed. “If you tell the tree that it’s a very bad tree and it’s mother was a balsam fir so it will never amount to anything the tree will become depressed and it’s limbs will sag.” I opted for the method of massaging the tree. Someone also suggested adding ginger-ale to the tree’s water because their tree seemed to like it. Back to getting the tree drunk again but I don’t drink so the tree just had the ginger-ale water mix. Eventually after the massage and a night sitting in the ginger-ale solution, the tree looked much better. I think the image below speaks for itself:
Here are some pictures of some of our other decorations both outside and inside (click on the pictures for a larger image):
To add to your Christmas delight I’m going to post here something very special. I have mentioned before that from 1993 to 1995 my friend Stephen Dafoe and I, along with our producer and good friend Bryan Dawkins, had a radio show in the Belleville area called “Dead From The Neck Up.” The last show that aired was a Christmas show in 1995. You can check out the 1993, 1994, and 1995 Christmas specials here at http://www.falseducks.com/dead/readdead.html. We were all getting too busy back in 1995 and our lives took different directions. Stephen ended up moving to Alberta in the early 2000s and I wouldn’t reconnect with him until about five years ago. Bryan and I have remained in the Belleville region and keep in touch. So, I’ve been listening to some of our old shows to keep myself amused during this pandemic. A few weeks back I realized that it’s been exactly 25 years since our last show and I got to toying with the idea of a 25th anniversary reunion show. So, I emailed Stephen and he thought it would be fun. I wrote all of the sketches, had him record his parts and emailed them to me and then I contacted Bryan over the Internet and recorded his vocals over Facetime on my Ipad. The result is The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Special. Of course it’s a Christmas show and I just thought I would share this as it’s amazing with today’s technology what we were able to accomplish and now the Dead From The Neck Up cast is in their late 50s with a good laugh for this holiday season.
I also created Youtube video with some old images of Dafoe, Dawkins, and myself along with some of my Christmas light display.
One thing I should add is a sad note. My daughter Emily and her husband Charlie were set to come down for Christmas but because Charlie is battling a lingering cough, which is not Covid 19 related, they decided to stay in Toronto and not take any chances. This is the first time that Emily has not been home for Christmas. She is thirty now and we’ll just have to do a video chat. We picked up my son yesterday to have him home with Abbie and his mother and I and we went over to Emily and Charlie’s and met them in the parking lot of their building, socially distanced, and dropped off their gifts. They’ll still have to wait until Christmas morning to open them virtually with the rest of us. That’s how we’re making Christmas work for us.
It’s different times and we all have to roll with the punches. Christmas will come again next year and we’ll have a vaccine and hopefully we’ll gather again. Stay safe, stay home and hug those you can. Send virtual hugs to those you can’t and remember to listen to the “The Dead From The Neck Up 25th Anniversary Covid 19 Quarantine Christmas Special”.
Merry Christmas, and I’ll catch you back here in the New Year!
Welcome to the second in a series of blahgs where I try to trace musical star Linda Keene through the media. If you haven’t read my two previous blahgs about Linda then you really should because it will give you context. In my first blahg, Down A Rabbit Hole With Linda Keene, I talk about how I became fascinated with Linda Keene. After that blahg, I noted that I couldn’t get Linda Keene off my mind and I wanted to find out more. I decided that other than the two articles, one by Prof. Eves Raja and the other by Opal Nations, I needed to see if I could trace her through old newspapers and magazines and find out what happened in her life. In the last blahg, TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 1: THE FLORENCE SUTTLE YEARS I traced Linda from her first newspaper appearance under her original name as Florence McCroy through her years under her married name of Florence Suttle. At the end of that blahg, she had made the transformation to Linda Keene.
Although my last blahg was detailed in some aspects, I believe it was lacking in others. It is very difficult now 80 years later to try and trace Linda’s movements. There are some good resources online and a number of websites where you can search through old periodicals. The difficulty comes if some newspapers do not have searchable text. Also, that says nothing of newspapers that are not available to review at all. I’ve tried to expand my scope to include magazines of the time like Variety and Billboard but these do not always have searchable text options therefore I’m bound to miss something and have to resort to scanning page after page trying to catch her name. In this Part 2, I am now going to try and piece together her movements from late 1937 through 1945.
It is not without design that I chose to focus on these particular years. In 1937, Florence Suttle made the change to Linda Keene; naming herself after Ginger Rogers’ character in 1937’s “Shall We Dance”. By 1945 she had made the last of her officially released recordings. Her star appeared to be on the rise and she was seeking fame and recognition. There is a line in her recording of “You’re The Moment In My Life” that goes “You’re the moment in my life that comes and goes, but then again, I don’t suppose, you were ever meant to stay.” She might have been singing about fame in those lyrics. That’s why I chose it as part of the title of this blahg. 1937 to 1945 was the moment in her life. Clever? I have my moments too.
In my two previous blahgs dedicated to Linda Keene, I reprinted articles about her by Opal Nations and Prof. Eves Raja. Prof. Raja also produced the wonderful CD “Linda Keene – Recordings and Soundies.” I finally located a copy of this excellent CD and found that the booklet included in the CD was another source of information produced by Prof. Raja. Here are reprints of the booklet which I will refer to throughout this blahg.
I won’t revisit the early years when she was appearing around the USA as Florence Suttle but will draw on this booklet and the other article by Prof. Raja and the one by Opal Nations, along with my own research, to try and chronicle Linda Keene’s movements beginning with 1937.
1937
When I last left off my previous blahg, Florence Suttle had made her transformation to Linda Keene and was appearing with Nye Mayhew’s band in Boston, as evidenced in the article from Birmingham News on December 4th, 1937. To be accurate however, Linda Keene had been appearing with Nye Mayhew since September 30th. The article to the left from The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts), September 25th, 1937 states “Nye Mayhew and his orchestra will open at the Hotel Statler, Thursday evening,” which would make the opening on September 30th, 1937. Linda received her first media mention, that I could find, under her new name with the compliment that she was a “charming girl from New Orleans, who combines a soft, mellow contralto voice with an ability to hit a falsetto range.” She was in reality from Mississippi but maybe this was part of her reinvention.
On the first page of the CD Booklet, Prof. Raja provided the following information:
“When Linda Keene arrived in Boston in the fall of 1937, she had convinced all those in the entertainment circles that she was 19 when her true age was actually 25. She was determined to succeed in the highly competitive world of professional singers despite the constant flow of new young talent.”
Was changing her age along with her name, another part of her transformation? I find it unlikely that she would not try to build on the reputation she had made while singing as Florence Suttle with George Duffy’s orchestra in 1935 or her appearances at the Mayfair Room in Detroit in 1936, and subsequent appearances with Coleman Sachs in Birmingham for six weeks at Club Rex and her stint in Atlanta at the ill-fated Casa Loma. Okay, maybe she might have left the Casa Loma off her résumé but you’ll have to read my previous blahg for details on that. Suffice it to say, she had a good history and lying about her age would have eroded that history…unless Nye Mayhew believed she was performing with George Duffy when she was 16 or 17 in order to keep up with the change in her age.
It has been difficult to determine how long Linda stayed with Nye Mayhew in Boston. Prof. Raja’s booklet states “a very promising seven week stand at the Statler in Boston and her first job as a band singer with Nye Mayhew moved her up to the next level.” Seven weeks would have put her stay with Mayhew around the end of November. The notice below from Billboard Magazine November 27, 1937 traces acts and notes where they are appearing. According to this, Linda was still at The Statler with Mayhew as of the time of this notice:
Ads like the one to the right from the Boston Globe, October 14, 1937, ran throughout October and November but none mentioned Linda Keene. In fact Mayhew’s band was still playing at the Statler up to April 29, 1938. There was a small mention of Mayhew and his orchestra in the Boston College Heights newsletter from May 6, 1938 stating Mayhew had finished up at the Statler the previous Friday, being April 29.
I can find nothing that mentions when Linda took her departure as vocalist with Mayhew’s band. I can also find no other mention in print for Linda Keene in 1937.
1938
1938 was a significant year for Linda. After the last notice regarding Linda in the Birmingham News in December of 1937, I found nothing in print for her until the end of October 1938 (more on that later). It wasn’t until I expanded my search that I actually came across an article that mentioned what we long heard and suspected of Linda Keene in 1938. In The Times Record (Troy, New York) from February 25, 1954 there was an article about ‘local boy’ Al Masten who had performed with Glenn Miller’s Orchestra from 1938 to 1941. The article, besides carrying a picture of Masten, also highlighted the picture below of the band at Hamid’s Million Dollar Steel Pier in Atlantic City:
Linda Keene is mentioned as Linda “Keane” but it’s a wonderful photo, which you can click on to get a larger image, that proves that Linda Keene was with Miller’s Orchestra in 1938. A very similar picture to the one above is to be found in the book “Chattanooga Choo Choo: The Life and Times of the World Famous Glenn Miller” by Richard Grudens:
The photo also includes signatures of everyone in the photo, including Linda’s, but furthermore narrows down the date of the Steel Pier engagement to August 1938.
There are other books and articles that talk about Glenn Miller and the summer of 1938. From John Flower’s book, “Moonlight Serenade A bio-discography of the Glenn Miller Civilian Band”, Flower discusses 1938 and we learn the following:
During the summer the female vocalist position had a turnover: Virginia Vonne replaced Gail Reese and Linda Keene replaced Virginia Vonne.
September 1938: Sometime during this month Glenn signed a recording contract with RCA Victor…also during this month Marion Hutton joined the band replacing Linda Keane as vocalist.
Flower mentions Linda once as “Keene” and then as “Keane”. Keane was how she was represented in the 1954 article in The Times Record (Troy, New York). Flower’s work also includes an itinerary of dates from 1938 including recording sessions and concert appearances. Unfortunately none of the concert appearances note the date that Linda Keene joined with Miller. There exists a few radio transcriptions of Glenn Miller’s Orchestra from 1938 and the one from June 27th, 1938 still has Gail Reese singing with the band. So, Linda Keene would have had to become the female vocalist after that but before the appearance in August at Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier. The advertisement on the left is from The Morning Post (Camden, New Jersey) August 19, 1938. If Glenn Miller was appearing for a week, ending August 26, then it is likely the appearances at the Pier began on August 19th. There would be other advertisements similar to this one but Linda Keene’s name is not mentioned.
I have tried to follow the itinerary in John Flower’s book by checking periodicals starting with Glenn Miller’s appearance at Beach Point Club, Mamaroneck, Long Island on August 13th, through the band’s appearance at Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier, and on into September ending with the band at the Memorial Auditorium, in Raleigh, North Carolina September 9th and 10th, 1938. I have found one advertisement and two articles for some of those dates:
August 15, 1938, Lakewood Park, Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania
August 17 – September 2nd, 1938, Guy Hunt’s Ocean Pier, Wildwood, New Jersey
September 9/10, 1938 Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh, North Carolina
None of these articles or advertisements mention Linda Keene. We can only assume that Marion Hutton replaced Linda Keene in late August or early September. Glenn Miller was looking for a sound and Marion Hutton would be his female vocalist on and off from 1938 until 1942. With any other singer, you could say singing with Glenn Miller’s Orchestra was the height of fame. With Linda Keene, she came and went too quickly with the band. She was still getting credit as late as November of 1938 for the time she served with Miller. The article to the upper left and advertisement to the right are from the The Journal (Meriden, Connecticut), November 25th, 1938 and Linda Keene was still being associated with Miller’s name. Miller’s Orchestra wouldn’t really make it big until 1939 and become the Glenn Miller Orchestra we know today.
Update (May 10, 2023): I found a new reference to Linda Keene still performing with Glenn Miller as of September 14, 1938. The article on the right, from the Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina, September 14, 1938 details that Glenn Miller’s orchestra was performing for the Downtown and Country Club members and that Linda Keene was the girl vocalist with the band. If Linda Keene was indeed performing with Miller on September 14th, 1938 then her departure from Miller had to be around the middle of September or later in the month.
Although 1938 appeared to be short on mentioning Linda Keene in the media, the year was still a success. She had a short run with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and by the end of the year had made her first recording. She may have left Miller in September but by the end of October she had hooked up with Bobby Hackett and was appearing with him at Nick’s in New York. The article to the right was a wire service article that ran in several papers on October 30th, 1938. On November 4th, 1938 Linda Keene entered the studio for the first time with Bobby Hackett for her recording “Blue and Disillusioned”, first issued on the Vocalion label:
Then issued on the cheaper OKEH label:
I have not been able to find any information about how Linda ended up performing with and recording with Bobby Hackett and his Orchestra. It is possible her reputation had grown through her appearances with Nye Mayhew and then with Glenn Miller.
The song, “Blue and Disillusioned” is a solid blues effort from Linda. Back when she was appearing under her married name, Florence Suttle, the Clarion-Ledger ran ads on July 2nd and July 3, 1933 for her appearance in the Midnite Frolic at the Majestic Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi and dubbed her “Blues Singer.” Five years later, with Bobby Hackett, she made it official. The label categorizes the song as a Fox Trot and Linda’s first attempt is soulful and full of her southern intonations. I could find only three reviews of “Blue and Disillusioned.” The first one appeared in the New York Columbia Spectator, New York, New York from December 15, 1938. “Hampered by a long vocal by Linda Keene” was all it said about Linda but that had to be damaging to read that. The second was from the Barnard Bulletin (New York, New York) on January 10, 1939 where the vocal is reviewed as “competently done by Linda Keene. The third was from the Virginia-Pilot from Norfolk, Virginia where the article from January 29, 1939 failed to mention Linda’s vocal at all.
Linda must have taken the poor review in stride or maybe there were better reviews by the end of 1938 because she was still working by the end of 1938. Jumping ahead a bit, a very strange little picture and article ran in many newspapers in January of 1939. The one below, exactly like all the others, ran in the The Cushing Daily Citizen (Cushing, Oklahoma) on January 25th, 1939: The notoriety of this picture and caption was really more for Lefty Gomez, the star pitcher with the New York Yankees. It mentions that Linda Keene is a soloist with an orchestra at a Hamilton hotel. I was able to access the archives for The Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily, Hamilton, Bermuda and found this article from the December 20th, 1938 issue:
Linda was now appearing with Scott Fisher and his Orchestra starting on December 19, 1938. Fisher and his Orchestra had also recorded for Vocalion in the 1930s. I wonder if there was any connection? The following favorable article about Linda’s appearance appeared in The Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily on Christmas Eve, 1938:
This review was a better way to finish out 1938 than the poor review of her first recording.
1939
What a great way to start off 1939, working in Bermuda. Ads such as the two below began appearing in The Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily as early as January 3, 1939 and continued until nearly the end April:
The last advertisement mentioning “Songs by Linda Keene”, exactly like the one above appeared Wednesday, April 26, 1939. On April 27th, Linda’s name was noticeably absent:
Even the Arthur Murray Dancers seemed to be gone. Scott Fisher would close out the season at The Bermudian on May 10th as noted in the final advertisement from The Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily on May 8th, 1939:
We next pick up Linda Keene’s trail on May 5, 1939 when she’s in New York and records the “B” side of a 78 with Jack Teagarden’s “Octoroon” on the “A” side. This time it’s Linda’s second recording and she’s the “girl” with Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra “Featuring 16 men and a girl” and her vocal on “White Sails”
WHITE SAILS –LINDA KEENE with JACK TEAGARDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Just a week prior to this recording, on April 28th, 1939 Teagarden had been in the studio recording with Jean Arnold. We know that Linda Keene last performed in Bermuda on April 26th. Was she called up by Teagarden? By 1939, both Brunswick and Vocalion were owned by Columbia Records. Again, was this the connection? Reviews were favorable but of the handful of reviews that I found, none mention Linda Keene’s vocals:
Teagarden was fronting a new band and he had a new girl singer. Linda’s vocal on “White Sails” is a wispy perfect song for dancing. It’s not the blues like her first recording and it doesn’t hamper the band’s music. It’s a nice compliment and she seems confident.
On June 4, 1939, there was a small notice that ran in newspapers announcing that Jackson Teagarden’s band would be the guests on the “Fitch Summer Bandwagon” that day. There’s no mention of Linda Keene in the notice but the program survives as a radio transcription and from it, three vocals by Linda Keene who was now well established with the band.
FITCH SUMMER BANDWAGON JUNE 4, 1939 WITH JACK TEAGARDEN AND LINDA KEEN
The significant track here is of course “Tears From My Inkwell,” as the other two only have brief lines sung by Linda. I want to give a shout out to Greg Poppleton out in Australia, which is as far away from Canada as you can get unless you loop over the top. Greg, among other things, hosts a podcast called “Phantom Dancer” https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/. Back on June 23, 2015 Greg’s podcast included the live track of “Tears From My Inkwell” from the Fitch Bandwagon program. Unfortunately I could not find an archive of Greg’s 2015 podcast so I could hear the song but when I reached out to him through Facebook he got my request. Exactly five years later, on his recent June 23, 2020 podcast, Greg included the track again and I was able to hear it for the first time. The entire June 4, 1939 Fitch Summer Bandwagon program was issued on the LP “Birth Of A Band” in 1985 on the Giants of Jazz Records label. If you want to find out more about Greg Poppleton you can also check out his website: https://gregpoppleton.wordpress.com/.
The other takeaway from the the Fitch Summer Bandwagon program was hearing that Teagarden and band including Linda Keene were appearing at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago. At some point, prior to entering the Blackhawk, Teagarden’s Orchestra with Linda Keene were appearing at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. In George T Simon’s 1971 book, “Simon Says : The Sights and Sounds of the Swing Era, 1935-1955” he republishes a June 1939 review of Teagarden and Keene at the Roseland:
There is no telling when Linda Keene joined up with Teagarden but in Simon’s article he states that Teagarden was at the Roseland for almost two months before appearing at the Blackhawk. Teagarden with his “16 Men and A Girl” started at the Blackhawk on May 18th, 1939 as can be noted from the ad from the Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) on May 14, 1939. Linda Keene left Bermuda in late April while Teagarden was still at the Roseland so it is likely she got her start there and then moved into the studio for the May 5th session. Appearing at the Blackhawk, however, Linda Keene is officially recognized as the girl in in the “16 Men and a Girl” in the June 2nd advertisement.
It wasn’t difficult to track Jack Teagarden and his orchestra in the week leading up to his premiere at the Blackhawk. The band played several one-nighters throughout Pennsylvania, probably after leaving the Roseland in New York, but none of the advertisements that I came across mentioned Linda Keene or the tag line of “16 Men and a Girl.” Linda was probably travelling with the band as they made their way from New York to Chicago. Linda is only mentioned with Teagarden during their run at the Blackhawk with some very good notices especially this one from the Chicago Tribune on June 25, 1939:
Build up for Teagarden started on May 14th, 1939.
There was some other good press throughout their run at the Blackhawk:
Chicago Daily Times, May 21, 1939
Chicago Daily Times, June 4, 1939
The most significant thing to happen to Jack Teagarden and his “16 Men and a Girl” was that they went into the Brunswick recording studio in Chicago and recorded four songs on June 23, 1939. Two of the recordings, contained vocals by Linda Keene, “Especially For You” and “You’re The Moment In My Life”:
ESPECIALLY FOR YOU –LINDA KEENE with JACK TEAGARDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
———————————-
YOU’RE THE MOMENT IN MY LIFE –LINDA KEENE with JACK TEAGARDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
A couple of articles suggest that both tunes were popular:
Both of these reviews ran in mid-August of 1939 but by then Linda Keene was no longer the girl singer with Jack Teagarden’s Orchestra. The last article that would appear for Linda Keene with Teagarden ran in the Chicago Daily Times on July 1st, 1939:
It is difficult to speculate why Linda Keene parted ways with Jack Teagarden. She had recorded three songs with Teagarden, totaling four when including “Blue and Disillusioned” with Bobby Hackett back in November of 1938. Maybe Linda was ready to move on to other prospects. Some research suggests that Teagarden’s band was having some financial difficulties in 1939 and Teagarden’s problems with alcohol were also an issue. Did these contribute to Linda leaving the band? The day after the July 1st, 1939 Chicago Daily Times post with Linda and Teagarden’s pictures, a small notice ran in the Chicago Tribune on July 2nd:
I can find nothing that proves the date that Linda Keene left Teagarden. Obviously it was near the end of June or the beginning of July 1939. One anomaly is that the following article appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, Wisconsin) on August 8th:
I have checked ads for the engagement at the Bay Beach but none of them mention Linda Keene. A review of the appearance ran in the August 7th, Green Bay Press-Gazette but there is no mention of Linda but rather Avis Kent who sang. More than likely, some advance notice included Linda while she was still with the Teagarden’s Orchestra and was not corrected in time.
So where was Linda? As I said, I cannot pinpoint an exact date or reason why she left Teagarden but by the time of his Bay Beach performance in Wisconsin, Linda Keene was already back in New York. An article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) on August 11, 1939 reports that Linda Keene is appearing with Willie Farmer and his Orchestra at the Park Central Cocoanut Grove. I could not determine a start date for Linda with Willie Farmer but a search of New York newspapers revealed in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Friday July 28th, 1939 that Willie Farmer started at the Park Central on Wednesday, July 26, 1939.
The same edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Friday July 28th, 1939 also carried the following photo of Linda Keene:
This clearly establishes Linda Keene with Willie Farmer’s orchestra; suggesting she opened with Farmer on July 26th. Linda’s name would begin appearing in the August 26th and September 2, 1939 issues of Billboard for Route information for singers and acts:
It is possible that information was not submitted for Linda Keene when she started with Farmer when they opened together on July 26th. Down Beat would acknowledge Linda’s move to Willie Farmer’s outfit in their October 15th, 1939 issue. They noted she had been with Teagarden for six weeks. There was also a Billboard review of Willie Farmer and his orchestra in the September 9th, 1939 issue. The review was not kind to Farmer but Linda received a good notice:
Another oddity is that the Billboard route information for Linda Keene on August 26th had her at the Park Central in New York but the next night, August 27th, she was advertised as being at the Roton Point Park in Stamford, Connecticut with Willie Farmer. The Daily Advocate out of Stamford, Connecticut ran a good sized advertisement on August 25th announcing the Sunday, August 27th appearance of Linda and Willie Farmer:
Willie Farmer and his Orchestra had been around for a few years and had released a number of sides on the Bluebird Label in 1937 and 1938. Linda Keene would not record with Farmer.
Willie Farmer and his Orchestra were not listed in the Billboard route information for Orchestras in the September 16, 1939 issue. It is possible that after their bad review in Billboard on September 9th that their run at the Park Central came to a quick end. I found no trace of Willie Farmer and his Orchestra with Linda Keene until I stumbled upon an old advertisement posted by the Albany Group Archive on Flickr:
There was no indication when this advertisement appeared or in what newspaper. I only assumed it would be Albany, New York because Farmer and his Orchestra were in New York City in September when they finished at the Park Central. I was eventually able to access the Times Union newspaper from Albany and the October 12th, 1939 edition confirmed the opening night at the Goblet was October 12th. The Albany Times Union on October 14th also reviewed Farmer’s opening at the Goblet on October 12th but only mentioned Linda Keene’s name briefly. The Times Union on October 21st, 1939 wrote again about Farmer and his Orchestra at the Goblet and this time noted “Linda Keene, charming song stylist.” The article also detailed Farmer’s previous engagements at the Coconut Grove and prior to that having been at the Promenade Cafe. I have found no evidence if Linda Keene joined Farmer at the Promenade Cafe or if she was still with Jack Teagarden. The last advertisement for the Goblet that I have found having any further mention of Farmer and Linda Keene also appeared in the October 21st, 1939 edition of the Albany Times Union:
The Billboard Route information for Orchestras had listings for Willie Farmer and his Orchestra at the Goblet in Albany in all of the Billboard issues from November 4th, 1939 up to and including December 30th, 1939. None of those issues mentioned Linda Keene in the Route information for singers. It is not clear if Linda Keene was in Albany or perhaps started out in Albany but did not finish the run with Willie Farmer and his Orchestra. One thing is clear, by the end of 1939, Linda Keene was not appearing with Willie Farmer.
As with her appearances with Jack Teagarden, there is another anomaly for Linda Keene in the fall of 1939. Apparently, according to The Herald-News (Passaic, New Jersey), Linda Keene appeared as part of the “Vaudeville Night of Stars” at the New Deal Long Bar in Passaic on November 7, 1939:
Notice that the advertisement calls attention to the fact that Linda was “formerly with Jack Teagarden Orchestra” and does not mention any connection to Willie Farmer and his Orchestra. I scrolled through other editions from The Herald-News but Linda Keene’s name does not appear in any subsequent ads for the New Deal Long Bar after November 7th. This mystery doesn’t help in proving how long Linda Keene stayed with Willie Farmer and his Orchestra at The Goblet in Albany.
LENNIE HAYTON
We do know for sure that Linda Keene was not with Farmer and his Orchestra by late November 1939. At some point, Linda took up with Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra and was appearing with him at Loew’s State theatre in New York starting November 24th. Linda Keene is not listed in the advertisements that ran in New York papers but according to Billboard magazine she was with Hayton during his engagement at Loew’s State. Billboard reviewed Hayton on November 24th and ran their review in the December 2, 1939 issue. This time, unlike with Billboard’s review of Willie Farmer, the band is good but “Linda Keene is just fair.” Hayton and his Orchestra would finish at Loew’s State on November 29th.
On November 30th, according to Billboard, Hayton and his Orchestra were booked into Leon and Eddie’s for 4 weeks.
Even the Evening Sun (Hanover, Pennsylvania) made note of it in their December 2, 1939 issue. Billboard also made mention of Hayton and his Orchestra at Leon and Eddie’s in their Route information for Orchestras in their December 2, 9, 16, and 23rd issues. Again, Linda Keene is not mentioned.
Linda Keene must have been with Hayton while he was at Leon and Eddie’s because a week after they started there the Orchestra was in the Varsity Records studio on December 7, 1939 with Linda Keene. Varsity was one of two labels that comprised the United States Record Company; Royale Records was the other. Eli Oberstein created the USRC in the summer of 1939, shortly after he left an executive position at RCA Victor. Varsity was considered a “budget” label, specializing in popular music and selling records for 35 cents each. Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra would record four songs on December 7, 1939, “Peg O’ My Heart” backed with “As Long As I Live”, both instrumentals, and two sides with Linda Keene doing vocals on “At The Balalaika” and “The Starlit Hour”.
AT THE BALALAIKA –LINDA KEENE with LENNIE HAYTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
———————————-
THE STARLIT HOUR –LINDA KEENE with LENNIE HAYTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
There wasn’t much in the way of reviews for these two Linda Keene tracks with Hayton. The only one I came across was this one from The Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio) January 13, 1940:
The Lennie Hayton recordings are considered rare. Varsity Records was a small label and did limited runs of their 78 records. According to Professor Raja’s article, ‘Linda Keene – Her Elusive Fame’, “All shoe-string recording companies had to wait their turn regarding record manufacture and had a limited number of pressings. On Linda’s two records, apparently, there was very little shellac left over from a Glenn Miller hit. As a result, very few copies of these two records are known to exist.” Many of Linda Keene’s other recordings with large Orchestras like Bobby Hackett’s and Jack Teagarden’s have been included on CD compilations of the early years of those orchestras but her recordings with Lennie Hayton remain limited to the obscure 78 records and of course Prof Raja’s CD “Linda Keene – Recordings and Soundies.”
Hayton in his history as a band leader recorded two numbers as a leader in 1928 and then led a big band that recorded from 1937-40. When the band broke up in 1940, Hayton settled in Hollywood, where he worked for MGM as an arranger, conductor and musical director. He married the singer, Lena Horne in 1947 and thereafter served as her pianist, arranger and musical director. Between 1937 and 1940, the Hayton band, booked by Mills Artists Incorporated, toured coast-to-coast, playing one-nighters and extended stay locations with a lineup that ranged from 12 to as many as 20 musicians.
One of Hayton’s extended stay locations was of course Leon & Eddie’s in December of 1939. Perhaps Linda was singing the two songs during the engagement at Leon & Eddie’s. After that engagement ended during the last week of December, Lennie Hayton hit the road for the rest of December and into 1940. We catch up to Lennie Hayton and Linda Keene from an article in the Irvington Gazette, Irvington, New York on December 21st, 1939. Hayton is booked for New Year’s Eve at the County Center in White Plains, New York:
Apparently Hayton and his Orchestra were part of a tour that headlined Gene Krupa and his Orchestra. Another article announcing the appearance of the two Orchestras in White Plains ran in the Brewster Standard, Brewster, New York on December 28, 1939:
Linda Keene’s name does not appear in the advertisement below but the review of the New Year’s Eve concert is very favorable to Linda.
In all aspects, it appeared Linda Keene had a great year with 1939. She had started 1939 during her engagement with Scott Fisher’s Orchestra in Bermuda and then was picked up by Jack Teagarden. Three recordings resulted with Teagarden and an appearance with his Orchestra on the national Fitch Summer Bandwagon program as well as appearances with Teagarden at the Roseland in New York and a five week run with Teagarden at the Blackhawk in Chicago. She never stopped working and moved on to a hitch with Willie Farmer’s Orchestra for August through November before starting with Lennie Hayton and eventually recording two more songs with his Orchestra and then ending the year on tour with Lennie Hayton and Gene Krupa. What would 1940 bring? A hint came in small article in the December 27th, 1940 issue of Variety stating that Linda Keene had left Lennie Hayton’s Orchestra for Tony Pastor’s band. Obviously incorrect as she was still with Hayton as of New Year’s Eve 1939 but a prediction of things to come?
1940
LENNIE HAYTON contd…
Lennie Hayton and Linda Keene continued to tour in 1940. Sometimes it was difficult to locate a listing for Lennie Hayton. Sometimes his touring information was included in Billboard’s Orchestra Route information or other times it required scanning pages of Billboard or other periodicals that were not searchable. Piecing together bit and pieces I was able to find some tour information for Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra in January of 1940. On January 5, 1940 it is noted that Hayton will follow Krupa into the Roseland the following day. This was the same Roseland where George Simon saw Linda Keene perform with Jack Teagarden in the spring of 1939
Variety from January 3, 1940 also makes mention of Hayton moving into the Roseland after Georgie Auld. The engagement at the Roseland may have lasted from two to three weeks. Billboard, from January 20, 1940 mentions that “Mal Hallett is the follow-upper to Lennie Hayton at Roseland Ballroom in another couple of weeks.” This suggest a possible end date of the last week of January. The January 20, 1940 Billboard article also puts down speculation that Linda Keene has moved over to the Tony Pastor orchestra. Again the rumors were flying that Linda was considering a move to the Tony Pastor Orchestra. Down Beat would post in the January 1st, 1940 issue that Linda Keene had been auditioning for Pastor. Another article about Linda Keene joining up with Pastor would appear in in a New Orleans newspaper on January 21st, 1940. Pastor would factor into Linda Keene’s future but in January 1940 her commitment was still with Hayton.
A small Billboard article from the February 3, 1940 issue noted
that Lennie Hayton was due at the Raymor Ballroom in Boston on January 27th through February 10th. This must have been immediately following the stay at the Roseland in New York. I could not find any advertisements in Boston papers for this engagement. Directly after ending at the Raymor in Boston on February 10, Hayton and his Orchestra were booked into the New Yorker Hotel in New York
for a week starting February 11th. Although Hayton’s tour was being well documented, Linda Keene’s information seemed to be lagging behind. Her route information in Billboard for February 17th, February 24th, and March 2nd had her listed as still at the Raymor Ballroom; albeit with the listing misspelling her last name as “Keane”.
It was while Hayton was at the New Yorker Hotel that Billboard ran an interesting article in their February 17th issue on the success of “At the Balalaika” and “Starlit Hour”:
It is interesting that both songs were recorded by Hayton with Linda Keene doing vocals but neither artist is mentioned in the article. There are other recordings of “At The Balalaika” from 1939 as well as a few for “The Starlit Hour” so the article might have been referring to the popularity of the songs and not specifically Hayton and Keene’s recordings. Still, the fact that their record was out there in late 1939 and early 1940 might have bolstered sales by riding the wave of popularity of the two songs.
There is a slight gap in the route information for Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra after the engagement at the New Yorker Hotel ended on February 17th. Linda’s own route information, as noted above, still had her at the Raymor in Boston but that must have been incorrect. Billboard next notes that Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra were booked into the Flatbush in Brooklyn for February 22nd through the 28th. The article below from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) February 21, 1940 notes the appearance and Linda Keene is also mentioned:
The gap between the end of their appearance at the New Yorker Hotel on the 17th and the beginning of their two day showing at the Flatbush on February 22nd might have been due to Hayton and Keene preparing to return to the recording studio. On February 20, 1940, Hayton and his Orchestra laid down four tracks at the Vocalion recording studio in New York: “AC-DC Current”, “Times Square Scuttle”, “I Love You Too Much”, and “One Cigarette For Two”. The last two songs contained vocals by Linda Keene.
I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH –LINDA KEENE with LENNIE HAYTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
———————————-ONE CIGARETTE FOR TWO –LINDA KEENE with LENNIE HAYTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Reviews for the two tracks with Linda Keene were generally good:
The Times (Munster, Indiana) April 14, 1940
Madison Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, April 21, 1940
Billboard Review June 20, 1940
The Lennie Hayton and Linda Keene pairings on Vocalion and earlier on Varsity are, as one review puts it “not good, not bad.” Certainly Linda’s voice is excellent but the songs are not memorable and certainly don’t seem to fit with Linda Keene with the exception of “I Love You Much Too Much”. That song is haunting and the music and vocals are a perfect blend. The recordings the previous year with Jack Teagarden were, as I’ve said, a compliment of the band and the vocalist. There is a lushness in the Hayton recordings, perhaps better suited for dancing, but Linda had made and would make better recordings. These were the last recordings by Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra. Hayton and his Orchestra recorded 25 songs between April 1937 and February 1940. A complete list can be found at
Appearing at the Flatbush following the recording session, the advertisement for Lennie Hayton’s appearance from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York), February 22, 1940 does not mention Linda Keene but the review from the same newspaper on February 23rd mentions her in passing:
A scan of the movie listings in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle revealed a small ad each day ending with one from February 28th: Flatbush, Church and Flatbush Aves…ON STAGE: Lenny Hayton & Orch.: Cass Daley, The Debonaires. Extra! Henry Armett. Again, Linda Keene’s name is not mentioned.
March of 1940 presented a problem when tracking Linda Keene. Down Beat published a photo of Linda in the March 15th issue and stated she and and Hayton were “playing theaters in the east.” However, on the same day that the notice appeared in Down Beat, March 15th, Hayton is at the Fiesta Danceteria in New York. On Wednesday, March 13th, the Daily News (New York, New York) announced “Lenny Hayton” starting on the Friday, March 15th. Of course Hayton’s first name is misspelled.
The engagement must have been for a week because an advertisement for the Fiesta ran on March 22nd without Hayton’s name. The last advertisement with Hayton’s name, still misspelled, appeared in the Daily News on March 21st:
Again, Hayton is mentioned and Linda Keene is not. After the Fiesta I could find nothing for the rest of March for Hayton and certainly nothing for Linda Keene at all. The next mention of Lennie Hayton in the media was not favorable. From the general news feed on April 9th, 1940, we find that Hayton is in a Morristown, New Jersey hospital. Apparently Hayton recovered because the next article has Hayton and his Orchestra appearing on a national program on April 21st:
There was no mention of Linda Keene in this small notice that appeared in most papers on April 20th. Linda’s name appeared in none of the national magazines like Billboard nor in any of the newspapers in the New York area, assuming that Hayton and Keene were still performing in the area. Billboard had no route information for both Lennie Hayton’s Orchestra and Linda Keene after the notice for the Fiesta in mid-March. Linda Keene’s name last appeared in the review for the Flatbush in February. Her route information in Billboard last had her listed at the Raymor in Boston in the March 2nd issue when we know in fact she was still with Hayton in February. I have scanned through numerous periodicals, carefully line by line, and ad by ad, but Linda Keene’s name does not appear again until the summer of 1940. As for Lennie Hayton, his prospects were brighter. By mid-June wire services ran the following one line around June 26, 1940:
In fact, Hayton was arranging for Jimmy Dorsey and then was in Hollywood in the summer of 1940 arranging for Artie Shaw. He moved on from that in 1940 and became a musical director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer until his retirement from the post in 1953. As, I could find nothing more linking Linda Keene with Hayton I will drop that line and move on to the next phase of Linda’s career in 1940.
RED NORVO
From Prof. Raja’s article we learned that in the summer of 1940 Linda Keene “teamed up with Red Norvo’s band just as they were about to depart on a grueling six-month Mid-West and Southern States tour.” This is in keeping with my research because Linda Keene’s trail was not documented, or not well documented, in the media for the spring of 1940 and nothing definitive suggests when she left Hayton or was still with Hayton when his orchestra disbanded in June of that year.
I want to provide some context regarding Red Norvo’s band in 1940. There is probably a great deal of information to be found online regarding Norvo and his history but as it relates to Linda Keene, I want to back up to March of 1940. A small notice was making the wire service news in most papers on March 23rd. The one on the right is a sample from the Mason City Globe Gazette, Mason, Iowa. Note, that the Red Norvo band is one of five swing bands that had folded around that time. The truth, however, was something different. The article below from Billboard a week later explains what Norvo was really doing:
I chose not to include the second half of the article because it does not include information about Norvo. More details on the restructuring of Norvo’s band appeared in the May 1940 issue of Metronome:
My apologies for the image being cut off as that occurred at the source. This is what I believe is the full text:
-Norvo Brings Back Soft Subtle Swing Group for Hotels
Young Outfit Makes Yelling and Snoring Quite Unnecessary
Red Norvo has returned to his best bet: a small, soft, subtle swing outfit. It consists of only nine men and musically and commercially it is a potent piece of merchandise.
The band is ideally suited for hotel work, especially for rooms that cater to the younger trade. Both the size and the style of the group result in its playing soft music, and yet it maintains a moving swing that the kids call for.
The instrumentation is a slight augmentation of the famous Norvo septet of several years ago. It consists of a full, three-way sax section one trumpet, one trombone, the usual four rhythm of piano, guitar, bass, and drums, and, of course Norvo. He has switched from Xylophone to marimba, the latter instrument being similar to the former except that it has greater range. The change will give Norvo more opportunities on the ballads especially.
The style of the band is definitely swing, but it is the classic proof of the theory that swing can be solid and can be good that way, too There is no blaring; instead the swing is achieved via the arrangements, by the delicate rhythm figures, and of course by Norvo’s exciting hammerings. There’s little danger of this group causing any yelling or snoring on the part of patrons at dinner sessions.
Future plans of the organization are indefinite. It is being booked by MCA, and will shortly wax disks for one of the major recording companies.
So the stage was set for Norvo’s next band and a tour that MCA would arrange; a tour that would include Linda Keene as vocalist with the band.
I began to search through posts for Red Norvo in 1940, going back to April and May to see if I could locate any reference to Linda Keene becoming Norvo’s new singer. Back on May 22, 1940 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) ran a small article about Red Norvo’s Orchestra appearing at the Luna Park Ballroom but it was clear that Judy Abbott was the vocalist at that time. I eventually found what I believe was the first concert where Linda Keene began with Norvo. The list below is what I have been able to cobble together as the itinerary during Norvo’s six month tour. It is probably by no means complete but all of these are documented. There may have been other smaller towns or College or University campus appearances that are missing from this list:
Roton Park, Amusement Park, Stamford, Connecticut, June 30
Potomac Cruise, Washington DC, July 3-9
Steel Pier, Atlantic City, New Jersey, –July 10-12
Moonlite Gardens Dance Pavilion of Coney Island, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 19 – 25
Crystal Beach Park, Vermilion, Ohio, July 28
Terrace Grill, Hotel Muehlebach, Kansas City, Missouri, August 2-22
Robinson Memorial Auditorium, Little Rock, Arkansas, August 23
Shreveport Country Club, Shreveport, Louisiana, August 24
Piatt County Fair, Cerro Gordo, Illinois, September 2, 1940 (cancelled)
Plantation, Dallas Texas, August 25-September 7
Eta Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Pi, Lake Worth Casino, Fort Worth, Texas, September 9
Turnpike Casino, Lincoln, Nebraska September 14
Terp Ballroom, Austin, Minnesota, September 25
Surf Ballroom, Mason City, Iowa, September 26
Palais Ballroom, South Bend, Indiana, September 28
The Rink Ballroom, Waukegan, Illinois, September 29
New Moon Theatre, Vincennes, Indiana, October 6
Tune Town Ballroom, St. Louis, Missouri, October 15 – 20
Crystal Palace, Paw Paw Lake, Coloma, Michigan, October 26
Wisconsin Roof Ballroom, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 27
Turkey’s Nest Club, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, October 30
Valley Dale, Columbus Ohio, November 2
The Cathedral, New Castle, Pennsylvania, November 5-6
The Graystone Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan, November 7-12
Trianon Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, November 11 (Cancelled?)
The Grotto Ballroom, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 13
Kenyon Dance, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, November 15
Castle Farm, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 16
Trianon Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, November 21
Annual Homecoming Dance, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, November 22
Union Theatre, New Philadelphia, Ohio, November 24
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 29-30
Apollo Theater, Oberlin, Ohio, December 4
Roseville Pottery 50th Anniversary Party, Hotel Rogge, Zanesville, OH, December 7
Liberty Theater, Zanesville, OH, December 11
All College Christmas Formal, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, December 14
Meyers Lake, Canton Ohio, December 29
For the sake of brevity I will detail the dates on the tour that include only those advertisements or articles that are significant or include Linda Keene.
Roton Amusement Park, Stamford, Connecticut, June 30
Roton Park in Connecticut was the first reference that I found for Linda Keene appearing with Red Norvo. As far as I can tell, this was a single night appearance. I am not sure if this was the official kick-off to the six month tour but I have found no other documented appearances earlier in June. Linda had last played Roton Park in August of 1939 with Willie Farmer.
Potomac Cruise, Washington DC, July 3-9
Linda Keene is not mentioned in any of the ads or the article that ran in the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., on July 4th, 1940 but I thought it was interesting to mention this week long engagement. Imagine, Norvo and the band, along with Linda Keene, cruising up and down the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. every night supplying music for dancers under the stars. I hope it didn’t rain.
Steel Pier, Atlantic City, New Jersey, –July 10-12
It took a while to confirm this date. The first mention that I came across for this engagment was in Variety when it noted in their July 17th issue that Raymond Scott’s orchestra was alternating with Alex Bartha’s orchestra at the Steel Pier and that Red Norvo had ended his engagement there on Friday July 12th. The advertisement to the left is the one that ran for the Steel Pier in the Press of Atlantic City, July 10, 1940. The article mentions that Red Norvo and his Band is in for three days on July 10, 11, 12. There is no mention of Linda Keene in any of the ads that ran through July 12th. The advertisement to the right is for the last night that Norvo was at the Steel Pier but it failed to mention Linda. The Steel Pier performances were significant for Linda Keene because it was her second engagement in Atlantic City with the first being with Glenn Miller two years earlier at Hamid’s Million Dollar Steel Pier in August of 1938. There remains a gap in the itinerary between the end of the Steel Pier engagement on July 12th and the beginning of the next engagement on July 19th.
Moonlite Gardens Dance Pavilion of Coney Island, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 19 – 25, 1940
On July 21, 1940 the Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio) ran an article where it mentioned that Norvo and his band opened at the Moonlite Gardens Dance Pavilion of Coney Island in Cincinnati on July 19th and his new singer Linda Keene was introduced. We know that this was not the first appearance of Keene with Norvo’s band but maybe he made it official during this engagement. None of the advertisements that ran that week included the name of Linda Keene but there was an advance article that ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer on July 18th and included Linda in the details.
The reviews for Norvo at Coney Island were good and Linda’s name was mentioned in both articles that appeared on July 22nd and 23rd in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The August 1, 1940 issue of Downbeat magazine also mentioned Norvo and Keene’s appearance at the Coney Island Park in Cinncinnatti and would reference a previous engagement at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City and a future gig at the Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City:
Crystal Beach Park, Vermilion, Ohio, July 28, 1940
The first announcement that Norvo was coming to the Crystal Beach Park in Vermilion appeared in the Sandusky Register (Sandusky, Ohio) on July 20th while the band was still appearing at Coney Island in Cincinnati. Linda gets a nod as a “charming ballad singer.” The last time Linda Keene played Crystal Beach, Vermillion, was five years earlier in 1935 when she appeared for one-nighters in June and September under her married name Florence Suttle. Oddly, her appearances in 1935 both times at Crystal Beach were with the George Duffy Orchestra who would follow Linda and Norvo in August at the same venue.
There was a great review of Norvo’s Vermilion concert that ran in syndicated papers on July 31st of 1940 even though it failed to mention Linda Keene:
Terrace Grill, Hotel Muehlebach, Kansas City, Missouri, August 2-22, 1940
Norvo’s appearance in Kansas city started with a small announcement in the The Kansas City Star on July 28th; the same day he and Linda were playing Crystal Beach in Vermilion, Ohio. Almost 800 miles west of Vermilion, Ohio, Red Norvo, Linda Keene and the band settled in for a three week stay beginning August 2, 1940. Even Billboard ran a small notice about the “tri-weeker”. Linda Keene’s name had been in the small announcement on the 28th and the advertisements that appeared during the three week run. I believe, at this point, this was the furthest west that Linda Keene had appeared either under her new name or her married name of Florence Suttle.
Other smaller notices also appeared in the Kansas City Star and Linda Keene’s name was still being mentioned. Most of the praise was for Norvo and the band but the appearance of Linda’s name even in small articles meant she was being noticed. Near the beginning of the run, on August 4th, the Kansas City Star put Linda Keene front and center by including her picture:
Down Beat would reuse their photo from the March 15th, 1940 issue but with a new caption in the August 15th issue regarding her current tour with Norvo and the stop in Kansas City.
Variety would offer up a good review of Norvo in Kansas City in the August 7, 1940 edition:
In addition to the appearances at the Terrace Grill, there were several radio remotes of Norvo from the Hotel Muehlebach. I do not know if any of these remotes survived as radio transcriptions. These would be the only way for us to hear how Linda Keene performed with the newly structured Norvo band.
Robinson Memorial Auditorium, Little Rock, Arkansas, August 23
This performance was for a dance for the Delta Phi Omega Fraternity. None of the ads or articles mentioned Linda Keene.
Shreveport Country Club, Shreveport, Louisiana, August 24, 1940
About 550 miles due south of Kansas City, Missouri lies Shreveport, Louisiana. On August 24, 1940 Red Norvo and his band along with Linda Keene performed at a dance for the Emanon Club at the Shreveport Country Club.
This was a private affair so there were no advertisements or reviews.
Piatt County Fair, Cerro Gordo, Illinois, September 2, 1940 (Cancelled?)
On August 8th the Farmer City Journal, Farmer City, Illinois, announced Red Norvo as part of the lineup for the Piatt County Fair in September. Norvo and his band were to play on the Tuesday night, September 3rd, the night after Raymond Scott and his Quintet played there. Two weeks later on August 22nd, the Gibson City Courier, Gibson City, Illinois, announced that Ben Pollack and his group would instead appear on September 3rd. For the record, Red Norvo and Linda Keene were playing at the Plantation in Dallas, Texas on September 3rd.
The Plantation, Dallas Texas, August 25-September 7
I’ll be honest, I almost missed this one. Even though the articles by Opal Nations and Prof. Raja mention that Down Beat interviewed and photographed Norvo and Keene, I was thinking October when the issue of Down Beat with their coverage would hit the newsstands. Probably because The Plantation was not mentioned, it did not occur to me that the Dallas engagement was in late August/early September and furthermore that it ran for two weeks. While researching the performance for the Emanon Club at the Shreveport Country Club, I first found the reference to the Plantation in the August 20th, Shreveport Journal. A couple days before the Shreveport Journal article, another article ran in the Dallas Morning News on August 18th. The same picture used to promote Linda Keene in Kansas City was paired with one of Red Norvo:
The advertisement that would run in the Dallas Morning News announcing the opening on the evening of August 25th wasn’t as flattering. It was in fact one of the plainest advertisements for any of their stops on the six month tour and it did not mention Linda Keene. Even the review below, appearing a couple days later on August 27th in the Dallas Morning News, was a mixed bag:
At least the article referenced Linda Keene’s short time with Glenn Miller even though it noted she was “somewhat lacking on the showmanship or personality side. Perhaps things were better for her as things went on over the two weeks. The Dallas Morning Star at least gave her praise and published a picture of her with Norvo in their August 28th edition:
As I said earlier, the Down Beat review of Linda Keene and Red Norvo in Dallas appeared in the October 15th edition of that magazine with both of them sharing the cover: The same Down Beat issue would carry a nice article about Red Norvo and his new band:
In addition to being on the cover, Linda would also get her photo by the pool in the same issue of Down Beat:
Eta Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Pi, Lake Worth Casino, Fort Worth, Texas, September 9
The article to the right from the September 6th Fort Worth Star points out that even college dances were part of Norvo’s itinerary in September of 1940.
Turnpike Casino, Lincoln, Nebraska, September 14
The Turnpike Casino appearance was also one of Norvo’s performances that received favorable reviews. Billboard actually posted two articles in their September 28, 1940 issue. The first was to note that Norvo grossed $750 for his appearance that night. Apparently he was competing against four other dances in Lincoln that night; one of which was free. The second article in the Billboard issue was a review which also had kind words for Linda Keene.
Terp Ballroom, Austin, Minnesota, September 25
There is a gap in the itinerary between the the Turnpike Casino on September 14, 1940 and the Terp Ballroom in Austin, Minnesota on September 25th. I have found nothing that fills that gap but it is possible that Norvo was playing one-nighters in small towns or college dances and these events were not covered by some of the local newspapers. I thought the Turnpike Casino engagement might have been an extended stay performance rather than one night but I could find no evidence of that. I did find that Herbie Kay and his Orchestra opened there on September 20th. There were no reviews for the Terp Ballroom performance.
Surf Ballroom, Mason City, Iowa, September 26
Two notices for the Surf Ballroom, both with mentions of Linda Keene, but no reviews.
Palais Ballroom, South Bend, Indiana, September 28
There was no mention of Linda Keene at the Palais.
The Rink Ballroom, Waukegan, Illinois, September 29
Two advertisements with Linda Keene’s name included. No reviews.
New Moon Theatre, Vincennes, Indiana, October 6
Here’s another one I almost missed. The small article to the right appeared in the Evansville Press (Evansville, Indiana) on October 4th, 1940. The focus was mostly on the Ossenberg Brothers who also appeared at the New Moon Theatre so I almost didn’t notice that Red Norvo was mentioned. At least the advertisement from the Vincennes Sun-Commercial on October 6th mentioned both Norvo and Linda Keene.
Tune Town Ballroom, St. Louis, Missouri, October 15 – 20
The concerts in St. Louis follow another gap from October 6th in Vincennes, Indiana to the Tune Town Ballroom on October 15th. The six day run at the Tune Town also included broadcasts over the KXOK radio station. Down Beat would publish a picture of Red Norvo and Linda Keene at Tune Town when they ran a retrospective on Red Norvo in the August 11th, 1950 issue; nearly ten years after the Tune Town engagement.
I have not found any radio transcriptions of these performances.
Crystal Palace, Paw Paw Lake, Coloma, Michigan, October 26
Another small gap from October 20th to October 26th, 1940.
Wisconsin Roof Ballroom, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 27
Skipping over to Wisconsin, Red Norvo and Linda Keene are on the roof…the Wisconsin Roof Ballroom in Milwaukee.
Turkey’s Nest Club, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, October 30
In Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Red Norvo opened the Turkey’s Nest Club on October 30th, 1940 and Linda Keene received a mention in an article and an advertisement from the Monessen Daily Independent, Monessen, Pennsylvania.
Valley Dale, Columbus Ohio, November 2
Another College dance appearance for Norvo and the band. This time it’s for the Ohio vs. Indiana Football party but there’s no mention of Linda Keene.
The Cathedral, New Castle, Pennsylvania, November 5-6
Now in Pennsylvania, Linda gets her picture back in the paper for the two day, three shows an evening, run at The Cathedral in New Castle.
The Graystone Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan, November 6-12
Norvo played the Graystone in Detroit for a week starting November 7th. Big city. Small ad. No mention of Linda Keene.
Trianon Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, November 11 (Cancelled?)
This is an oddity. The Plain Dealer from Cleveland, Ohio November 10th, 1940 ran the article to the left in which Norvo is mentioned for an appearance at the Trianon Ballroom the next night, the 11th. I checked the Plain Dealer on the 11th and there was no advertisement for Norvo at the Trianon but there was mention of a dance at the Trianon sponsored by the American Legion County Council as part of Armistice Celebrations. In fact, Norvo and the band were scheduled for the week at the Graystone in Detroit.
The Grotto Ballroom, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 13
On October 25th, the Pittsburgh Press announced that Red Norvo would be in Pittsburgh at The Grotto Ballroom on November 13th for a special benefit sponsored by the Yugoslav Dapper Dan Club. Linda Keene’s picture was used as part of the announcement. Another announcement would appear in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on November 4th and Linda’s name would also be mentioned. The articles gave a significant build up to the event but the actual advertisement that appeared in Pittsburgh papers was rather small.
Kenyon Dance, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, November 15
Not all of Norvo’s appearances on college campuses received small coverage. His appearance at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio on November 15th received a nice build up in the Gambier Kenyon Collegian:
Castle Farm, Cincinnati, OH, November 16
The first announcement for Red Norvo’s Band at Castle Farm was the last line in an article, from the Cincinnati Enquirer on October 30th, about other acts appearing ‘down on the farm’. Norvo had looped back to Cincinnati on his tour almost four months since he had opened at the Moonlite Gardens Dance Pavilion of Coney Island on July 19th. Although Linda Keene was mentioned in articles related to the Moonlite Gardens appearances, there would be no reference to her in November.
Trianon Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, November 21
Norvo didn’t get to Cleveland earlier in his tour but made up for it by being part of a jitterbug’s double bill dream. Norvo would appear November 21st at the Trianon Ballroom with Charlie Barnet’s orchestra. With two giant bands like that, it’s no wonder that Linda Keene’s name wasn’t mentioned. Both advertisement and article came from the Plain Dealer, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Another oddity related to Linda Keene’s appearance a the Trianon appeared in the 1993 autobiography of Frankie Laine titled “That Lucky Old Sun.” Laine mentions Linda Keene appearing with Red Norvo at the Trianon in Cleveland but that she left him to get married:
Back in Cleveland, I started picking up a few things by listening to June Hart. I may have been fired, but the College Inn was a public place and they couldn’t keep me out of the joint. I used to go hear her every night, and I was especially taken with one ” oldie” in her repertoire. It was an obscure little 1931 ballad entitled That’s My Desire. I thought it was very pretty, and the melody spent a long time running through my head before it burst out in spectacular fashion a few years later. After her show, June would pick up the tab for our food and beer. I was still as broke as could be. Meanwhile, a friend of mine named Bill Furman had fallen in love with a girl singer named Linda Keene who was working with bandleader Red Norvo at the Trianon Ballroom. They decided to elope, and Norvo was going crazy with no girl singer. I went down to see him and introduced myself. ” I’ve been working at the College Inn with a girl named June Hart,” I told him, ” and I don’t know if I’m saying a good or a bad thing here, but she sings just like Mildred Bailey.” Mildred and Red had been married and used to work together, but she stopped singing with him after they were divorced. Red said he’d like to hear her, so we went down after hours to listen to June at another place called the Cabin Club. He thought she was great and decided to take her with him to New York. This marked the beginning of what has been a long and dear friendship between Red and me, but at the time it also meant the end of my meal ticket. I had no idea where to turn next.
I cannot confirm that Linda Keene left Norvo after the Trianon but she is noted as appearing with him through the rest of his tour. I can find no evidence that she also married anyone named Bill Furman. June Hart did join Norvo in early 1941 but that was after the tour had ended.
Annual Homecoming Dance, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, November 22
Still in Ohio, Norvo played another University dance in Columbus, Ohio. This time it was the Annual Homecoming Dance at Ohio State University. The article above from the Columbus Dispatch focused more on the chaperones for the dance than the entertainment that would be present. At least the “Sundial”, the student newspaper of Ohio State University ran an advertisement that ran over two pages:
Union Theatre, New Philadelphia, Ohio, November 24
Red Norvo and the Band with Linda Keene next played the Union Theatre in New Philadelphia, Ohio on November 24th for four shows. The feature film also playing was “Girls Under 21” with Bruce Cabot and Rochelle Hudson. What do they expect from life, these Girls Under 21?
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 29-30
Skipping over to Michigan, Norvo played for another University. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Norvo and band played November 29th and 30th. The following articles come from The Daily Michigan, the student newspaper of the University of Michigan:
This time there would be no review of the concert by The Daily Michigan but rather Red Norvo gave a review of the dancers who attended and the contract disputes with ASCAP and BMI:
Apollo Theater, Oberlin, Ohio, December 4
This would be the first of two appearances that Norvo would make in Oberlin Ohio in December of 1940. The second would be for the All College Formal at Oberlin College on December 14th. The Oberlin College social committee was not happy about the appearance at the Apollo because they thought it would cut down on revenues for his appearance at the College on the 14th. Despite the objection, the Oberlin Review, the student newspaper of Oberlin College, in which the ad and article above appeared, did offer up a fairly decent review of the Apollo concert.
Roseville Pottery 50th Anniversary Party, Hotel Rogge, Zanesville, OH, December 7
More than three months after Red Norvo and his Band played for the Emanon Club on August 24th, 1940 in Shreveport, he performed another private party. The Roseville Pottery Company was celebrating their 50th anniversary in 1940 so they booked in Red Norvo for the affair. Linda Keene is mentioned as “nationally known songstress.”
Liberty Theater, Zanesville, Ohio, December 11
For those who could not attend the Roseville Pottery Company 50th anniversary party where Norvo appeared on December 7th in Zanesville, they didn’t have to wait long for another chance to see him in concert. Only a few days later, on December 11th, Red Norvo and his band appeared at the Liberty Theater. This time Linda Keene is billed as “one of the finest girl vocalists with any orchestra.”
All College Christmas Formal, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, December 14
This was Red Norvo’s second appearance in Oberlin, Ohio, after playing the Apollo Theater on December 4th. The Oberlin College social committee were worried that the earlier appearance at the Apollo would impact attendance at the All College Christmas Formal. An interview with Red Norvo appeared in the Oberlin Review on December 10th and it highlighted the hectic schedule Norvo and the band had been keeping. Norvo is quoted as saying “we really were stepping lively a couple of days last week.” His reference to Cleveland doesn’t make sense if it was the day before Kenyon College. They played Kenyon College on November 15th but there is no record of Norvo in Cleveland on November 14th. I have checked the Cleveland Plain Dealer for November 13th and 14th but there were no articles or advertisements for Norvo playing in Cleveland. We do know that Red Norvo was at The Grotto on November 13th in Pittsburgh. It’s possible he played a College or University dance in Cleveland or another private party on November 14th but I could find no record of that either.
As for a review of the dance, the Oberlin Review had this to offer:
Meyers Lake, Canton Ohio, December 29
A small article appeared in the Canton Repository, Canton, Ohio, on December 29th, 1940. It mentioned a live broadcast from Meyers Lake and that Red Norvo would be the band for the initial broadcast. This was the last reference that I could find for Red Norvo in 1940 and a full two weeks afer the All College Christmas Formal at Oberlin College. I could find nothing else for the two week gap. I checked the listings for Meyers Lake and Red Norvo only appeared December 29th. There was no mention of Linda Keene.
The appearance at Meyers Lake marked the last engagement, I believe, of the six month tour started in June. I checked into early 1941 and found that Norvo, by the end of the first week of January, was playing the Hotel Brunswick in Boston without any mention of Linda Keene. It is highly unlikely that Linda Keene was still appearing with Norvo when he was in Boston. With the end of 1940 it is more likely that the tour with Linda ended. According to Professor Raja “when the band returned to the Big Apple to record, Red’s wife Mildred Bailey was waiting, thus denying Linda of an earned recording session.”
An interesting article appeared along the wire service in September of 1940 around the time that Linda Keene and Red Norvo were appearing at the Turnpike Casino in Lincoln Nebraska. The article concerned Mildred Bailey, Red Norvo’s wife, and why she wasn’t touring with Norvo. His answer was simple that Mildred Bailey could make more on her own, sometimes up to $3,000 a week, and that was more than he could pay a girl singer. It was clear that Mildred Bailey was still in Red Norvo’s life and by the end of the tour, Linda Keene was on to her next adventure. She wasn’t, however, completely finished with Red Norvo.
1941
TONY PASTOR
It isn’t clear where Linda Keene was in January of 1941. The previous year had been a busy one continuing with Lennie Hayton’s Orchestra and recording two songs in February of 1940. More dates followed with Hayton in February and early March but by June she had hooked up with Red Norvo for the six month tour. Oh, and there were those rumors that Linda Keene had left Hayton’s Orchestra in January of 1940 for Tony Pastor and his Orchestra. Finally, in 1941 those rumors came true.
I could not find an exact start date for Linda Keene with Tony Pastor’s Orchestra. She certainly was appearing with him in February of 1941 and was in the studio with his Orchestra the same month. It would take newspapers and magazines a few months to catch up with the change. Down Beat was the first to mention it in their February 15th issue. It wasn’t until March 2nd that the Pittsburgh Press reported that Linda Keene was now with Pastor. It would take until the April 19th issue of Movie-Radio Guide before they made note of the change. In their “Vocalistings” article, they made note of Tony Pastor acquiring Linda Keene and made reference to her history with Red Norvo and Jack Teagarden.
Despite not knowing the official start date for Linda Keene with Tony Pastor, it certainly became official with their one and only recording together. On February 18, 1941, almost a year after her last studio session, Linda Keene recorded “Number Ten Lullaby Lane” with Tony Pastor and his Orchestra. It would be her only recording with Tony Pastor. Dorsey Anderson and Tony Pastor were also heard on the recording.
NUMBER TEN LULLABY LANE –LINDA KEENE with TONY PASTOR AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Personally, I like the song and Linda’s singing on it. It’s more of a gimmick song and not a solo Linda Keene effort, which is too bad because her vocal is very charming. Dinah Shore would also record it as a solo effort as did Eddie Duchin’s Orchestra, Martha Tilton, and Harry James’ Orchestra. Here’s an interesting article about the composer of “Number Ten Lullaby Lane”:
According to the article, Bob Carlton who composed the song also wrote “Jada” which would also factor into Linda Keene’s career later on. With all of the different versions of “Number Ten Lullaby Lane” out there, it was difficult to find any reviews specifically mentioning the version by Tony Pastor. I found one that mentioned Linda Keene from the Syracuse Herald American, Syracuse, New York, on May 25th, 1941
It’s sad that neither of the reviews mentioned Linda’s splendid singing. The article to the left from the Houston Chronicle on March 16th at least gave credit to the vocalists.
After the recording session on February 18th, I was able to begin tracking Linda Keene again in her appearances with Tony Pastor. On February 24th, 1941 they played one night at the Ritz Theater in Newburgh, New York. A couple days after that, on February 26th, according to the January 1941 edition of Variety, Pastor and his Orchestra started a three week engagement at the Paramount Theatre in New York City. What I find most odd is that a few articles mention a seven month stay for Pastor at Hotel Lincoln in New York. I have found some ads for Tony Pastor and his Orchestra at the Hotel Lincoln in the fall of 1940 and some continuing into the spring of 1941. Here is the advertisement that ran in The Daily Princetonian, Princeton, New Jersey on February 28th, 1941:
There is no mention of Linda Keene although she appeared with Pastor on February 24th at the Ritz Newburgh. Also strange, is that this advertisement bills Pastor at the Hotel Lincoln on February 28th but he was supposed to be on a three week engagement at the Paramount Theatre in New York as of February 26th. Here is the advertisement that ran in the New York Daily News on February 26th:
There is no mention of Linda Keene in the ad or the small notice that also ran mentioning that Ella Logan was the vocalist.
It is possible that Linda Keene was part of group that was with Tony Pastor and she wasn’t mentioned in the ads. The show at the Paramount was reviewed in the March 8th, 1941 Billboard but again, there was no mention of Linda Keene. My apologies for the poor scan which comes from the source. This is essentially the review of Tony Pastor’s Orchestra:
The Preston Sturges pic, “The Lady Eve” (Paramount), plus a fairly stage bill with Tony Pastor’s ork, Ella Longa, Ben Blue, and Toy and Wing, should give the house plenty of magnetism for weeks. The Pastor aggregation makes lots of noise and knocks off some passable arrangements, but didn’t draw too many hands. Band features the drum beating of Johnny Morris and vocalizing of Johnny McAfee, both lads being very capable at each. Pastor himself sings and tootles his tenor sax. Toy and Wing open up with a neat and effortless soft-shoe number, then heat it up with a little jitterbugging. Got a nice hand and closed with Miss Toy’s fast toe number and some good novelty acro turns by both. Ella Logan struck home with her original song work and had to beg off after four numbers. Gal’s mugging and strong voice stamp her song selling with a distinction which is refreshing. She stays away from pops, doing arrangements like “On the Sunny Side of the Street and The Curse of an Aching Heart.”
The rest of the article is about Ben Blue and his comedy antics. It appears that the run at the Paramount, which was to have lasted three weeks, had been extended to five weeks.
It is interesting to note that Down Beat would publish and article in their March 15th, 1941 issue and state that Red Norvo had reorganized his band again and that Linda Keene was back with him:
Down Beat also mentioned the Norvo and Keene reunion as a caption of a photo of Linda.
The photo is of course Linda performing with Tony Pastor’s Orchestra when they played the Lincoln Hotel earlier in 1941. I checked the Cleveland newspapers for this period but found no listings for Red Norvo nor Linda Keene. The only article about Red Norvo appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on March 5th, 1941 stating that June Hart was going to be the female singer with Norvo. This would not be the first or last time that Linda Keene was rumored to be back with Red Norvo in 1941.
The article to the left ran in the Altoona Mirror, Altoona, Pennsylvania, on April 5th, 1941 and pretty much explains everything. It talks about Pastor’s appearance at the Sunset Park, Carrolltown, Pennsylvania on Easter Monday which would have been April 14th, 1941. The article also mentions the extension of the Paramount engagement by two additional weeks. This too, is strange, because five weeks from the opening on February 26th would make closing around April 2nd. That last advertisement for Tony Pastor and his Orchestra at the Paramount was March 17th because Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra moved in the next day with a premiere for the film “Las Vegas Nights” (which was the first on screen appearance of Frank Sinatra) followed by Charlie Barnet’s Orchestra with Dinah Shore.
The Sunset article also addressed the issue of the appearances at the Hotel Lincoln where Pastor was broadcasting from several times a week. He might have been pulling double duty at the Paramount and at the Hotel Lincoln. Linda Keene is mentioned in the article for the Sunset appearance so it is natural to assume that she was with Pastor at the Paramount and perhaps at the Hotel Lincoln. According to the New York Daily News on April 8, 1941, Tony Pastor’s orchestra was leaving the Hotel Lincoln to tour theatres in the Brandt Theatre chain starting April 17th. This would only be a few days after the Sunset Park appearance.
Billboard Magazine, during the month of April 1941 would publish Tony Pastor’s route itinerary in each issue. Here is what most of April looked like:
Manhattan Center, New York City, April 12
Arena, New Haven, Connecticut, April 13
Sunset Park, Carrolltown, Pennsylvania, April 14
Warner Theater, Morgantown, West Virginia, April 15
West Side Park, Berwick, Pennsylvania April 16
Flatbush, Brooklyn, April 17-22
Windsor, Bronx April 24-30
I have checked all of these dates throughout numerous newspapers and found that some of the dates were incorrect. For example, Louis Armstrong was playing at the Manhattan Center on April 12th and I found an ad that places Tony Pastor at the New Bradford Theatre in Bradford, Pennsylvania on April 28th when he was to be at the Windsor in the Bronx at that time. With the exception of the Sunset Park appearance, the only other article I could find that mentioned Linda Keene with Pastor in April was for the April 13th appearance at the Arena in New Haven, Connecticut. The following article and advertisement both appeared in The Journal (Meriden, Connecticut) on April 8th, 1941:
When I checked other publications for the month of April I also found interesting information from two articles in the April 23, 1941 issue of Variety. The first reported that Linda Keene had taken the vocalist spot with Charlie Barnet. The other article reported that Linda Keene had been replaced as the vocalist with the Red Nichols band who were playing at the Raymor Ballroom in Boston. The Raymor was the same venue that Linda had played with Lennie Hayton in early 1940. Down Beat would mention the Nichols and Keene collaboration in their April 15th, 1941 issue and would note the previous back forth Linda played with Norvo and Pastor:
I could not find any advertisements of Charlie Barnet appearances that included Linda Keene nor could I find any articles or advertisements for Nichols at the Raymor that mentioned her. I did find something in the April 1969, Record Research magazine, “The Red Nichols Memorial Issue”, that confirmed the appearance at the Raymor but suggested something different for Linda’s departure from Nichols. Their contention was that Linda Keene left Red Nichols to join Muggsy Spanier’s Orchestra. If Linda was with Nichols in Boston in mid-April, it’s unclear if she was back with Tony Pastor at Sunset Park in Carrolltown, PA, on April 14th despite the article announcing her appearance there with Pastor’s band.
Another oddity is an announcement that Linda Keene was appearing with Red Nichols at the Junior Prom in the New Hampshire Hall of the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire on May 2nd, 1941. Articles in both the April 25th, and April 29th, 1941 The New Hampshire student newspaper hyped up the appearance of Nichols and Keene:
Unfortunately Linda Keene must have departed from Nichols by May 2nd as a review from The New Hampshire on May 6th fails to mention her. Instead, Jenny Banks, who probably was Penny Banks, was given credit as vocalist. It is interesting to note that that this was the second billed appearance for Linda Keene in 1941 at the University of New Hampshire where she did not appear. In the January 10, 1941 issue of The New Hampshire, it was noted that Linda Keene and Red Norvo would appear at the Carnival Ball on February 14, 1941:
Unfortunately neither Linda nor Red Norvo would make an appearance. The February 14th, 1941 issue of The New Hampshire would explain that Newt Perry’s Orchestra would take “the place of Red Norvo, who recently joined Benny Goodman’s band.”
A quick note about Muggsy Spanier. Spanier’s Orchestra was fairly new, having only been established in the first couple of months of 1941. According to Variety’s February 8th, 1941 issue, this was Spanier’s “second attempt at fronting a band of his own.” There was no mention in the article about any singer having been signed at that time for the band.
Moving into May, 1941, Linda Keene’s trail becomes a little more obvious if not still confusing. According to Billboard, Tony Pastor was booked to play the Runnybrook Ballroom in Pottsdown, Pennsylvania on May 3rd, 1941. Linda Keene was also in Pennsylvania on that date but she was appearing with Muggsy Spanier’s Orchestra at the Venetian Gardens in Altoona, Pennsylvania according to the article on the right from the May 3rd, 1941 Altoona Tribune. If appearing with Spanier’s Orchestra, instead of Pastor’s Orchestra, wasn’t odd enough, Linda Keene was mentioned as appearing with Red Norvo’s Orchestra the next night, May 4th at Eastwood Park, Detroit Michigan according to the article below from the May 4th, 1941 Detroit Free Press.
I came across a beautiful photo that credits Linda Keene with Muggsy Spanier:
It appeared that Linda Keene, if she had been down with laryngitis, was making up for lost time by appearing with Muggsy Spanier and Red Norvo and Tony Pastor throughout the month of May, 1941. On May 10th, supposedly Linda Keene was with Tony Pastor when he opened at the Hershey Park Ballroom in Pennsylvania on May 10th. Both of the articles on the right appeared in the Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania).
An article from the Altoona Tribune on May 12, 1941 mentioned that Linda Keene was back in Altoona with Muggsy Spanier’s Orchestra on May 17th at Gable’s Department Store. The previous article from the May 3rd Altoona Tribune mentioned that Spanier’s stay at the Venenetian Gardens in Altoona was indefinite. While researching the May 17th appearance at Gable’s Department Store, I noticed an advertisement for Muggsy Spanier still at the Venetian Gardens. This same advertisement would appear in the Altoona Tribune up to and including May 30th. By the end of May, it appeared Muggsy Spanier was finished at the Venetian Gardens.
Linda Keene was by no means finished with Tony Pastor’s Orchestra. Two days after appearing with Muggsy Spanier at Gable’s Department Store in Altoona on May 17th, Linda’s name is advertised for an appearance at the Library Theatre in Cumberland Maryland.There were in fact four shows at the Library with a fourth show added at 1:50PM according to the advertisement that ran the day of Pastor’s appearance.
There is of course no way to verify that Linda Keene was doing all of this travelling with and between bands. Most of the advertisements and articles had no follow-up reviews but there was one exception. The Altoona Mirror ran an article in their May 13th edition, commenting on an event at the Venetian Gardens the night before, May 12th, and Linda Keene is mentioned as being one of the entertainers.Obviously Linda Keene was in Altoona on May 12th with Muggsy Spanier. I have found no reviews of her appearances in May with Tony Pastor or Red Norvo. Speaking of Norvo, Linda Keene was advertised as being with Norvo again in late May. On May 28th, 1941 Red Norvo and Linda Keene were appearing at Enna Jettick Park in Auburn, New York. When I checked other issues of the Ithaca Journal, Ithaca, New York, where the May 28th advertisement appeared, I found that Norvo was booked to play Enna Jettick Park from May 24th to June 1st, 1941. In fact Linda Keene’s name was still being included in advertisements that ran June 1st:
The problem with all of this, and the most confusing, is that Linda was supposedly with Muggsy Spanier and Tony Pastor on overlapping dates. The Youngstown Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio had her starting with Spanier at The Mansion in Youngstown on May 29th, 1941. There was the advertisement on the left and even a photo and write-up, below, regarding Linda’s appearance with Spanier. The Youngstown Vindicator was still advertising both Spanier and Linda Keene as late as June 12, 1941 suggesting at least a two week run at The Mansion:
The June 1st, 1941 issue of Down Beat mentioned Linda Keene and Spanier’s appearance at The Mansion:
All of this conflicts with reports that at the end of May 1941, Linda was with Tony Pastor out in Atlanta. According to the May 31st, 1941 Atlanta Constitution, Tony Pastor with Linda Keene were playing for the Georgia Military Academy Dance on the evening of May 31st in Atlanta, Georgia.
Again, I can find no reviews to substantiate Linda’s appearance in Atlanta.
June 1941 would also hold some very interesting events for Linda Keene. The most significant was that on June 10th, she was granted a divorce from her husband Spurgeon Suttle. If you haven’t read my previous blahg “TRACING LINDA KEENE, PART 1: THE FLORENCE SUTTLE YEARS“, then I’ll explain this quickly. Linda Keene was born Florence McCrory in December of 1911 and married Spurgeon Suttle on September 16, 1931. They toured both separately and together as Frank Suttle and Florence Suttle from the beginning of their marriage until 1937 when Florence made a break and changed her name to Linda Keene. Apparently her husband could not reconcile himself with the fact that she was making more money than him. He had a small career for a time after they separated but it didn’t amount to much. For more on Spurgeon Suttle you’ll just have to check out my previous blahg. Both of the articles about the divorce come from Chicago papers so we can assume that Linda Keene was in that city around June 10th, 1941.
The next article in June of 1941 to mention Linda Keene was published in the Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio on June 15th.
Linda is back with Muggsy Spanier’s band at the Summit Beach Park in Akron. Linda had last appeared at the Summit Beach park in 1935 with George Duffy’s Orchestra under her married name Florence Suttle. The divorce five days before this new appearance at Summit Beach made it her first official appearance there as the newly single Linda Keene. Muggsy Spanier’s appearance was such a big deal that it received a coast to coast broadcast over the entire mutual network.
I can find no mention of Linda Keene with Spanier for the rest of June. I do know that Muggsy Spanier moved into the Roseland Ballroom in Claremont, New Hampshire on June 19th but Linda’s name does not appear in the advertisement. Spanier was also at the Lake Spofford Hotel in Brattleboro, Vermont on June 25th but again there is no mention of Linda Keene. Following that, Spanier was at Wagenbach’s Lawrence Hofbrau in Lowell, Massachusetts for one night on June 29th. I’m trying to establish a pattern that Muggsy Spanier and his Orchestra were playing venues in New England states at the end of June and early July because the next article I could find related to Linda Keene with Spanier’s Orchestra was a review of Muggsy and Linda at the Roseland State Ballroom in Boston from the July 12th edition of Billboard. They don’t mention the date of the performance that was reviewed but it’s possibly early July because late June had him performing at other venues in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire and before that he was in Akron, Ohio in mid-June. It’s interesting what the Billboard review had to say about Linda as well as proof that Linda was still with Spanier in early July. They complimented her voice but felt she was out of place with Spanier and “would be better with a sweet band or in a cocktail lounge than with this jump crew.” Interesting indeed because Linda’s next move was along the lines of their suggestion. Down Beat reported in their July 15th, 1941 issue that Linda had left Spanier and was going solo.
I have checked listings for Muggsy Spanier and Red Norvo but found nothing that mentions Linda Keene for the rest of June. Tony Pastor was in Raleigh, North Carolina in the middle of June at the Carolina Cotillion Club but nothing suggests Linda Keene was there. Red Norvo was making a swing through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Ohio but none of his advertisements included Linda Keene’s name. An engagment for Linda Keene with Tony Pastor did pop up that brought her back to Atlantic City for a week at Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier at the end of June and into July of 1941. Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier is the same location at which Linda Keene appeared with Glenn Miller in August of 1938. The Hamid’s advertisement above and to the left appeared in the Press of Atlantic City on June 28th, 1941 announcing Tony Pastor’s appearance there from June 30th to July 6th. Linda Keene’s name also appears in the ad. Subsequent advertisements like the one to upper-right from the Press of Atlantic City on July 30th and the one on the left for July 12th, failed to mention Linda’s name with Pastor. The only other advertisement with Linda’s name was a Hamid’s listing for July 3rd similar to the one that appeared in the Press of Atlantic City on June 28th.
Other than the July 12th, Billboard article and the July 15th Down Beat notice, the next listing I could find for Linda Keene was a confusing little notice that ran in the July 2, 1941 issue of Variety stating she was starting a single turn at the Uptown Cafe Society in New York City. The article to the right from the New York Age, July 19th, stated that Linda was appearing as part of a program that included “boogie-woogie piano duets.” Variety also posted smaller notices in their July 9th, 16th, and 23rd issues listing the performers at the Cafe Society Midtown, which appears to also have been called the Cafe Society Uptown, and Linda Keene’s name was published in each notice. The photo to the left is of Linda Keene at the Cafe Society Uptown and appeared in the August 1941 issue of Metronome Magazine. The small notice mentioned from the July 2nd Variety stated that Linda Keene was a “vocalist last with Muggsy Spanier’s new band.” That is odd, suggesting she was no longer with Spanier, and stranger still that Variety had her throughout the month of July in New York at the Cafe Society Midtown, and yet she was supposedly with Pastor at Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier in Atlantic City during the first week of July and further than on July 22nd, Linda was billed as being back with Muggsy Spanier at the Tune Town Ballroom in St. Louis, Missouri. The engagement at the Tune Town Ballroom would last until July 28th. It’s interesting to note that the article from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St. Louis, Missouri) on July 20th, 1941 that Linda Keene “formerly appeared with Red Norvo and Tony Pastor.” Was it being implied that she was no longer connected with those two bands?
I want to jump ahead just a bit to the end of December 1941. I had been looking for more listings for Linda Keene with either Spanier, Pastor, or Norvo and after the Tune Town listing there was nothing except one small notice in the December 6th, 1941 issue of Billboard. This would have put Linda Keene and Red Norvo back together again at the Blue Gardens in Armonk, New York from December 5th until mid-January 1942. I am of the opinion that this last reunion of Red Norvo and Linda Keene did not happen. At that time, Eddie Bert was playing trombone with Red Norvo and I came across an article on the Jazz Wax website, https://www.jazzwax.com/2007/12/eddie-bert-part.html, from 2007 where Eddie Bert talks about the engagement:
We went into the Blue Gardens in Armonk, N.Y., on December 6, 1941. The next day, of course, was Pearl Harbor. I thought, man, I finally get a gig and a day later there’s a war. We were at the Blue Gardens for a month and half after that. During that time, Benny Goodman came in to hear us, and we broadcast live.
I was already married by then—my wife’s name is Molly—and I taught her how to use the Wilcox-Gay recorder. Molly recorded me off the radio with Red at the Blue Gardens in January 1942. These recordings were released on CD in the early 1990s.
I was able to track down some information about the CD he references, “Red Norvo Orchestra Live From The Blue Gardens”. Here’s the artwork from the back of the CD:
Notice that vocals are attributed to Helen Ward, Kay Allen, Fran Snyder, and Eddie Bert. There is no mention of Linda Keene in Eddie Bert’s interview or on the back of the CD. I will mention more about Linda Keene’s whereabouts in December 1941/January 1942 later but I just wanted to highlight not just what might have been but also that I could find no other reference to Linda Keene with Red Norvo after the week at Enna Jettick Park in Auburn, New York in late May/early June of 1941. It’s too bad that she wasn’t at the Blue Gardens in December 1941/January 1942 because the CD would have been a great opportunity to hear the combination of Red Norvo and Linda Keene. Here’s a track from the CD of Helen Ward singing “This Time The Dream’s On Me.” One wonders what Linda Keene could have done with the song if she had appeared with Norvo at the Blue Gardens.
THIS TIME THE DREAM’S ON ME –HELEN WARD WITH RED NORVO FROM THE BLUE GARDENS
Jumping back to the July 1941 timeline, the last media for Linda Keene was about the Tune Town appearance in St. Louis with Muggsy Spanier’s Orchestra from July 22nd to 28th. Linda was also supposed to be finishing another week at the Cafe Society Uptown/Midtown in New York. I cannot confirm that Linda finished out the month at the Cafe Society or was even at Tune Town. I did find one review for the Cafe Society Uptown from the July 12, 1941 issue of Billboard and although the review is short, it is telling that at the time of the review, Linda Keene was not there. The previous listings by Variety for this show included everyone mentioned in this article, James Copp, Hazel Scott, Ammon and Johnson, and the bands of Teddy Wilson and Eddie South. What is missing are the names of Linda Keene and the comic, Jack Gilford. The last line that the “entire show Negro except for Copp,” is clear that neither Jack Gilford or Linda Keene were in the show when it was reviewed. Remember, the July 12, 1941 issue of Billboard is the same edition that reviewed Muggsy Spanier up in Boston at the Roseland State Ballroom with Linda Keene. Variety might have had it wrong about Linda’s start date at the Cafe Society Uptown or it’s possible that Linda simply didn’t join the show at all. I was able to track Jack Gilford and he was performing at the Orpheum in Minneapolis, Minnesota starting July 11th, 1941 but a syndicated column of Jack Gaven “Up and Down Broadway” dated July 12 mentions that Jack Gilford was at the Cafe Society Uptown in New York. This review might have been from the previous week but, like the Billboard review of the Cafe Society Uptown, it too fails to note Linda Keene as being there.
In George T Simon’s 1971 book, “Simon Says : The Sights and Sounds of the Swing Era, 1935-1955” he provides a daily diary of one week in August 1941 where he mentions seeing Linda Keene at the Cafe Society Uptown:
So, it might have been possible that Linda Keene was still at the Uptown in August of 1941. By the beginning of August, and probably well into December of 1941, it appears that Linda Keene had no affiliation with any orchestra. The next listing for Linda is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the week running August 12th to the 18th. She was appearing at the Bolton Tropical Room for two shows nightly with two dancers and some Swiss-Bell-Ringers. The only review of the show was from the Harrisburg Telegraph from August 13th and it just repeated what appeared in the advertisement.Billboard had no route information for Linda during the month of August and Variety had no notices of her movements.
After the week in Harrisburg, the next notice was for an engagement in New York at the Famous Door in September of 1941. The big draw was Andy Kirk and his “Clouds of Joy” Orchestra. I found nothing further to be mentioned about their appearance at the Famous Door and nothing for reviews of Linda Keene. The advertisement to the upper right is from the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, on September 19th. Route information for Linda Keene (misspelled as Keen) from the September 6th, 1941 issue of Billboard has her at the Famous Door. My research revealed that Andy Kirk had started his engagement at the Famous Door on September 5th with Linda Keene added on September 11th. Unfortunately, although Billboard does mention Andy Kirk at the Famous Door in their Orchestra Route information for the entire month of September, Linda Keene’s route information was just the one from the September 6th issue. As we saw, she was included in the advertisements up to the 19th so it’s possible she was there for two weeks. Variety had no information of Linda Keene for the month of September. Down Beat, however would publish a photo of Linda in the October 1st issue and would mention she was back stage watching Andy Kirk perform.
In October, neither Variety or Billboard had notices for Linda Keene. Linda was working though because she was spotted in a revue in Newport, Kentucky at the Primrose Country Club. Newport is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio so many of the advertisements for the show appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer like the one on the left from October 8th. The show began on October 6th and ran until October 19th with ads like the one on the right also appearing in the Kentucky Post as late as October 18th. A review of sorts ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer on October 8th and mentioned Linda’s past affiliations with Red Norvo and Tony Pastor. Unfortunately that time, it’s her first name that is misspelled.
Down Beat would catch up to Linda Keene again in November of 1941 when they noted, in the December 1st, 1941 issue, that Linda Keene was back appearing again with Red Norvo. The article was primarily about the, yet again, restructured Red Norvo combo, but it did mention that Linda had joined Red Norvo again for an appearance in New Haven probably around mid-November 1941. I cannot find any other reference to that appearance.
November 1941 saw no notices in Billboard or Variety or other periodicals for Linda Keene. It wasn’t until the December 3rd issue of Variety that a new notice for Linda Keene appears. This time she’s at Kelly’s Stable in New York. This same notice would appear in the December 17th issue of Variety. I could find no advertisements for Kelly’s Stable in December of 1941.
HENRY LEVINE & STRICTLY FROM DIXIE
Other than appearing at Kelly’s Stable, December 1941 saw one of the most significant events in Linda Keene’s career. The same day, December 3rd, that Variety published a notice about Linda at Kelly’s Stable, the Jersey Journal, Jersey City, New Jersey ran this article:
The following day the San Antonio Express, San Antonio, Texas made the same announcement. Linda Keene had apparently replaced Ella Fitzgerald to be the new vocalist on Henry Levine’s weekly show “Strictly From Dixie.” Similar write-ups appeared in other newspapers in December:
The one on the left is from The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey) and the one on the right is
from The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). Down Beat would also make an announcement about Linda Keene joining “Strictly From Dixie” in the December 1st, 1941 issue.
Henry Levine had previously been with NBC but his new radio show “STRICTLY FROM DIXIE” was the result of him switching from NBC’s “Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street”, to ABC’s “Strictly From Dixie” show. It was on this new show that he introduced his new vocalist Linda Keene. On his previous show at NBC, he introduced at different times, singers Dinah Shore and Lena Horne. Now it was Linda’s turn and after a year full of touring and a connection, at times, to Tony Pastor, Red Nichols, Red Norvo, Muggsy Spanier, and supposedly Charlie Barnet, it must have been exciting for her to now be connected to a weekly radio show.
One other item of significance began appearing in the The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) December 13th, 1941. It was the result of fan voting for favorite band and favorite male and female vocalists. Here were the standings on December 13th:
Note that Linda Keene was 16th in the female vocalist standings with 340 votes; ahead of some great singers like Mildred Bailey, Helen O’Connell, Ella Logan, and Dinah Shore. By comparison, Frank Sinatra was only 24th in the male vocalist standings with only 290 votes. Near the end of the voting, on December 27th, the standings looked like this:
Frank Sinatra had sunk to 26th with only 300 votes, a gain of only 10 votes in two weeks, and Linda Keene had dropped lower on the list to 21st but had gained 250 votes for a total of 590. It was not a bad showing to end out 1941.
1942
According to Variety, Linda Keene continued her association with Kelly’s Stable in January 1942. The line-up posted for the weeks of January 16th and 30th, 1942 were very similar to those posted for December. A variation of the notice appeared in Variety up to the week of February 6. So, Linda Keene was pulling double duty by performing at Kelly’s Stable and performing on the weekly radio show “Strictly From Dixie”. I could find no advertisements for Kelly’s Stable in January or February 1942.
HENRY LEVINE contd…
I do not know the exact date that Linda Keene joined up with Henry Levine on “Strictly From Dixie” or when she stopped appearing on the show. All media point to a December 1941 start and she was still appearing on that program into February of 1942. According to a wire service article appearing February 1st, she even turned down an offer to join up with Artie Shaw so she could stay on the “Strictly From Dixie” radio show. It’s a good thing, too, because as a result of her appearance on that program, she went back into the studio the first week of February to record six songs for a 78 rpm album that would also bear the title of “Strictly From Dixie.”
The album, “Strictly From Dixie”, which culturally sports an inappropriate cover image, was the first and only album that Linda Keene would record. Three of Linda’s tracks, “Mound Bayou”, “Embraceable You”, and “Somebody Loves Me” were recorded on February 2nd, 1942 and the remaining three of her vocals, “Georgia On My Mind”, “Someone To Watch Over Me”, and “Way Down Yonder In New Orleans” were recorded on February 4th. The pairing of Linda Keene with Henry Levine and his band was the best fit that Linda had up to that time. The songs are dixie and with her famous southern voice, the vocals and the music click, in my opinion, like none of her other band associations since Jack Teagarden.
MOUND BAYOU –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
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EMBRACEABLE YOU –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
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SOMEBODY LOVES ME –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
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GEORGIA ON MY MIND –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
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SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
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WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW ORLEANS –LINDA KEENE with HENRY LEVINE AND HIS STRICTLY FROM DIXIE JAZZ BAND
The other two tracks in the album were instrumentals of “Shine” and “Strictly From Dixie” by Henry Levine and his Strictly From Dixie Jazz Band. None of the tracks from this 78 rpm album would be released on any other format until the Harlequin label put out a CD in 1995 entitled “NBC’s Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street”. If you look at the image to the right you will see that Linda Keene is included on the CD and there’s even a picture on the bottom right of her. Linda’s only two tracks on the CD are “Somebody Loves Me” and “Georgia On My Mind”. All six of Linda’s songs with Henry Levine would also be issued on “The Velvet Voice Of The Forgotten Linda Keene” compiled by Professor Eves Raja.
The reviews for the “Strictly From Dixie” album were generally very good.
Evening Star, Washington DC, May 3, 1942
The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia), May 3, 1942
Jackson Advocate, Jackson, Mississippi, May 23, 1942
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, Arizona), November 28, 1943
Down Beat would publish an article in the May 15, 1942 edition stating that Linda did not like her own vocals on her Strictly From Dixie recordings:
Down Beat would follow up that article with a photo and caption in the June 1st, 1942 issue still maintaining that Linda didn’t enjoy her vocals on the album:
Another review suggested that RCA was so pleased with sales of the “Strictly From Dixie” album that a second volume was in the works:
The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), March 6, 1942
There would not be another volume of “Strictly From Dixie” but, other than the 78 album and the radio program, there would be more of Henry Levine and Linda Keene to come…but in a different format.
The January 31st, 1942 issue of Billboard published the following advertisement:
Minoco Productions was responsible for producing “Soundies”. If you haven’t read my first blahg about Linda Keene, Down A Rabbit Hole With Linda Keene, then I’ll reprint from there, my explanation about Soundies:
“Soundies are three-minute American musical films, produced between 1940 and 1947, each containing a song, dance, and/or band or orchestral number. Produced professionally on 35mm black-and-white film, like theatrical motion pictures, they were printed in the more portable and economical 16mm gauge.
The films were shown in a coin-operated “movie jukebox” called the Panoram, manufactured by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Each Panoram housed a 16mm RCA film projector, with eight Soundies films threaded in an endless-loop arrangement. A system of mirrors flashed the image from the lower half of the cabinet onto a front-facing screen in the top half. Each film cost 10 cents to play, and there was no choice of song; the patron saw whatever film was next in the queue. Panorams could be found in public amusement centers, nightclubs, taverns, restaurants, and factory lounges, and the films were changed weekly. The completed Soundies were generally made available within a few weeks of their filming, by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America.”
There’s a great resource book titled “The Soundies Book” by Scott MacGillivray and Ted Okuda. The book is a reference of all things Soundies and has compiled information on all these “Music Videos of the 1940s.” Linda Keene and Henry Levine and his band would film three Soundies: “Ja-Da”, “Frankie and Johnny”, and “When My Sugar Walks Down The Street.” We are lucky that these all survive and even luckier that each is available for viewing on Youtube:
Ja-Da
Frankie and Johnny
When My Sugar Walks Down The Street
According to ‘The Soundies Book’, “Minoco Productions was owned and operated by the Panoram manufacturer (Minoco stood for MIlls NOvelty COmpany)…The Minoco films were made at the former Thomas Edison studio, on Decatur Avenue in the Bronx section of New York City.” ‘The Soundies Book’ also provided copyright dates for Linda Keene’s three Soundies. “Ja-Da” was copyright March 2, 1942, “Frankie and Johnny” March 30, 1942, and “When My Sugar Walks Down The Street” on May 18, 1942. “Ja-Da” and “Frankie and Johnny” would have been filmed at the Bronx location but “When My Sugar Walks Down The Street” would have been filmed in Chicago. ‘The Soundies Book’ clarifies that Minoco was having some financial issues due to the war and in April 1942 Mills Novelty, “needing to downsize and adjust to the company’s new economics, closed its New York and Hollywood production units and sought local facilities in the company’s home base of Chicago, Illinois.” Linda Keene would only film the three Soundies but before “Ja-Da”, Henry Levine and his band, without Linda, had filmed the Soundie “Bugle Call Rag” which had a copyright date of February 9th, 1942:
MacGillivray and Okuda had favorable things to say about Linda’s last Soundie “When My Sugar Walks Down The Street. “One of our favorite Soundies, with vocalist Linda Keene (who gets top billing). The visuals are a little cheesier than usual, with under-rehearsed showgirls and a cardboard backdrop, but the music is tops. This tune was part of Henry’s radio repertoire, so the band had this one down cold.”
TONY PASTOR contd…
Just like she did in 1941, Linda Keene appeared to keep more than one band connection in the spring of 1942. At the same time that she was appearing with Levine on the radio program “Strictly From Dixie” but apparently between the filming of the “Ja-Da” and “Frankie and Johnny” Soundies, she connected again with Tony Pastor and his Orchestra and went on tour. On March 17th, 1942, she was billed as appearing with Tony Pastor and His Orchestra at the Mishler Theatre in Altoona, Pennsylvania, as noted in the advertisement above from the Altoona, Mirror. The following month, Linda Keene is noted to appear again with Tony Pastor at the La Plaza Theater in St. Petersburgh, Florida.
This time, I was able to verify Linda’s appearance in Florida with Tony Pastor. Like the two advertisements above that appeared in the Tampa Bay Times on April 27th, the following review appeared in the same paper on April 28th:
Linda’s notice was very brief “Pretty Linda Keene also was well liked” but it was enough to verify that Linda Keene was indeed touring again with Tony Pastor almost a year after her last appearance with his Orchestra. Linda Keene continued her tour with Pastor in May with an appearance at the Carolina Theatre in Greenville, South Carolina for one night only on May 6, 1942. After that, I could find no other listings for Linda Keene appearing with Tony Pastor. One wonders why she was back with Pastor again in 1942.
Linda must have left Pastor again sometime in May after the the Greenville appearance. Her next listing is from the Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, New Jersey) where Linda is appearing at the Rainbow Room atop the Albion Hotel in Asbury Park on May 23rd and 24th.
The New Rainbow Room was on top of the Albion Hotel, billed as entirely fireproof, finished in 1942 with all modernistic furnishings. The Rainbow Room with dancing every night proved to be Jersey Shore’s most popular rendezvous.
The question about whether Linda Keene ever toured with Henry Levine was considered in an article that appeared in the Red Bank Register, Red Bank, New Jersey on June 4th. In a column about “Goings On About the U.S.O Club” it was noted that Henry Levine would perform at the club on June 11th and Linda Keene would be the vocalist. Unfortunately, a review of the event in the following week’s Red Bank Register, failed to not that either Henry Levine or Linda Keene were there.
The reason why Linda Keene didn’t appear in Red Bank was that she was benefitting from her radio appearances. On June 11th, when she would have been in Red Bank, she was opening again at Kelly’s Stable in New York. The notice made reference to her radio work. Her previous appearances at Kelly’s Stable failed to mention her name in New York papers other than the personnel notices in Variety. The New York Daily News made note of her opening, however, in their June 11, 1942 edition and even carried her name in a Kelly’s Stable ad on June 18th. Variety noted that she was still appearing at Kelly’s Stable through the week of July 10th. Down Beat would also mention her appearance at Kelly’s Stable in the July 1st issue of that magazine.
In July, probably after finishing up at Kelly’s Stable, Linda Keene was out on the road again. On July 9th, the Detroit Times ran an advertisement for Club San Diego,
in Detroit, Michigan, in which Linda Keene’s name was prominently featured. The same edition also carried a picture of Linda Keene in a notice on the same page as the advertisement for the Club San Diego. The program, that also featured John Kirby and his Orchestra began on July 6th and ran until the 19th. It is likely that Linda was also there for the full two weeks. Her picture with a notice of her appearance at the club also appeared in the Detroit Times on July 12th as well as an interesting article that appeared on July 16th about a psychiatrist who fell in love with Linda Keene:
Following the Club San Diego engagement in Detroit, another significant event happened in Linda Keene’s life. She was asked to substitute on the daily radio program, “Club Matinee” for two weeks beginning July 20th.” Club Matinee was an American old-time radio variety show. It was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1937 to 1943 and on ABC from 1945 to 1946. Club Matinee featured comedy and music, with the two sometimes combined in the form of comedic arrangements of musical classics, played slightly out of tune. The format was probably familiar to Linda because it was very similar to that of “NBC’s Chamber Music Society Of Lower Basin Street” as well as “Strictly From Dixie.” Linda would appear daily for two weeks. Unfortunately, like the “Strictly From Dixie” programs on which Linda appeared, I could find no radio transcriptions of any of her “Club Matinee” performances. Down Beat would also mention in their August 1st, 1941 edition Linda’s appearance on Club Matinee: Linda Keene’s appearance on “Club Matinee”, substituting for the vacationing Nancy Martin was so well received that she was welcomed back in August. Linda was asked to appear for another three weeks, this time for the vacationing Marion Mann beginning August 17th. The second appearance on “Club Matinee” with a three week run would have ended around September 4th, 1942. All of the notices regarding her appearance on “Club Matinee” were generally favorable.
A couple of other interesting things happened for Linda Keene in 1942 that might have been the result of her radio appearances on “Strictly From Dixie” and “Club Matinee.” Some time in 1942 Linda Keene appeared on the cover of the sheet music issued for the Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael tune “Skylark”. We know that she didn’t record this tune but it is possible she sang it on one of her radio programs. What a missed opportunity it would have been to have had Linda Keene record an album of Hoagy Carmichael tunes. Her voice had already proved itself on Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind” and, personally, I think other Carmichael songs like “Stardust”, “Baltimore Oriole”, Memphis In June”, “Heart and Soul” or the “Nearness of You” would have been well suited for Linda’s voice. Also in 1942, Linda Keene appeared on the sheet music for “If Anything Happened To You.” I could not find an image for this file but this was a tune written by Jimmy Van Heusen and was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald in 1939. Linda must have been singing it as well on the radio in 1942. In case you’ve never heard Ella’s version of “If Anything Happened To You” give it a listen. I’m sure you’ll agree it would have been a song well suited to Linda’s singing style. Maybe a radio transcription will surface one day of Linda singing the song and perhaps I’ll also find a copy of the sheet music with Linda Keene on the cover.
“If Anything Happened To You” – Ella Fitzgerald, 1939
After her second stint on “Cafe Matinee”, Linda Keene is advertised as performing at The Plantation in Moline, Illinois. The ad in the Moline Daily Dispatch made reference to her appearance on “Club Matinee” and that she came direct to Moline after her three weeks on that program. The engagement in Moline ran from September 11th to 24th. Linda even found time to make an appearance at a War Bond show on September 14th. Linda’s name might have been front and center in the advertisement for The Plantation but the one for the War Bond show focused more on the appearance of Griff Williams. We know that Linda was at this War Bond show because the review for the program mentions her appearance.
Linda Keene followed up her two weeks in Moline by moving over to the Club 509 in Detroit, Michigan for a week starting October 5th. After the Club 509, Linda was in Cincinnati at The Patio for two weeks opening on October 19th and closing on November 1st.
Linda was well received at The Patio over her two weeks.
The remainder of Linda Keene’s schedule in 1942 was very quiet. One answer might have been due to there being a War on. This didn’t stop Linda because Billboard noted she was joining the war effort by signing up with the USO to perform throughout the Winter season at various camps beginning the end of November. This would see Linda into 1943.
1943
In addition to her radio and USO work, Linda Keene continued her club work in January of 1943. Starting January 18th, she was featured at the Tropical Room of the Hotel Bolton in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ending on January 24th. Once again, she is billed as a Blues singer. Linda’s work in 1943 would be mostly club work with no connection to any Orchestra. Most of the advertisements or reviews of her work over the next few years would fail to mention what musicians might have been backing her at the various venues.
In February, starting with the February 13th issue, Billboard would carry route information for Linda at the Famous Door in New York. The Famous Door was a jazz club on New York’s 52nd Street. It opened in 1935 and among the club’s initial backers were Lennie Hayton and Glenn Miller. Linda had since performed with Orchestra’s led by these two giants. Billboard published the same route information for Linda at the Famous Door in their February 13th, 20th, 27th, and March 6th issue. Variety also listed Linda Keene at the Famous Door for the week of March 5th, 1943. This would not be the last time that Linda Keene would play at the Famous Door in 1943 but I could find no advertisements for Linda’s engagement in February/March 1943. Coincidentally, Red Norvo, according to the New York Daily News advertisement for the Famous Door on February 1st, preceded Linda at the Famous Door. According to the February 15th, 1943 issue of Down Beat, Linda Keen may have stayed on at the Famous Door to appear with Red Norvo for his two week stay:
Down Beat would also carry a photo in the March 1st, 1943 issue of Red and Linda back together again at the Famous Door:
After Linda’s February/March 1943 engagement at the Famous Door, neither Variety nor Billboard carried any route information for Linda for the next few months. There was no information either regarding when she might have left the “Strictly From Dixie” radio program. She might have been busy with her USO work or smaller club work through March and April. The next listing for Linda Keene wasn’t until the May 7th edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) where they noted she was back again at the Famous Door. Another article, more than three weeks later, in The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) on May 30th noted she was still at the Famous Door but also clarified that she no longer had any radio program affiliation. It was suggested in the article that she was being pursued for a possible radio program of her own over the Blue Network. Someone was very optimistic that they could bill her to be the female Frank Sinatra and “America’s Greatest Blues Singer.” I can find no other references to this possible radio program deal nor could I find the length of her stay this second time at the Famous Door. Between the two articles it is suggested a run from at least May 7th through May 30th and possibly into June of 1943.
In mid-June Down Beat would report that Linda Keene was headed to the Club Charles in Baltimore. She would open on June 14th, 1943 and would appear for two weeks.
In the month of July 1943, Linda Keene had moved over to the Glass Hat in the Hotel Belmont in New York. The program was being billed as a Summer Revue and ads like the one on the left began appearing on July 7th and ran throughout the month. Billboard listed Linda Keene at the Belmont Plaza, the location of the Glass Hat, in their artist route section of their July 24th edition. This route information would also be repeated in Billboard’s July 31st, August 7th, and August 14th editions. Linda also received notices out in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the Harrisburg Telegraph on July 28th: Apparently, catching Linda Keene’s performance at the Glass Hat was the thing to do when you went into New York. Linda was still getting notices in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for her Glass Hat appearance as late as July 30th, 1943.
The New York Herald Tribune published a significant review of Linda Keene at the Glass Hat in the July 27th, 1943 edition. The review started off with that statement that “We are told that Duke Ellington once remarked that there are only two singers in the world–Bing Crosby and Linda Keene.”
It is not clear when Ellington might have made the comment about Linda Keene but it was significant that he put Linda in the same class as Bing Crosby. From the review we learn that she is still performing “Unlucky Woman” and “Embraceable You.” She was also singing “Jenny” from the Broadway musical “Lady In The Dark”.
There was no further media coverage, that I could locate, for Linda Keene after the Billboard route information for her at the Glass Hat in the August 14th edition. In fact neither Variety or Billboard would carry route or notice information for her until well into November of 1943. The next newspaper coverage wouldn’t appear until October 6th in the Boston Herald noting that Linda Keene was now part of the program at the Roof and Star Bar of the Hotel Bradford.
The notice did not specify that the new program was beginning on the 6th and it wasn’t until a notice in the Boston Globe on October 8th that we learn the opening was the night before on October 7th. It was a good notice that “more than 300 were turned away from the opening”, even if they did misspell Linda’s first name as “Linday”. Notice, too, that the venue is now listed as the Roof and Sky Garden. Notices were still being published as of October 15th, suggesting a possible two week run. The October 22nd, Boston Globe noted a new program began on October 21st with Rose Marie.
In November of 1943, Linda Keene was back in Newport, Kentucky at the Glenn Rendezvous. Linda had last been in Newport in October of 1941 when she played the Primrose Country Club. On October 10th, the Cincinnati Enquirer carried an article about Linda being the headliner for the show opening on Friday, October 12th. She was also prominently featured in the advertisement that appeared on October 11th, in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the day before the opening.
Linda was now “The Mistress of Blues”. A subsequent advertisement on October 13th in the Cincinnati Enquirer had her name prominently featured but not her image:
Note the billing as “Year’s Singing Star” and “that gal from N’ Or’luns.” The same day the second advertisement appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, October 13th, they also published a small write-up about the show. Here, we learn that Linda has added the song “Jenny” from the Broadway musical “Lady In The Dark” to her repertoire. The song was written in 1941 and was made popular by Gertrude Lawrence. Linda Keene also received a nice notice on October 14th in the Cincinnati Enquirer. This would not be the last notice about Linda Keene at the Glenn Rendezvous because the Cincinnati Enquirer noted her singing on another song in their November 21st edition. This time their review was for her singing the song “Born On A Friday” which is actually correctly titled “Unlucky Woman” which Linda Keene would eventually record…but more about that later. The Cincinnati Times-Star gave Linda a good review in their November 13, 1943 edition. The article mentioned she was singing “I Don’t Stand A Ghost of A Chance” and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” as well as “Jenny”. The reviewer expressly highlighted how Linda sang in a “slow, drawling violet-toned voice with crystal-clear diction.” The final advertisement that mentioned Linda Keene was the one that appeared for her last night at the Glenn Rendezvous on November 25th. Betty Reilly would follow her into the Glenn Rendezvous.
In late November 1943, Linda Keene was back in Cleveland, Ohio. The last time she had played in Cleveland was two years earlier on November 21, 1940 at the Trianon Ballroom with Red Norvo. This time she was performing in the Vogue Room of the Hotel Hollenden for two weeks from November 29th to December 12th. Below is the advertisement that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 28th:
A similar advertisement would appear on December 5th but in the bottom left corner, Roy Davis has been replaced by the Silver Cyclones, a roller-skating act.
In both advertisements, Linda Keene is compared to the 1800s Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind by parodying her name as “Jenny Linda.” The advertisements for the show might have been kind but the review that also ran in the December 5th issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was not. This must have been devastating for Linda. The only good takeaway we have from this review is that it notes two of the songs she was singing, “Basin Street Blues” and “You Let Me Down”. The latter song, “You Let Me Down” was written in 1935 by Harry Warren and Al Dubin and was popularized by Billie Holiday’s recording in 1936. Give a listen to that version:
“You Let Me Down” – Billie Holiday
It is probably likely that Linda Keene’s version was inspired by Billie Holiday’s version. I just want to make note of another beautiful version of that song recorded in 1960 by Sylvia Syms for her excellent album, “Torch Song.” If you have never heard it, by all means, treat yourself:
“You Let Me Down” – Sylvia Syms
I could find no other references to Linda Keene for the rest of December of 1943. Hopefully audiences received her better at the Vogue Room than the reviewer. Still, the review was not a great way to end out 1943.
1944
An interesting notice appeared in the January 1st, 1944 edition of Billboard. It was an announcement that Paula Victor and Linda Keene had been set for the new Lee Mortimer show scheduled for that month. On further research I discovered that the Lee Mortimer show was a program called “Around The Town” at the Folies Bergere in New York. Billboard reviewed the show in their January 8th edition:
There is no notice of Linda Keene in the review and it appears singing by a female vocalist was left up to Bea Saxon. Any other articles that I found regarding the show failed to mention Linda Keene or Paula Victor but did note the singing by Bea Saxon. It would have been an interesting start to 1944 for Linda Keene but I doubt it happened.
After an absence in postings for the first two months of 1944, Linda Keene’s name was mentioned in the February 26th Billboard issue noting she was now in Hollywood going into the Little Club. This puts Linda Keene solidly on the West Coast after working out of New York and the Ohio region. Despite intense research, I could not locate anything regarding Linda’s engagement at the Little Club.
It isn’t until late March that we learn what Linda Keene has been doing on the West Coast. The article on the left from the Circleville Herald, Circleville, Ohio, from March 25th makes note of Linda’s upcoming appearance on the Bob Crosby show on April 2nd. In the article, it states that Linda is 24 years old. In fact, by this time, she was 32. Recall that in the booklet to Professor Raja’s cd he noted that “when Linda Keene arrived in Boston in the fall of 1937, she had convinced all those in the entertainment circles that she was 19.” If this was true then seven years later in 1944 she would have been 26 and not 24 by that estimate. Her age was reversing even more by that rate. More importantly, the Circleville article references that she had been in Hollywood to make a screen test. It also references her previous engagements at “The Famous Door” and “Cafe Society”. By the way, I could find no radio transcription for her performance on the Bob Crosby program.
There would be no further Variety notices for Linda Keene for the remainder of 1944 and nothing new in Billboard until September of that year. A little over a week after her April 2nd appearance on the Bob Crosby radio program, she is, however, listed in local media as appearing in Las Vegas. This was the early days of Las Vegas and not the glitz and glamor of today with huge hotels and casinos. Linda’s appearance was at the Nevada Biltmore Hotel which was more like a motel with a number of bungalows:
It is likely that Linda Keene opened on April 10th and performed through April 23rd. Below is the advertisement than ran in the Las Vegas Review Journal on April 11th, 1944:
If you click on the above advertisement to make it larger, you will notice that Linda Keene is billed as “Famous Singer Direct From Bob Crosby’s CBS Show!” Below that, the tag reads “Has made over 1,000 Victor Recordings!” What an amazing statement to make. Linda had only recorded six songs for RCA Victor and those were the tracks included in the “Strictly From Dixie” 78rpm album. If she had made over 1,000 Victor recordings then her fame would have been phenomenal and there would be no need for this blahg.
Other advertisements for Linda’s engagement at the Nevada Biltmore Hotel included this one on August 18th:
and this final one on August 22nd:
Again, by clicking on both of the advertisements from above, you will notice the tag line appears in each, stating “has made over 1,000 Victor records.” I only wish that were true.
I could find no further notices for Linda Keene until September of 1944. She may have been performing on the west coast but nothing popped up when searching for her name during the months April through August. It wasn’t until a notice in the September 15th New York Daily News that we discover she is back on the east coast and performing again at Kelly’s Stable.
By all accounts, this was Linda Keene’s third time at Kelly’s Stable in New York. The notices that I have uncovered had her first appearing there in December of 1941 and then for a second time in most of June of 1942. More than two years later, she was back at the same club. Note that Charlie Shavers was also appearing at Kelly’s Stable with Linda Keene. In less than a year, Linda would be in the studio with Shavers laying down the last of her official recordings.
Billboard would include Linda Keene in their route information, for her appearances at Kelly’s Stable, in their September 23rd, September 30th, and October 7th editions. This would have been another good run for Linda at Kelly’s Stable, opening on September 15th and closing sometime during the first week of October. Down Beat would also take note of the reopening of Kelly’s Stable and the fact that Linda was there. In the October 1st, 1944 issue of Down Beat they noted that Linda had already been there for two weeks. Down Beat would also publish a favorable review of Linda Keene at Kelly’s in the October 15th issue:
Another odd thing happened while Linda Keene was appearing at Kelly’s Stable. By the end of September, wire services were all running the same article:
This article appeared in several papers on September 28th, 1944 and variations of the article were appearing as late as the first week of November:
I could not find anything about Harrison Bryon White III. I suspect that Linda married him when she was on the West Coast and separation from him might have been another reason for her return to the East Coast. The late October/early November notice was deliberately set to coincide with Linda returning again in late October to Kelly’s Stable.
The October 1st, 1944 issue of Downbeat featured a snippet regarding Linda with no further information. The small notice just mentioned that “Linda Keene, blues singer, is back on the Blue Network again, on the Dixieland House Party show.” I found radio listings for this program in 1944 but no other information about the show and whether Linda’s appearance was a guest shot or ongoing appearances. Beyond 1944, the show virtually disappeared.
Although Billboard listed route information for Linda Keene at Kelly’s Stable in their October 7th issue, it certainly wasn’t correct or may have been for the week previous. An advertisement in the October 2nd, New York Daily News showed that Linda Keene was now appearing again at The Glass Hat:
Linda was part of an “All Star Fall Revue”. Her last appearance at The Glass Hat was in July 1943 when she appeared in a Summer Revue. Linda received a favorable mention in an article following Miss America of 1943 and 1944 who had attended the performances at that club. The highlight was that Linda was still singing “Unlucky Woman” when she appeared at The Glass Hat.
It is likely that Linda’s engagement at The Glass Hat was for two weeks because by October 14th, the New York Daily News was advertising Linda back at Kelly’s Stable again. Once more, Linda was appearing on the same bill with Charlie Shavers. Similar advertisements would appear over the next two weeks with the last one appearing in the New York Daily News on October 27th. If Linda Keene remained in New York in November of 1944, there were no advertisements for her appearances after The Glass Hat.
The only news we have of Linda Keene from November of 1944 was that she returned to the recording studio on November 29th to record two tracks with the Joe Marsala Band. After singing “Unlucky Woman” for over a year in various clubs, she recorded that song, along with “Blues In The Storm.”
UNLUCKY WOMAN–LINDA KEENE with JOE MARSALA AND HIS ORCHESTRA
BLUES IN THE STORM–LINDA KEENE with JOE MARSALA AND HIS ORCHESTRA
It had been more than two years since her last studio session with Henry Levine’s band in February of 1944 but her club work had indeed strengthened her voice. “Unlucky Woman” became the tag name for Linda Keene in Opal Nations’ article ‘Unlucky Woman-The Story of Linda Keene.’ It was this recording which would later be included on the compilation LP “Shades of Blue”, that made Opal Nations sit up and take notice of Linda Keene for the first time:
Just a while ago I managed to snag a copy of the album ‘Shades of Blue’ on the Al-Fi label. In among the distaff delights…was an exquisite reading of Carl and Leonard Feather’s torchy Unlucky Woman, originally waxed on Paul Reiner’s Black & White label on November 29th, 1944. “Who in the world is this extraordinary gal!?” I exclaimed,. “And how come I have passed on this sensuous diva, full of soulful feeling and exquisite understanding for the low-down, dark-corner blues?”
Both “Unlucky Woman” and “Blues In The Storm” were written by Leonard Feather whom both Opal Nations and Professor Raja maintain was a good friend and influence for Linda Keene. Leonard Feather also played piano on both tracks.
The main problem with “Unlucky Woman” and “Blues In The Storm” was that they were issued on a 12 inch 78rpm record. This limited hearing the track to home gramophones because commercial units in bars and restaurants could only play the normal 10 inch 78rpm record. Here’s what Billboard had to say about the record in their February 10, 1945 issue:
It’s too bad that despite the glowing review, Billboard felt it necessary to add the disclaimer that “unfortunately, this is a 12-incher and cannot be fitted for the music machines.” As late as August 13, 1945, positive reviews were still being published like the one on the right from the San Francisco Chronicle on that date:
The recording session with Joe Marsala was not Linda’s last hurrah for 1944. By the middle of December, Linda Keene was appearing on the radio and in a nightclub in Boston.
The radio appearance was on a “weekly New England WAC Show” called “Everything For The Girls!” that aired on December 16, 1944. Sorry, I could not find a radio transcription for this one either. Further searches through Boston newspapers revealed that Linda Keene was also appearing at the Fox and Hounds Club in Boston as noted in the article to the left from the Boston Globe on December 20th, 1944. An article about New Year’s Eve programs in various clubs in Boston, from the Boston Globe on December 27th, revealed that Linda Keene woud be part of the program at the Fox and Hounds.
1945
It is likely that after Linda Keene’s New Year’s Eve appearance at the Fox and Hounds Club in Boston, she finished her engagement there. New shows primarily began on a Monday and New Year’s Eve 1944 was on a Sunday evening. There were no further mentions of Linda Keene, at least, in Boston in January of 1945. The next notice for Linda Keene to start off 1945 came as a notice in The Evening Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, on January 25, 1945.
Linda Keene was scheduled to appear as part of the entertainment for the President’s Birthday Ball at the Armory in Baltimore on January 29th, 1945. She was chosen with other performers from Baltimore night clubs. Down Beat reported in their February 1st, 1945 issue that she was appearing at Club Charles again. She had last appeared at the Club Charles in June of 1943. I could find no other references to a possible radio show starring Linda Keene and Paul Baron. Another article about the President’s Birthday Ball appeared two days later in The Evening Sun, Baltimore on January 27th:
On January 29th, The Evening Sun published a thank you advertisement in which Linda Keene was mentioned:
What is interesting to note from the above notice was that other artists were listed and the club at which they were performing. Nothing was noted for Linda Keene except “Singer of Songs”. The subsequent reviews of the event noted that then President Franklin Roosevelt was not in attendance but the event was attended by Senator George L. Radcliffe as the Governor and Mayor were also not available.
In February of 1945, Linda Keene returned to the recording studio again to produce four more tracks on the Black and White label. This was the same label she recorded for with Joe Marsala in November of 1944 but this time she would be recording with Charlie Shavers who had been on the bill with her at Kelly’s Stable in the fall of 1944. The session on February 16, 1945 would also be supervised by her good friend Leonard Feather and Red Norvo would play vibes. Obviously this was a contingent of friends and playmates supporting Linda on what would turn out to be her last official recording session.
I DON’T STAND A GHOST OF A CHANCE WITH YOU–LINDA KEENE WITH CHARLIE SHAVERS & RED NORVO
I MUST HAVE THAT MAN–LINDA KEENE WITH CHARLIE SHAVERS & RED NORVO
I do not have images for the 78rpm record of the next two recordings. The image would be similar to those above listing the same personnel but having a different song title on each side. For the record, pardon the pun, “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” and “Blues On My Weary Mind” were 19A and 19B on the Black & White Label.
GEE BABY, AIN’T I GOOD TO YOU–LINDA KEENE WITH CHARLIE SHAVERS & RED NORVO
———————————–
BLUES ON MY WEARY MIND–LINDA KEENE WITH CHARLIE SHAVERS & RED NORVO
A review of sorts was published on the website, https://www.allmusic.com by Arwulf Arwulf upon the release of the CD set “The Chronological Charlie Shavers: 1944-1945” in 1997. Arwulf wrote, “The mood shifts down to first gear for Linda Keene’s session for Black and White Records. Shavers is able to relax and provide easygoing support for this pleasant vocalist.”
The four tracks with Shavers are, in my opinion, a good example of a more mature singer. Linda Keene was 33 when she recorded these songs. She had been the girl singer with big bands and orchestras, appeared in Soundies, performed a number of times on radio but by 1945 she was relegated to nightclub work. There was still a war on but of the orchestras that were still performing in the United States, few had female singers. It was the dawn of the singer as solo vocalist. Take Frank Sinatra, for example, he had left Dorsey in September of 1942. He’d been performing to sold-out shows, had his own radio show, and was now making a name for himself in motion-pictures. Linda, had none of this. Despite her nightclub work, she had no regular radio show and her screen test in Hollywood failed to produce any results. The moment in her life was fading.
I didn’t want to end off this blahg with just a note on her final recordings in 1945. I believe a natural break would be to follow her career, at this point, to the end of 1945. After her recording session with Charlie Shavers and company, she had no idea that she wouldn’t continue to make good. She kept on working. The spring of 1945 might have been sparse, however, because I could not find any further media notices for Linda until June of 1945. Variety carried nothing for Linda Keene for all of 1945 and Billboard wouldn’t report next on Linda until December of that year. It appears that by June of 1945 Linda Keene was performing again with the USO. The Victoria Advocate, out of Victoria, Texas made note in their June 22, 1945 issue that a new USO stage show was set for July 3rd at the Aloe Army Airfield. Linda Keene was part of the new “Right About Rhythm” USO show. The June 29th Victoria Advocate highlighted Linda Keene for the USO Show. The July 6th edition of the Victoria Advocate noted there was a packed house for the performance.
The “Right About Rhythm” show probably played a number of military bases not covered by local media. The next regular media notice was in the July 7th Barksdale’s Bark (Barksdale Field, Louisiana) for an appearance of the USO show at the Barksdale Air Force Base. Linda received another good billing with a nod to her previous connection with the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The July 7th Barksdale’s Bark also featured a small advertisement for the USO show carrying Linda Keene’s name.
Later in July, there was another media notice for the show coming to the Smyrna Army Air Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee) from July 23rd provided a nice notice for the show on July 26th with Linda Keene’s name getting prominence. Linda was also mentioned in a subsequent article advertising the show in the July 25th Tennessean. There was one more performance of the show in July on the 30th at Camp Breckinridge in Morganfield, Kentucky. The Evansville Courier and Press, Evansville, Indiana, ran a notice about the show in their July 22nd, 1945 edition. There may have been other shows throughout the summer of 1945 but only Camp newspapers or military newspapers would have published notice of these shows.
The “Right About Rhythm” show continued into August with an appearance at the Camp Gruber military base in Oklahoma. The camp newspaper, The Gruber Guidon, on August 10th, 1945, carried a two-part article about the show that would be performed on the base on August 15th and 16th.
This was the last appearance for the “Right About Rhythm” USO that I could find that mentioned Linda Keene’s name. I have found some notices for the show in the early months of 1945 but none of the articles mentioned Linda Keene among the performers. The first article was the one on June 22nd in the Victoria Advocate and that last being the article above for the Camp Gruber appearances in August.
Linda Keene’s notices were quiet for the rest of the summer and into the fall of 1945. In fact, the next notice about Linda Keene wasn’t until the December 29th issue of Billboard where a small article mentioned that Linda Keene had started at the Village Vanguard in New York on December 18th. The same issue of Billboard also carried a review of Linda Keene’s performance at the Village Vanguard on December 19th:
Linda Keene was back in New York at the end of 1945, performing in a nightclub again. This was her strength at that time although the article wasn’t flattering on her gestures and manners, the reviewer had nice things to say about her voice and delivery. Notable in the article was the mention of two songs she performed. “Frim-Fram” was of course “Frim-Fram Sauce” made famous by Nat King Cole’s October 1945 recording. The other song was another Leonard Feather composition, “Blow Top Blues” that Etta Jones with Barney Bigard and His Orchestra had recorded on December 29th, 1944 for the Black & White label with Leonard Feather playing piano. This was the same label that Linda Keene had recorded for in February of 1945 under the supervision of Leonard Feather. Here’s Etta Jones’ recording of “Blow Top Blues”:
BLOW TOP BLUES–ETTA JONES with BARNEY BIGARD AND HIS ORCHESTRA
It would have been interesting to hear Linda Keene take a turn on the song at the Village Vanguard. No doubt, her friend Leonard Feather probably had his hand in her performing the song at that time.
Linda Keene’s engagement at the Village Vanguard probably closed out 1945 for her. It also closes out this blahg. This blahg has been extensive in the amount of work I have chosen to put into it. Linda Keene was in her prime in the late 1930s and into the mid 1940s. I wanted to include as much information as I could to cover this prime period that included all of her official recordings. Part three, I hope will be just as detailed following Linda Keene into the twilight of her career. It will be interesting, to say the least, and will include an amazing surprise. Stay tuned.
Recently I had to do a computer repair for my friend Bryan and it got me thinking about a blahg I wrote in 2012 when I had to do my own computer repair and was given some bad advice from a computer salesperson. Needless to say, I didn’t take the salesperson’s advice and figured out for myself the repair, which he said couldn’t be done, and I was successful and got a blahg out of it. The original blahg was ADVICE FOR THE NEXT 50: THINK FOR YOURSELF. It was a blahg not only about the computer repair but celebrating the fact that I had turned 50 and that I could still think for myself with positive results. Next month, I will turn 59 and I’m still thinking for myself but my body has other ideas of it’s own when it comes to pain and arthritis. Too early to write about that stuff here. 
After a recent Windows update it would no longer load into Windows. Bryan just kept getting the spinning blue wheel of death. I know, I know, the image to the left is not a spinning blue wheel but it belongs to death so who am I to argue. Bryan got the spinning blue wheel of death and his laptop would no longer load into Windows. He asked for my help. In the past, when he had the same error he was able to fix it himself so I knew that this time would be a bit of a challenge. 
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Today is December 24th, 2020 and I haven’t written a new blahg since my last one, 
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by Scott MacGillivray and Ted Okuda. The book is a reference of all things Soundies and has compiled information on all these “Music Videos of the 1940s.” Linda Keene and Henry Levine and his band would film three Soundies: “Ja-Da”, “Frankie and Johnny”, and “When My Sugar Walks Down The Street.” We are lucky that these all survive and even luckier that each is available for viewing on Youtube:
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