This is going to be one of those short update blahgs. In my last blahg, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISS REGINA HASSOCK OF 1947? I mentioned some live remotes that Marie Carroll did with Bob Strong and his orchestra that were available on a CD released by Circle Records with the title “Bob Strong And His Orchestra, 1944-1945”:
In that previous blahg, I said that I thought these were live remotes. I also said I didn’t believe that Marie Carroll went into the studio and recorded any vocals with Bob Strong or any other orchestra with whom she had been associated over the years. This updated blahg will correct that information.
When I wrote the last blahg, I had the above CD on order and had not yet received it. Now that it’s in my possession, I can correct some of my information with some of the information from the liner notes. Here’s what was said in the liner notes about these songs:
The Bob Strong bands on this disc, in exceptional repro quality, are from two dates: The first is but two and a half months after their Glen Island debut; The Second, almost nine months later…The popular ballads of the day are also accounted for in fine style. Five of them are handled by Marie Carroll, whose vocal versatility was exceeded only by her physical attributes. (MGM was constantly reported to be waiting at her door, along with many others.) She’s June Christy Kittenish on “This Is It” and “You Was Right, Baby”, plaintive on Johnny Mercer’s “Out Of This World”; moody on the ’45 Academy Award nominee, “Love Letters”; romantic on “I Wish I Knew”, which made the ‘Your Hit Parade’s’ top-ten for eleven weeks.
The other important information from this CD is that all tracks were recorded for Lang-Worth on October 25, 1944 at Columbia Studios in New York or on August 13th, 1945 at Columbia Studios in Chicago. All of Marie Carroll’s tracks are attributed to the August 13th, 1945 recording sessions. Here’s a description of the Lang-Worth Transcriptions from the website https://www.jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=SCD-44/45:
Lang Worth transcription discs. Lang Worth transcriptions were sold in a subscription series to independent radio stations that sought access to top-tier artists, on a dime-store budget. That enabled small stations, for example to provide the same high-quality programming their larger competitors offered. In this way, transcription discs helped to somewhat level the playing field during radio’s early years.
In this case, the Lang-Worth transcriptions for Bob Strong and His Orchestra were on 16 inch 33/3 rpm records. If you want to know more about 16 inch records, then check out my earlier blahg, 16 INCHES OF TROUBLE OR LIKE FATHER LIKE SON. The following 16 inch Lang-Worth record contains eight songs with only one on one side featuring Bob Strong and His Orchestra with one vocal by Marie Carroll who is referenced as Marion Carroll:
So I was mistaken, a much better word than saying wrong, when I said I didn’t think Marie Carroll went into the studio and recorded any vocals with Bob Strong or any other orchestra. Clearly the Lang-Worth sessions were recorded, as mentioned, in the Columbia Studios in Chicago on August 13, 1945. I’m not aware of any other studio sessions with Marie Carroll but then I wasn’t aware of these. If you want to listen to any of Marie/Marion Carroll’s tracks with Bob Strong then please check out my previous blahg, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISS REGINA HASSOCK OF 1947? There are links to YouTube where you can listen to the five songs that appear on the Circle Records CD.
For the remainder of this blahg, I thought I would link to some of the YouTube videos for the Bob Strong tracks from the Circle Records CD that did not feature Marie/Marion Carroll. The CD liner provides some interesting notes about some of the tracks that make it worthwhile to post here.
The music they put forth is a potpourri of unique arrangements of a broad array of mostly familiar melodies. You’ll here a pretty, easy listening adapatation from “Tannhauser”, Evening Star, featuring smooth reed work that may remind you of Glenn Miller; A swinging Coquette, whose booting sax and gutty trombone solos would have shaken one of its composers, Carmen Lombardo.
Here are “Evening Star” and “Coquette”:
After a mention of Marie Carroll’s tracks, the liner notes speak about some of the other vocals on the CD:
The only other ballad, Always, also enjoyed nine weeks of acclaim on the Hit Parade some twenty years after Irving Berlin penned it in 1925. Terry Ferris’ Ballad singing wanders a little, but is followed by a surprising up-tempo change-of-pace chorus where his second swing at the vocal fares much better. Tony Feola gives a lust reading of Judy Garland’s hit train song On The Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe.
Here are those two tracks:
There are two damaged tracks on the CD that receive a decent write-up:
Tom Eldridge clearly has the best voice of the male creamers but these tracks unfortunately have some permanent groove damage from old man time…however, I would not have dropped these two tracks from the compact disc. They certainly are not unbearable.
Those two tracks are “You Belong To My Heart” & “Waiting”:
I’ll keep researching Marie Carroll but I’m happy at least I was able to correct some of my information. Hey, I make mistakes…just don’t tell my wife that.
Tags: Bob Strong and His Orchestra, False Ducks, Marie Carroll, Scott Henderson, Scott Henderson. False Ducks