The Singers

Interlude - the crooners & the girls.

In the mid 1920s the radio microphone was perfected, sensitive to soft sounds and popular singing changed. Instead of having to project their voices to the back of theatres singers developed subtleties of emotion. Al Jolson was a shouty minstrel Louis was an incredible innovator but Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee murmured and got real close to the listener and caressed them. A blend of romantic schmaltz, novelty song and Louis jazz phrasing made the technology seem innovative.

Eddie Cantor, Gene Austin, Josephine Baker, Ruth Etting, Annette Hanshaw were the players with Frank Sinatra commanding the heights.

But the 2nd generation theatre songs, the standards, dried up and the crooners fell into an abyss, and then came Elvis Presley and the resurgent energy of black blues.

Louis started popular singing, with 'Heebie Jeebies' and 'Stardust', Al Jolson picked it up in the theatre and Bing Crosby led the radio wave , Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday interpreted it, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald perfected it.

The Boswell Sisters - Connee (1907-1976), Martha (1908-1958) and Helvetia ("Vet") (1909-1988) constituted the most popular female vocal group before The Andrews Sisters, and created some of the most exciting recordings of the early 30s - still sounding amazing today. They enjoyed 20 hits before breaking up, when the remarkable, wheelchair-bound Connee continued a great solo career, influencing a generation of singers such as Ella Fitzgerald. But as a trio, the Sisters were never matched. Shout, Sister, Shout! was their signature tune. Major hits, including their first success, the incredible "When I Take My Sugar To Tea", and "Dinah", "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter", "Roll On Mississippi Roll On", "Rock And Roll", "It's The Girl" and the chart-topping "The Object Of My Affection" - each one a tour de force. The Sisters' jazz flair was invariably enhanced by the accompaniment of some of the top musicians in jazz, and fine solos by such as Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Bunny Berigan, Benny Goodman, Manny Klein, Artie Shaw and Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang all add to the enjoyment.

One of the all-time greatest jazz vocal groups, the Boswell Sisters, Martha, Vet and Connee, began their career in the vaudeville houses of New Orleans. Connee, paralyzed from the waist down by a childhood accident (though her disability was often attributed to polio), always performed sitting down. Gifted musicians as well as singers, the sisters also worked at a local radio station, performing classical and semi-classical instrumentals. (Martha played piano, Vet played violin, banjo and guitar, and Connee played cello, saxophone and guitar.) Their careers took off when the radio station gave them a daily singing program.
The sisters' harmonic vocals, dotted with scatting and numerous tempo and key changes, quickly made them popular in New Orleans and beyond. They recorded several songs during the twenties, but it wasn't until 1930, when they recorded four songs for the Okeh label, that they finally achieved popular recognition. They later signed with Brunswick, and between 1930 and 1936 they were the hottest vocal group in the country. They appeared in several movies and were regulars on Bing Crosby's radio program. Many of their hit recordings were made with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. Both Vet and Martha retired from show business in 1936. Connee went on enjoy a mildly-successful solo career.

Annette Hanshaw (1911-85) was born in New York City and died in that city. As a teenager she was discovered as a singer at a party and she became a personality girl that recorded with top bands like Harry Reser's Clicquot Club Eskimos and Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra and was accompanied by musicians like Jimmy Dorsey and Jimmy Lytell. She made a lot of recordings in the 1920s and early 1930s ( she stopped singing in 1936) with bands like the Original Memphis Five, Sam Lanin's Orchestras and Frank Ferera's Hawaiian Trio. She is also known as Gay Ellis, Dot Dare and Patsy Young on other labels.
Her signature tune was her 'That's All' at the end of each recording. I guess she must have said this at one of her first recordings, being 15 years old, to her relief that the recording had finished.

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