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The RCA Victor Popular Album Club News

The monthly magazine of THE RCA VICTOR POPULAR ALBUM CLUB

The Next Selection

FROM AMOLED POLLAR AMOYMES

ARTHUR FIEDLER
Boston Pops Orchestra

POPULAR ALBUM NEWS

AUGUST FROM AULLIOR

ARTHUR FIEDLER

Conducting the

Boston Pops Orchestra

IMPORTANT NOTICE

ABOUT STEREO RECORDINGS

All albums listed in this issue of the Popular Album News are available in "Living Stereo" versions except where regular L.P. only is indicated. NOTE: Regular L.P. recordings can be played on stereo phonographs; in fact, they will sound better than ever. However, stereo discs are designed to be played only on stereophonic equipment.

DOLLAR MOVIES

Bostonians, with Fiedler at the helm, give a rattling good account of excerpts from ten of the more popular and durable film scores of the past twenty years. Balanced against the theme songs from recent movie successes such as Gigi, Around the World in 80 Days and Moulin Rouge are three extended excerpts from Suicide Squadron, While I Live and Love Story. If the titles of these low-budget English films of the early '40s mean nothing to you, may I mention that the scores contained three of the finest contributions to light music—Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto, Williams' The Dream of Olwen and Bath's Cornish Rhapsody. All are in the form of short piano concertos, and all are brightly performed by the orchestra with Leo Litwin at the piano. -High Fidelity

We believe you will enjoy reading the program notes.

It’s a far cry from the pioneer motion-picture “theme” songs of Ramona, Diane and Jeannine (I Dream of Lilac Time) to Laura and Ruby. It’s an even further step to the excellent latter-day musical quality of cinematic scores, as interpreted in this album by Arthur Fiedler. His Boston Pops gives truly symphonic syncopation to these popularly appealing themes from the roster of top-flight—and “big b.o.” (box office) as we say on Variety—pix.

With no reflection on the late 1920s when the movies first learned to articulate—dialogue and music, the standard of motion-picture music has also traveled a shade upward, although it is to the credit of the yesteryear Emo Rapee, Lew Pollack, L. Wolfe Gilbert, Nathaniel Shilkret and Mabel Wayne that their melodies, too, have survived. And while their counterparts exist today in the Paul Francis Webster-Sammy Fain, Johnny Mercer-David Raksin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe and Victor Young standards of popular songsmithing, it is a fact that it required almost a third of a century before works by Hubert Bath, Richard Addinsell, Heinz Provost and Charles Williams could be regarded as movie “themes.”

Paradoxically, a celludrama bearing the title of Suicide Squadron utilized Addinsell’s symphonic Warsaw Concerto as its theme, and a fragile British romance titled Love Story, a 1944 release starring Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Granger, introduced Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody on its soundtrack.

Movie theme songs are palpably primed as musical “trailers” for the box-office values. There are instances in plenty where a “strong” theme song hyped the b.o. as much as $500,000 and sometimes more. From the cradling Ramona and Diane days the musical ballyhoo has traversed to the latter-day Laura, Inter-mezzo, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Gigi, The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart?) by the French Georges Auric with lyric by William Engvick, and Victor Young’s appealing waltz, Around the World in 80 Days.

There are also many instances, in films as well as legit, where a song survives its original source to the degree that the stage or screen original is all but forgotten. Williams' Dream of Olwen, from a lesser British film titled While I Live, is a case in point. While the movie is in circulation the song proves a stimulus to that film's box-office attendance, although not as virile and vibrant as when the song and film title are one and the same.

It is most ideal when, as with Heinz Provost's Intermezzo, it is not only the title song but is so integrated into the cinematurgy as to become part of the plot. In this instance David O. Selznick's 1939 remake of the original 1936 Swedish production, with the same star, showed Ingrid Bergman performing the music as part of the plot motivation. The Variety review noted that "the musical score was particularly impressive and will gain critical attention. Violin and piano playing (as part of the romance action) by Leslie Howard and Miss Bergman is skillful dubbing, presumably, although Howard's fingering seems professional, as does Miss Bergman's at the piano." (In actuality both stars happened to be musicians although, for slick professional purposes, Selznick had maestro Lou Forbes dub the score.)

Rounding out this Fiedler-Boston Pops caravan of movie music is the fetching March of the Siamese Children from Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I, wherein Yul Brynner re-created for the screen his original stage role and Deborah Kerr assumed Gertrude Lawrence's stage assignment. The story, done before on the screen by Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison as Anna and the King of Siam, made bald-headed leading men a vogue.

Arthur Fiedler is professionally partial to good music no matter whence it stems, be it the classics, Broadway, Hollywood or unadulterated Tin Pan Alley. If it's good music his baton gives it good interpretation, and modern electronic technology insures good sound. It is doubtful, of course, if all these skills could do the same for one pioneer "talking picture," when a certain Hollywood producer ordered a "theme" song written for a film titled Dynamite Man. It starred George Bancroft, a sort of 1920 Ernest Borgnine, and some Sunset Blvd. minnesinger came up with the "theme" song titled My Dynamite Man, I Love You. This set back the theme-song business a couple of seasons!

Content written for this album by ABEL GREEN, famed editor of VARIETY

ARTHUR FIEDLER, conductor - BOSTON POPS ORCHESTRA

A SUGGESTED ALTERNATE in place of-or in addition to-the next Selection

BROTHER DAVE GARDNER

RECORDED AT THE TIDELANDS IN HOUSTON, TEXAS

"A sequel to his click REJOICE, dear hearts! set, this L.P. continues with Dave Gardner in the same comic groove, countrified on the surface but as hip as any of the avant-gardists on the nitery circuit. Gardner lets his southern eloquence take off into a zany philosophical orbit, frequently cutting in its barbed commentary and consistently funny." -Variety

"Brother Dave's homespun manner resulted in one hit album, REJOICE, DEAR HEARTS!, and this succeeding set should find its way home again. Speaking in a smooth southern drawl and using native colloquialisms, Gardner manages to communicate the same amount of intellectual humor as the other comedians who, with him, have taken America by storm." -The Cash Box

Southern-fried comic Brother Dave Gardner flashes his huge smile, opens up his big blue eyes and, in a southern accent t-h-a-t wide, says: "Ah stir up snakes."

Thanks to his smash RCA Victor album called REJOICE, DEAR HEARTS!*, this hilarious dispenser of biblical-beatnik philosophy in cornpone accents has also stirred up a large and loyal following among collectors of comedy recordings, currently the hottest-selling type of album in the record business.

A self-styled "fanatic without a cause," 33-year-old Brother Dave has made several appearances on Jack Paar's TV show and in nightclubs all over the country. His latest album, KICK THY OWN SELF, was recorded "live" at The Tidelands, a club in Houston, Texas.

In it he makes his usual unique comments on a wide variety of subjects: a forthcoming moon shot by the United States ("With our luck it'll be a half moon and we'll miss it"); his own penniless childhood ("The first piece of light bread Ah evah seen was throwed off the back of a C.C.C. truck"); electronics ("Ah still say if it wasn't for Thomas Edison we'd all be settin' around watchin' television by candlelight").

Or, on sharks being sighted off the beaches of California ("Ah think that's Hollywood ballyhoo *Still available through the Club-LPM 2038, $3.98 (regular L.P. only)

DELLA BY STARLIGHT

Arranged and conducted by Glenn Osser

REGULAR L.P.
LPM 2204 $3.98

STEREO
LSP 2204 $4.98

In her debut album, entitled della*, Della Reese proved that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. In her second album, DELLA BY STARLIGHT, she tries a little tenderness.

This equally brilliant side of her artistry is described in the liner notes for DELLA BY STARLIGHT by Hugo and Luigi, producers of Della's RCA Victor recordings: "The powerful voice, the whiplike delivery of a lyric, and the intensity that has become her trademark are all still there. But somehow Della has turned out all the lights in the world. She has hung a cloud over the moon. She is singing by starlight-and by magic. Della sings love songs . . . old and mellow, but true."

Bites, bends, bollads, blends. Della's unique biting, bending and projection of the lyrics to a dozen fine, familiar love ballads makes each one a fresh listening experience. Arranger-conductor Glenn Osser illumines the starlit mood throughout with his lush blends of singing strings, soft brass and hushed woodwinds.

The choice romantic tunes represent some of America's top songwriters: Embraceable You-George and Ira Gershwin; More Than You Know - Vincent Youmans-Billy Rose; Two Sleepy People Hoagy Carmichael-Frank Loesser; Deep in a Dream-Jimmy Van

*Still available through the Club-LPM 2157, $3.98; stereo: LSP 2157, $4.98

OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II (1895-1960)

A brief look at a brilliant career

by DOM CERULLI

The late Oscar Hammerstein II occupied a unique place in the American musical theater. He was a member of one of the three outstanding music-and-words teams in which the composer wrote with only one lyricist at a time: Gilbert & Sullivan, Rodgers & Hart and Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Hammerstein was also deeply involved in two musical works that dramatically changed the course of American musical comedy: Show Boat, with music by Jerome Kern, and Oklahoma!, with music by Richard Rodgers. Show Boat (1927) burst onto Broadway at a time when musicals had become quite stylized and were often merely showcases for the specialties of the name artists who headlined the shows. It had a strong plot line based faithfully on the Edna Ferber novel, and an equally strong roster of songs that not only decorated the stage action but moved it along and strengthened the character roles.

Oklahoma! (1943) brought a new dimension of musical drama to Broadway. It proved that a musical score could be well integrated into a show and could not only move the action but could be the action. Ironically, Hammerstein once broached the idea of doing a musical based on Lynn Riggs' Green Grow the Lilacs to Kern when he and Kern were collaborating, but the composer felt the problems posed by such a book would be too large for musical treatment. With its title changed to Oklahoma!, the vehicle was the first smash for the Rodgers-Hammerstein team.

When all Broadway and the show world cheered with praise for Oklahoma! and Carousel, Hammerstein called on his sense of humor for an apt comment. He inserted a full-page ad in the show-business bible, Variety, proclaiming, "I did it before—and I can do it again!" Then he listed all his flops.

Among those flops was Very Warm for May, which suffered through seven miserable weeks on Broadway. But that show gave birth to one of Hammerstein's loveliest songs, All the Things You Are. Kern, always a prodigious melodic writer, supplied a melody of lasting beauty for a show which barely lived at all.

The kind of imaginative writing Hammerstein was to do all through his lengthy career in musical comedy was indicated in the show Sunny, when he and Otto Harbach untied a knotty problem handed them by composer Kern. It was a song in which the melodic phrase of the refrain began with a single note sustained through nine beats. Any number of words, and possibly even phrases, might have sufficed to carry this off; but the pointed query, "Who?", made the song a universal delight. Hammerstein called upon this literary device again when he wrote the opening line of Oklahoma!, which called for some word to cover a sustained five-beat passage. Of course, the first syllable of the word Oklahoma served the purpose, and gave the piece its lusty flavor.

Oklahoma!, which for some reason was originally titled Away We Go, ran on Broadway for five years and nine weeks—a total of 2248 performances! It has been a motion picture and is constantly being revived and performed.

South Pacific ran 1925 performances, and is presented annually the country over to delighted audiences. It has also been a blockbuster movie whose score is a best-selling album for RCA Victor.

The King and I, in many ways the most perfect of all the Rodgers-Hammerstein presentations, played for 1246 performances on Broadway, and is standard summer fare. It was a charming movie, and is a delight to the eye as well as the ear in any form of production.

For all his astounding success as a lyricist, Hammerstein was a modest and fair man. Because one song in the otherwise all-Hammerstein score of Show Boat was written by P. G. Wodehouse, it has usually been credited to him. For the 1946 revival of Show Boat, Hammerstein inserted the following note into the program: "I am particularly anxious to point out that the lyric for the song Bill was written by P. G. Wodehouse. Although he has always been given credit in the program, it has frequently been assumed that since I wrote all the other lyrics for Show Boat I also wrote this one, and I have had praise for it which belonged to another man."

It was characteristic of Hammerstein to do all this. During the rehearsal period for Show Boat, he was so unobtrusive while being helpful that one of the stars, Helen Morgan, thought he was an extra and sought to get him hired as a member of the cast.

SIX HIT SHOWS BY OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS AS ALTERNATES

COLLECTOR'S CORNER - another suggested Alternate in place of - or in addition to - the

TOMMY DORSEY PLAYS

featuring FRANK SINATRA

A dozen 1940-42 Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra masterpieces with the Pied Pipers and Connie Haines

In 1939 Tommy Dorsey made a daring policy switch: he junked the Dixie-land-tinged style of his highly successful band in favor of the subtler-swinging style made famous by Jimmie Lunceford.

Arranger Sy Oliver, creator of the original Lunceford style, was to chart the new direction. New sidemen came in, including trumpeter Ziggy Elman, pianist Joe Bushkin and drummer Buddy Rich. But it was in his choice of new vocalists that the talent-wise Dorsey made what was to prove to be his shrewdest move of all.

He brought in a West Coast quartet called the Pied Pipers (whose lead singer was Jo Stafford), then a sparkling little songstress named Connie Haines. But most important, from the standpoint of the band's ultimate great success, he hired 23-year-old Frank Sinatra, who had been singing with the Harry James group.

During his two years with Dorsey, Sinatra perfected the singing style which created a whole new listening public (the bobbysoxers), influenced a whole new school of pop singing and made him an international star. Twelve rich samples of that pioneering style, sweet to swinging, are included in this album.

Frank has always been quick to credit his basic approach to singing to the influence of Dorsey's brilliant trombone playing, by which many symphony musicians first learned to respect the instrumental skills of dance-band musicians, and about which trombonist Jack Teagarden (Dorsey's idol) has said: "There's never been a tone as beautiful as his out of any horn."

It has been said that the best instrumentalists "sing" with their horns, while the best singers use their voices like musical instruments. Rarely has this been proved more conclusively and enjoyably than in the remarkable similarity in phrasing, timbre and conception of Dorsey's playing and Frank's singing in these listening and dancing specials, from the lovely This Love of Mine and There Are Such Things (with the Pied Pipers) to the jaunty Oh! Look at Me Now (with Connie Haines and the Pied Pipers) and How Do You Do Without Me?

All twelve performances, sound-enhanced by RCA Victor engineers, evoke warm memories of an era the late, great Tommy Dorsey helped to shape. No record collection covering the golden age of the dance bands or the extraordinary career of Frank Sinatra is complete without them.

LPM 1569 $3.98
(Regular L. P. only)

Mood Music Albums

In answer to hundreds of requests, here is a handy reference listing of every instrumental mood-music album currently available to Club members.

Comprehensive listings of recordings available in other specific categories - religious albums, country and western music, etc. - will be included in future issues of the Popular Album News.

Classical Corner

An RCA VICTOR RED SEAL RECORD suggested as an Alternate in place of-or in addition to-the next Club Selection

Thrilling Music! Thrilling Sound! MORTON GOULD

CARMEN for Orchestra

"The dramatic thrust and intense color of the Carmen score are vividly conveyed under Morton Gould's sensitive, crisp direction. The impression of stage perspectives, where they occur, has been projected skillfully. It is orchestral music for its own sake—and at the same time a tribute to its value as theater."

THIS COMMENT by music critic Robert A. Simon barely begins to tell the story of this magnificent musical experience, for here are some of the most gorgeous melodies and exciting, earthy rhythms ever created for the operatic stage. Conductor Gould has programed all the familiar selections in the order in which they appear in the actual music drama, and has faithfully retained Bizet's remarkable orchestration. He has merely substituted various musical instruments for voices in the arias.

Here then are the Overture, Habanera, Gypsy Song, Toreador Song, Flower Song, Seguidilla and all the other Spanish-flavored gems which have made Carmen one of the most popular operas of all time.

As for the sound—what Gould did with his cannons, cymbals and gongs in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture* he has managed to equal here with his castanets, tambourines and, of course, a rollicking variety of woodwinds and brass. As the man once said, "Hearing is believing!"

A RED SEAL RECORDING REGULAR L. P. LM 2437 $4.98

STEREO
LSC 2437 $5.98

*Still available through the Club-LM 2315, $4.98, stereo: LSC 2345, $5.98

PREVIOUS CLUB SELECTIONS, ALTERNATES AND EXTRAS AVAILABLE

Dividend credit given - See page 20

VOCAL STARS

COMEDY・NOVELTY

DIVIDEND ALBUM SECTION

You will begin receiving Dividend Certificates after you have completed your original membership agreement. Thereafter, one certificate is sent with every record you buy; you will always find it in the envelope with your bill. When you have received two of these certificates, they may be redeemed for any album described in the Dividend Album Section of the News, under the following conditions:

  1. Both certificates must be filled out completely and have identical information.
  2. The certificates must be mailed before the date indicated on them.
  3. The certificates are nontransferable; that is, they are redeemable only by the member to whom they are issued, and the member's account number and signature must appear on each certificate when it is presented.
  4. The Club reserves the right to withhold Dividend Albums from members who have open accounts that have been in arrears more than thirty days, until the arrears have been paid.

PLEASE NOTE ESPECIALLY

A Dividend Certificate is given with every twelve-inch disc purchased by eligible Club members. This means that whenever a double-record Selection or Alternate is purchased, two certificates - redeemable for an additional record without charge - are given. Since you thus receive three twelve-inch records for every two you pay for, this represents a continuing 50% bonus on Club purchases.

All albums listed in this Dividend Album Section also are available for purchase at the specified prices. The usual Dividend credit will be given with each album you buy.

Two NEW Dividend Albums now available
OTHER POPULAR ALBUMS AVAILABLE AS DIVIDENDS

DIVIDEND ALBUM SECTION

GLASSICAL ALBUMS AVAILABLE AS DIVIDENDS

Since long-playing albums in the Red Seal series have a nationally advertised price of $4.98 for regular L.P. discs ($5.98 for stereo), your selection of Red Seal Dividend Albums makes possible even greater savings on your album purchases.

A SPECIAL SACRED ALTERNATE

FOR DANCERS AND HI FI/STEREO BUGS

God Be with You
JIM REEVES

How Long Has It Been? • A Beautiful Life • Teach Me How to Pray • In the Garden • The Flowers, the Sunset, the Trees • It Is No Secret • Padre of Old Son Antone Precious Memories • Suppertime • Whispering Hope Evening Prayer • God Be with You

LPM 1950, $3.98 (Stereo: LSP 1950, $4.98)

Via recordings and the Grand Ole Opry, the deep, rich voice of Jim Reeves has become a favorite of country and pop fans everywhere. Of his latest recording, The Billboard says: "This is Reeves' first RCA Victor album of sacred songs. He does a top-notch job. Performances are sincere and skilled, and the recording job by Chet Atkins is excellent."

A SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL-DANCE ALTERNATE

Under the direction of Harold Loeffelmacher

SIX FAT DUTCHMEN

Hupaj Suipaj • Ich bin ein Musikant • Clarinet Landler No. 3 • Young Widow (G.J. Polka) • Irish Stew • Zosia Circling Pigeons • Country Girl • Winter Snow Waltz Grandpa's Clock • Minniehoho • Salt and Pepper Polka

LPM 1769, $3.98 (Stereo: LSP 1769, $4.98)

Not available in Canada

Hear Maestro Loeffelmacher's booming tuba, hi fi trumpets, frisky clarinets and spanking rhythm on a rollicking variety of polkas, waltzes, schottisches and such. This is happy, high-spirited dance music by one of the most popular bands in the great Midwest. Everyone will recognize many of these international tunes, some of which have become big American pop hits.

LOVE Without TEARS

SID KAMIN

PLEASE HELP ME, I'M FALLING

HANK LOCKLIN

Please Help Me, I'm Falling • My Old Home Town Goin' Home All By Myself • It's a Little More Like Heaven Livin' Alone • Seven Days (The Humming Song) • Send Me the Pillow You Dream On • Blues in Advance • Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me • When the Band Plays the Blues • Hiding in My Heart • Foreign Car

LPM 2291, $3.98

Regular L.P. only

"A very tasteful package, leading off with Locklin's hit, Please Help Me, I'm Falling. . . . Locklin has always been a fine performer. In this album he has the advantage of Chet Atkins' production techniques, which are impeccable in taste."—The Billboard

THE RCA VICTOR POPULAR ALBUM CLUB

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB, INC., 345 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK 14, N. Y.

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