[78-L] 1950s big band (was Frosty)

[Steven C. Barr]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "simmonssomer" <simmonssomer at comcast.net>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
>> David Lennick wrote:
>>> Julian Vein wrote:
>>>> simmonssomer wrote:
>>>>> "April In Paris" was played over and over again in all the saloons 
>>>>> near
>>>>> my
>>>>> college campus in the early 50's. (So they tell me.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Al S.
>>>> ==================
>>>> Willis Conover did the same on the VOA's "Music USA - Jazz Hour".
>>>>
>>>> Weren't bands like the Elgarts, Buddy Morrow and Ralph Flanagan very
>>>> popular?
>>>>
>>>> In Britain we had Ted Heath, Johnny Dankworth and the Basil and Ivor
>>>> Kirchin band.
>>>>
>>>>       Julian Vein
>>> Nobody's saying they weren't popular, only that there were virtually no
>>> big
>>> band hit singles after 1954. And I think we've listed the two 
>>> exceptions.
>>> dl
>> ==================
>> But how many big bands were there prewar? Were they outclassed by
>> singers and sweet bands?
>>      Julian Vein
> The question is..how many pre-war big bands were there before the big band
> (or swing) era.
> Let's list a few that played swing madly *before* the so called swing era.
> Joe Haymes, Luis Russell, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines,
> Benny Moten, Don Redman, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Chick Webb,
> Mills Blue Rhythm Band, Casa Loma Orch. Fletcher Henderson, Claude 
> Hopkins,
> Dorsey Bros, Teddy Hill, Ben Pollack.
> In the U.K. Hylton, Lew Stone, Roy Fox.
>
> They tell us it was Benny Goodman who started it all.
> Balderdash!
>
> And, yes ..the singers were vastly outclassed in numbers and in public 
> favor
> by the big bands. The big bands , of course, had their "boy singers" but
> these fellows with a few exceptions such as Al Bowlly,Frank Sinatra and
> perhaps Bob Eberle and such were popular but not nearly the primary
> attractions that
> singers were to become in the middle and late forties.
> Guy Lombardo lasted longer and made more money than any other band leader,
> sweet or hot.
> Many sweet and "hotel" (tenor lead)  bands were the  favorites in the
> Mid-Western dance palladiums but the kids who paid the freight liked the
> hundreds of "hotter" swing orks with Shaw, Miller, Dorsey and Goodman
> usually leading the huge pack.
>
There was another important change in record marketing in the mid-thirties!
Record companies had, for many years, ALL tried to record their own
versions of ALL the hit tunes; as a result, one could buy any number of
different versions (by different artists) of any hit tune. Beginning about
1936-37, record buyers wanted not just the latest hit tune...they wanted
a SPECIFIC version of that tune by a SPECIFIC artist!

Steven C. Barr