[78-L] Alvino Rey and The Kings

[Dan Van Landingham]

I just had Capitol 78 by Alvino Rey:"The Flight of the Bumble Bee" backed with "Sepulveda".The only Sam
Donahue Capitol 78 I had was "Melancholy  Baby" which I bought in 1978 along with the Rey Capitol 78.
The Bobby Sherwood Capitol I have is "Sherwood's Forest" plus what may be an original  of "The Elk's P-
arade".The latter has the word "Capitol" in large,cursive script and the dome of the White House is also in
large print.The Kings were great.The only McKinley 78 I have is a vinyl Majestic of "Hangover Square"
pressed in red vinyl.The label is white like a promotional copy.I also had another McKinley Majestic pressed on red vinyl but I can't remember the name of the tune.Eddie Sauter did the score for "Hangover 
Square".I had both "Hangover Square" and Cootie Williams's "Cherry Red" on the black label Majestics.
I had both "Hangover Square" and "Cherry Red" in 1975.Both came from junk stores.The red vinyl Maj-

estic of "Hangover Square" I bought in 1978 when the local radio station,KOOS-AM in Coos Bay,Oregon
closed it's doors that year.It "reopened for business" a couple of days later as KHSN.KOOS went on the
air back in 1928 when Coos Bay was known as Marshfield.I gave $.25 for it plus a batch of others.



________________________________
From: Jeff Sultanof <jeffsultanof at gmail.com>
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Tue, April 20, 2010 7:52:35 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Alvino Rey and The Kings

At the time (1946) Rey's band had 6 trumpets, 4 trombones, five saxes and
rhythm. This band seems to be forgotten except for an LP of transcriptions
on Hindsight with a fascinating piece by George Handy called Stocking Horse.
Arrangers were Frank Nelson and Billy May. I was surprised when I heard
these sides years ago; they ARE hot, 180 degrees away from the sides he made
for Bluebird. I don't think Capitol will ever do a decent reissue of this
band's output, but the way I understand it, its best music was never
recorded for the label. They signed a lot of big bands they didn't really
know what to do with: Bobby Sherwood, Ray McKinley, Rey, Sam Donahue....I'm
sure there are others.

The instrument Rey played was the pedal-steel guitar. Reportedly he disliked
country and hawaiian music.

Jeff Sultanof

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Taylor Bowie <bowiebks at isomedia.com> wrote:

> that must have been one kick-ass group to hear in person.   Some of those
> post-war Capitols are really hot..."Cement Mixer" comes to mind.  The King
> Sisters were stand-outs among all those excellent sister vocal groups...I
> always thought it odd that the most famous and popular of the sister acts
> (Andrews) was not among the better ones in terms of the actual music.
> Perhaps others rank them higher,  but to my ears they don't cut it when
> compared with King,  Dinning,  Boswell,  Clark,  McGuire,  De Marco and
> other sister groups.  I do like 'em better than the Pickens Sisters!
>
>
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