[78-L] Grtacie Fields mystery song

Banjo Bud banjobud at cfl.rr.com
Tue Oct 12 08:52:25 PDT 2010


Irving Berlin wrote a song called "Free," which much later morphed into his 
tune "Snow" and was used in the movie "White Christmas."

Bud

--------------------------------------------------
From: "David Hornby" <davidchornby at hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:17 AM
To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Subject: [78-L] Grtacie Fields mystery song

>
> I've been looking through the Gracie Fields discography, in particular at 
> the
>
> list of her unpublished recordings. One of them -- a song called "Free" --  
> has
>
> set me puzzling. There were two takes of the song on 22 September, 1932 
> (matrix
>
> OB-4214-1-2). At the same session, Gracie recorded Underneath the Arches, 
> and I
>
> had assumed that "Free" was the other well known Flanagan and Allen song, 
> "Free
>
> (Isn't it the way it ought to be?)" However, Flanagan and Allen's song was
>
> recorded some years later and is by Kennedy and Carr. The HMV recording 
> ledger
>
> credits Gracie's rejected version to a "Haynes". This could be a typing 
> error
>
> for Haines of the "Haines and Harper" song-writing team (though curiously, 
> the
>
> next ledger credits another song to Haines and spells him correctly.) I've
>
> never come across any other version of this Haynes/Haines song, Free, and
>
> wondered if anyone else had seen it? It is not listed in Rust and it may 
> be
>
> that Gracie was simply trying out a song which never saw light of day. But 
> the
>
> song's title makes it virtually impossible to do a meaningful internet 
> search!
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