[78-L] Doris Day

[Harold Aherne]

As long as everyone else is talking about the female singers they like, or don't, I suppose
I can add my two centimes. There are few vocalists prior to about the late 30s that I 
really dislike, but those from later decades (which I sometimes listen to but don't collect)
provoke more vested reactions from me one way or the other.
 
Doris Day--mixed. I think she had vocal talent but often misused it to convey cuteness
and pseudo-flirtatiousness, and her vocal stylings don't do anything for me.
 
Helen Forrest--mostly great. She should've had a bigger solo career.
 
Jo Stafford--no real objections. She sometimes bends the notes into a "whine", for lack 
of a better term, in her recordings (cf. the second "I'll be so ahh-lone without you" in 
"You Belong to Me") and I wasn't always fond of it, but I really don't mind it anymore.
"Better Luck Next Time" from 1947 is especially good. 
 
Andrews Sisters--there's a 1932 RCA home-recording disc of them attempting "Sentimental
Gentleman from Georgia" and listening to it reveals them as an unpolished Boswell Sisters
copycat group. They always tended, IMO, to substitute perkiness for substance.
 
Dinah Shore--her rather indefinite style works sometimes (as "You'd Be So Nice to Come 
Home To"), but more often it simply leaves no impression on me.
 
Georgia Gibbs--the R&B and rock covers have given her a bad reputation, but she could
certainly belt out a song. Had she been a bigger star earlier in her career she might be 
more fondly remembered. 
 
Margaret Whiting, Peggy Lee, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, and others are all fine 
by me.
 
-HA