[78-L] 78-L Digest, Vol 36, Issue 28 - Doris Day

[Nigel Burlinson]

Doris always said that the two best albums she ever made were "Day By Day" 
and "Day By Night"
arranged & conducted by Paul Weston (1957 &1958).  These stand comparison 
with ANY other
singer recording at that time.

She also made a superb album "Duet" with Andre Previn in 1962, one of whose 
highlights
"My One And Only Love" is included on the current album.

Paul Weston chose most of the material from about 1953 (& supervised her 
recordings
until he left Columbia in 1960); only the Ray, Mitchell & Laine were 
foistered onto her by
Mitch Miller; fortunately she didn't get landed with Jimmy Boyd like Rosie 
did!

Nigel Burlinson


> Message: 24
> Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2011 16:48:32 +0000
> From: David Lewis <uncledavelewis at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [78-L] Doris Day
> To: 78-l <78-l at 78online.com>
> Message-ID: <BAY156-W564AEB1F7A67E5A3097F80CC090 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> Sorry to bring this thread out sort of zombie-like, especially as so many 
> correspondents
> were so anxious to see it expire. But I wanted to share my perspective.
>
> Partly Doris' issue is a problem of classification. Once upon a time there 
> was something
> called a "pop singer" or "pop vocalist" and that had a specific meaning. 
> Frank Sinatra
> and Bing Crosby were both pop vocalists whose records were in the "Pop 
> Vocal" section of
> your local record store. In 2011, however, "pop" itself refers to an 
> entirely different
> kind of music, and if Amy Winehouse is a pop singer, than Doris Day cannot 
> be. So Bing and
> Frank have been re-designated as jazz singers, which is not too 
> uncomfortable a designation
> for them, although I would have a hard time recognizing 
> "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral" or "High
> Hopes" as "jazz," because these are pop songs, period. We have 
> re-designated them into a
> category that really doesn't suit what they did in the "big picture" 
> sense.
>
> But it does not fit Doris at all; she was not a jazz singer. She was a pop 
> singer. And those
> singers whom do not transit to jazz end up being disenfranchised at least 
> and sent to a
> lower tier of endeavor at worst. This is a useless, artificial form of 
> classification, and
> some here may pipe up and say, "David! Why are you even lending credence 
> to such ridiculous
> thinking and abusing our attention with it?" That is because we all 
> collect 78s and
> understand the proper -- and simpler -- context of music gone by; Ella 
> Fitzgerald, jazz
> singer; Marjorie Hughes, not a jazz singer. But in our metadata driven 
> world with its
> gallimaufry of micro-categories it just isn't that way anymore, and there 
> aren't any
> macro- or micro-categories developed thus far for an artist like Doris Day 
> that are meaningful.
> At AMG we used to struggle with these designations EVERY DAY.
>
> Unlike my esteemed colleague Mr. Lennick -- who can put his finger on and 
> name specifically
> why he doesn't like her voice -- I like Doris Day very much. Not only as 
> we share the same
> hometown of Cincinnati -- also crucial to the Clooney Sisters as 
> artists -- I like her salmon-
> to-silvery voice, her approach, her clear enunciation and the bright, 
> cheerful quality of her
> singing. And I would not listen to her to the exclusion of all other 
> singers, but there are
> certain charms in Doris' singing that I don't get elsewhere, and I 
> wouldn't want to be without
> it. She was, to my mind, an ideal pop voice, much as Karen Carpenter's 
> was, especially good in
> slow ballads. Like Mr. Lennick, there are some singers I cannot stand just 
> by virtue of the
> sounds that they produce, and unfortunately this includes a great many 
> female Canadian singers
> such as Natalie Merchant. Sorry about that, but something about her voice 
> I cannot bear.
>
> Mr. Lennick posits that her association with Mitch Miller is trotted out 
> as a weak defense
> for some indefensible records that she made, and implies that this is not 
> a good reason to
> rehabilitate her reputation. I would concur with this view if it weren't 
> also true for just
> about anyone else Mitch Miller worked with. Mitch felt he had his finger 
> on the pulse of
> what moved units in the Ike and Mamie era, and of course the advent of 
> rock 'n roll spoiled
> his evil plan. Much of the material that Doris recorded for Columbia is 
> treacly, but Johnnie
> Ray, Tony Bennett, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney and all of the others 
> recorded that same
> treacle. Clooney was particularly vocal about how much she hated it; Doris 
> was a trouper,
> happy to be employed, a team player who didn't realize that her goose was 
> gradually being
> cooked by her manager-husband. So she didn't ask a lot of questions.
>
> As soon as Rosie was able to get away from Miller she began working on 
> coherent albums, such
> as the great one -- forget the title -- for Decca with Buddy Cole, "A 
> Touch of Tabasco,"
> "Rosie Solves the Swingin' Riddle" etc. This set the stage for the fine 
> Concord Jazz output
> that came along later -- thinking in terms of songs collected to serve a 
> theme in structuring
> albums. This was extremely important in terms of establishing one's self 
> as a seriously considered
> artist in the long term -- what would Sinatra be without it? However, 
> Day's only contract -- 
> with Columbia from 1946 to 1966 -- stubbornly exploited her as a singles 
> artist; apart from
> "You're My Thrill" in 1949 she did not make a coherent album until "Love 
> Me Or Leave Me" in 1955;
> everything in between was either movie tie-ins or collections of singles, 
> and that would continue
> to typify the kinds of Columbia issued by her even afterward, though she 
> did manage to get some
> actual albums through -- a few. When the hit singles dried up after 
> "Everybody Loves a Lover"
> in 1958, she was unable to transition to the album market -- her only 
> album to chart afterward
> was the greatest hits LP which contained that track, also issued in 1958. 
> Doris' recording
> career ended in 1967, way before nearly all of her colleagues at Columbia.
>
> So, despite being the top box-office draw of the 1950s and a singer of 
> tremendous popularity,
> Doris was screwed from the standpoint of her recording career. If you 
> don't like her singing,
> that is perhaps no great tragedy, but it does explain why she is not 
> regarded as being in the
> same league as Rosie Clooney or Sinatra -- she just didn't gain any 
> traction in the kinds of
> products that make her work easy to access, and satisfying to boot. To 
> find the gems you have
> to dig through an awful lot of mediocre or crappy material.
>
> I liked very much Harold Aherne's post below; this is long enough though. 
> Let me merely
> mention singers of this ilk that I greatly enjoy not so far mentioned; Kay 
> Weber, Nan Wynn,
> Ginny Simms, Anita Boyer, Ella Johnson.
>
> Uncle Dave Lewis
> uncledavelewis at hotmail.com
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> End of 78-L Digest, Vol 36, Issue 28
> ************************************