[78-L] Betty and Bob

[David Lennick]

Can't date this side for certain, but maybe 1940 or 1941..would he have been in 
LA at that time? Who has the Garrod Keystone discography? The original is D&S-T 
#35, contents as follows:

VIDO MUSSO & HIS ORCHESTRA (mx DS-T #35 A-B-D-C)
SO WHAT (Bob Stevens, vocal) 2:48
YOU COULD TELL ME IT'S TRUE (Betty Van, vocal) 2:42
I STOLE THE INSPIRATION FROM YOU (Bob Stevens, vocal) 2:39
JIG-A-JIVE (Instrumental) 2:22

On the first cut he sounds like Morton Downey. Better on the other track, so it 
could just have been an arrangement that was way too high for him. The band 
sounds as if it had never seen these charts before (and nobody ever saw them 
again, they're all awful songs, presumably non-ASCAP filler).

dl

On 1/6/2013 11:41 AM, Malcolm Rockwell wrote:
> I believe I've seen a Bob Stevens (Bob Stephens?) on a -D series
> Columbia. Nope, I just looked. But I do have a photo of Stevens in an
> orchestra leader's outfit posing with the Mills Brothers. If I can
> locate it I'll scan it and put it up somewhere.
> In any case I'm wondering if this is the same Bob Stevens that worked at
> OKeh with my father in the 20s. He went on to be an indy producer for a
> number of labels and remained one of my father's best friends throughout
> his life. Due to laryngeal cancer in the late 40s/early 50s he had his
> voice-box removed and was one of the first to use "The Buzzer" invented
> by Western Electric to allow the voiceless to speak. As a kid I could
> understand him with or without the artificial voice-box.
> Malcolm
>
> *******
>
> On 1/5/2013 6:02 PM, David Lennick wrote:
>> Lawdy, lawdy, I've just discovered the worst big band vocalists ever. Vido
>> Musso and his Orchestra, on a Keystone transcription (the cutting looks like
>> MacGregor), with BOB STEVENS, who makes Will Oakland sound like Paul Robeson,
>> and BETTY VAN, who can't pronounce the letter "r" or any other consonants or
>> vowels and is adenoidal to boot. Anybody ever heard of these characters in any
>> other context? Did Vido get a record date and just grab two people off the
>> street? The songs are pretty awful too (and sound sight-read).
>>
>> dl
>>