The Peggy Lee Bio-Discography:
Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee / The Oldsmobile Show
(On The Radio, Part V)

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), The Four Lads, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




This debut episode of Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee showcased the harmony vocals of a group who had yet to break out as a solo act. The Four Lads were a quartet of recent graduates from St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto.

They owed their entry into the American industry to the intervention of The Golden Gate Quartet, the very group after which they had patterned themselves. (As we will see shortly, The Golden Gate Quartet would become frequent guests on this Peggy Lee show, too.) In the late 1940s, the Quartet had come to the Toronto area for a concert tour, and the youngsters had seized on the opportunity afforded by that visit, earning their elders' appreciation after a backstage visit. The Quartet proceeded to recommend them to their manager, Michael Stewart. Liking what he heard on demo record, the manager brought the Canadians into the Manhattan nightclub scene, where their act proved successful (1950).

Stewart was also expecting to be able to sign the Lads to Columbia Records, the label for which the Quartet had done the bulk of their studio work so far. Nevertheless, the concurrent ascent of Mitch Miller to a top A&R position at Columbia put a damp on such plans, as the executive did not have much of an interest in signing gospel acts.

Stewart managed to sneak the Lads into Columbia's studios only after he reoriented their repertoire from gospel and pop to mostly pop harmony. Under that guise, they partook in the success of three bestsellers at Columbia, all of them featuring lead vocals by Johnnie Ray: "Cry," "The Little Cloud That Cried" (both arranged by one of the Lads) and "Please, Mr. Sun." All three numbers were particularly popular on the music charts for the month of December 1951.

It was at this juncture that The Four Lads became Peggy Lee's very first guests on Club 88. Their booking on her show might have stemmed from the fact that both acts were signed to the same agency, the General Artists Corporation. During the episode, Lee and the Lads vocalized together on a performance of the novelty "Shrimp Boats." The latter was another then-current Columbia hit, sung by Jo Stafford with The Norman Luboff Choir. For their own spot, sans Lee, The Four Lads picked a song whose title is given on one press report as "Sit Down And Write The Folks."

The year 1952 found the Lads trying and failing to score a hit as a solo act at Columbia. Though temporarily relegated by Miller to their former role as background vocalists, the group rebounded with their release of the catchy "Istanbul" in late 1953. Several bona fide hits would follow. Their peak in popularity actually took place in the mid-1950s, when they hit with the triple punch of "Standing In The Corner," "No, Not Much," and the then-ubiquitous million seller "Moments To Remember."

The group's original members were Jimmy Arnold, Frank Busseri, Connie Codarini, and Bernie Toorish. By the second half of the 1960s, they had become a nostalgia act, continuing as such until their temporary break-up in 1977. Reactivated just a few years later, the group moved on to new incarnations managers by Busseri, one of the original members. As of this writing (four decades later), they are said to be still performing in the nostalgia circuit.


Preservation

To my knowledge, the first three episodes of CBS' Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee have not been preserved in any shape or form.  I was not even aware of their existence until well into the months that I spent researching this radio show.  Only after my retrieval of a review of Club 88, on the January 2, 1952 issue of Variety, did it become clear that the program had already started by that date.

The actual premiere date of Club 88 remained a mystery to me until Dave Smith kindly contacted me with the revelation. Smith (currently in the process of researching and co-writing a bio-discography of Jerry Gray, the distinguished bandleader who worked on the companion radio series Club 15) came across periodicals that announced the scheduling of the premiere episode of Club 88 for Tuesday, December 25, 1951.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Richard Hayes, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Richard Hayes made a guest appearance in the present episode of Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee. Though nearly forgotten nowadays, this male singer was a well-known hitmaker in his heyday. From 1949 to 1952, he rode on a high wave of success, placing a healthy succession of hit after hit in the top 25 of Billboard's main music chart -- 13 hits, to be exact. Throughout his lucky chart spell, Hayes' biggest seller remained his debut recording of "The Old Master Painter," which charted in December of 1949, when he was merely 19 years old. Peaking at #2, the teenager's version managed to upstage competing releases by not only the duo of Peggy Lee and Mel Tormé (#9) but also the likes of Frank Sinatra (#13) and Dick Haymes (#4), both of whom were already very well-established crooners by that time (albeit momentarily waning in popularity).

For this singing guest appearance, Richard Hayes picked "Out In The Cold Again," his most recent hit. (Recorded for Mercury, it had reached #9 in October of 1951.) He also tackled "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" as a duet with the hostess.

A fine baritone who sometimes adopted intonation reminiscent of Frankie Laine and at other times turned to a more non-descript style, Hayes transitioned to television variety programming in the mid-1950s, and later on moved to radio hosting.


Songs

1. "Insomnia (Is A Lack Of Attitude)"
The title given to this song should be deemed tentative. Before she sings the number, Peggy Lee credits Willard Robison as the songwriter, but does not identify the song by name. My research on Robison and his catalogue of compositions has yet to uncover which of his songs this one could be; it might have not been officially published. The provisional title that I have used above is based on my own listening of the song's lyrics.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Johnnie Ray (v)

Guest




Following in the footsteps of Richard Hayes, another young male singer came to visit Peggy Lee during the subsequent episode of her 1952 show. Like Hayes, Johnnie Ray had his greatest success with his first pop single, "Cry," which topped the 1951 charts for 11 weeks. (Ray's one previous hit had been confined to the rhythm & blues chart.) Twenty-seven years old and hence seven years Lee's junior at the time of this guest appearance, Ray was barely beginning his reign over the pop charts. He would end up scoring 27 hits between 1951 and 1957, collecting along the way a few top ten albums as well.

During the first of various visits to Peggy Lee's radio series, Johnnie Ray chose to sing "The Little White Cloud That Cried." That number had been the flip side of his aforementioned top 1951 single, and had also turned out to be a big hit for him, peaking at number two in the main Billboard singles chart. In addition to doing that solo performance, Ray joined Lee for a duet version of Irving Berlin's "Slumming On Park Avenue."

The Columbia artist would end up appearing in four episodes of Lee's show (January 8, 1952 / January 10, 1952 / April 8, 1952 / April 22, 1952). That quartet of radio appearances would be followed by a fifth one, though that last one was on television. (The occasion was a 1957 episode of The Jackie Gleason Show, for which Lee served as the program's temporary hostess, while Gleason was away.)

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Johnnie Ray (v)

Guest




For the second week of January 1952, Johnnie Ray was Peggy Lee's only featured guest, appearing on both Club 88 episodes from that week. Details about the artist have been provided under the preceding session.

I should point out that my data about this episode needs further confirmation. Unlike just about all other episodes entries above and below, I have not found a listing for this one at my main source, the Library of Congress. The data and/or the physical object might simply be misfiled/misplaced at LOC.

My source for this episode existence is a third party, whose supplied details need to be aurally verified. If accurate, then Lee sang all four above-listed titles. The last one, "Walkin' My Baby Bak Home," would be a duet with Ray. The latter would have also sung a sol version of "Cry."

In passing, I should clarify that, whenever I allude to the Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee material kept at LOC (or listed on the LOC logs), I am referring to the re-broadcasts of the original episodes. The rebroadcasts were produced by AFRS, the original show by CBS. In total, AFRS produced 82 episodes of Lee's show. An identifying number (from no. 1 to no. 82) was given to each one of them. LOC has holdings for all but the present one (#3). The endnotes of this discography will cover this potentially confusing topic in greater detail.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




Formed in 1934 and still active today, The Golden Gate Quartet had its first peak in popularity during the prewar years. A second peak took place when the group went on an European tour in the mid 1950s. The tour would reignite audiences' appreciation for their expert handling of both spirituals and secular standards. After the initial touring years, the quartet decided to settle in Europe. As time and music trends kept on going by, they became more of a worldwide traveling group -- one that would also incorporate doo-wop and rhythm & blues to their gospel-grounded repertoire.

Cultivating a style that oftentimes came across as inspired by The Mills Brothers, this quartet brought swing and jazz techniques to the field of gospel music. Their solid reputation in the US from the 1930s to the 1950s is attested by the many record labels for which they recorded back then, including most of the majors (Columbia, Mercury, RCA, Capitol). Around the time when they were invited to appear in Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee, they could also be found sharing the bill with The Duke Ellington Orchestra at populist venues such as New York's Paramount Theatre.

Most sources identify the 1951 members of the Quartet as Alton Bradley, Orville Brooks, Clyde Riddick, and Orlandus Wilson. Faced with the first of various visits to Peggy Lee' show, the inspired foursome regaled her audience with a rendition of Louis Armstrong's "Brother Bill." They were subsequently joined by the hostess for a rendition of the spiritual "Little David, Play On Your Harp." The Golden Gate Quartet would go on to make five additional appearances (February 5, 1952 / February 19, 1952 / February 21, 1952 / February 28, 1952 / March 20, 1952), thereby becoming the most frequent guest of the show's New York-based edition. (An LA-based edition would start with the May 6, 1952 episode.)


Songs And Songwriters

1. Solitaire
For the song “Solitaire,” I have listed the three songwriters that are credited in the sheet music. (King Guion is credited with the music, Borek and Nutter with the lyrics.) BMI lists a fourth songwriter by the name of Claire Gaber Wigham. I am not sure that this fourth credit applies to the original composition. Elsewhere, I am seeing Wigham’s name connected to a version of “Solitaire” sung by the doo-wop group The Allures; it might thus be that Wigham is listed at BMI on account of a lyrical or musical addition made to that version in particular.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest





Best remembered for his frequent appearances as panelist and host of TV game shows that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, Robert Q. Lewis also made his presence known on the radio, theatre, cinema, nightclub and even lecturing circuits. The above-shown photos bring attention to one of the personality's trademarks: his horn-rimmed eyeglasses. Another trademark was the Q in his name, which he liked to describe as standing for "quizzical." From the 1940s to the 1960s, Lewis made a firm dent in the record business as well, releasing singles and albums that variously fell under the categories of nostalgia, comedy, and satire. During those pre-panelist days, he seems to have also made a name for himself as a character impersonator. A gallery of those characters can be found right below.





For his guest spot in this Club 88 installment, he plugged his then-current single "Grand Central Station," on MGM Records. No duets were performed. At the time of this appearance in Club 88, Lee and Lewis counted themselves among those who shared CBS' premises: both hosted their own shows on the network. Robert Q. Waxworks (1951-1952) featured Mr. Quizzical as both a disc jockey (playing vintage records that he often chose for their comedic bent) and an interviewer of music acts (in many cases, established stars of previous decades, no longer in the limelight). The photo immediately below also captures the two CBS stars together, along with bandleader Ralph Flanagan. The date is probably 1950, or otherwise 1951. The context or remains unknown to me, but suspected to be The Ralph Flanagan Orchestra, a program hosted by Lewis, and featuring guest vocalists. (The show was on CBS in 1950, though it might have changed networks some time within the next four years of its duration.)






Performances

1. "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive"
In this and other episodes of her show, Peggy Lee's interpretation of that Johnny Mercer standard included the song's verse. The presence of the verse is worth mentioning because her only actual recording of the song made for the World Transcription Service, lacks it. (The exclusion was probably dictated by space limitations in the prospective transcription disc).

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Continuing her spotlight on up-and-coming male artists (which so far had featured Richard Hayes and Johnnie Ray), this episode of Peggy Lee's 1952 show turned its attention on Tommy Edwards. After spending most of the 1940s working as a club pianist and demo singer, Edwards had first attracted widespread attention in 1951, thanks to his top 20 hits "The Other Side Of The Mountain" and "It's All In The Game," both on MGM Records.

Edwards' recording career would find him alternating between the trends of the day and a more traditional style, the latter applied mostly to the ballads that he sang. Case in point: Edwards' approach to his most famous record. In 1951, he had sung "It's All In The Game" as a soft ballad, backed with strings -- to no great success. In 1958, he would re-record the number as a midtempo with a more contemporary streak (a bit r&b, a bit doo-wop). The 1958 version climbed all the way to the top of Billboard's main chart. Even after such phenomenal success, he did not completely or inexorably move on to the modern sounds of the day, but still cultivated a more traditional balladic style as well. (Incidentally, such a style betrayed the enormous influence that Nat King Cole once exerted over young African-American crooners.) Two years Lee's junior, Edwards regrettably died of a brain aneurysm at the relatively young age of 47.

For this 1952 guest appearance in Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee, Tommy Edwards sang two solos. Being also a songwriter, the singer-pianist picked as his first choice a novelty which he had composed, "That Chick's Too Young To Fry." The ditty had actually given him solid access to the music business back in 1946, when Louis Jordan had picked it up and taken it to #3 in the music charts. Edwards' second offering for this broadcast was his then-current MGM hit "Please, Mr. Sun" (#22), which Lee herself would go on to reprise in many future shows. Lee and Edwards did not sing any duets during the episode, but perhaps they did so on the tube four days later, when they both guested on the CBS TV show Songs For Sale.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Peggy Lee kept on shining a spotlight on up-and-coming male singers. This particular episode focused on a New Yorker of Caribbean descent, then 24 years old. Peggy Lee captured Harry Belafonte at a time when the future star and multiple-award winner (Grammy, Tony, Emmy, etc.) had yet to debut on film, or make any significant dent in the world of arts. He had not scored one single hit record, either, despite having already waxed a total of 16 masters on three different labels (Jubilee, Roost, Capitol). Those masters (all of them dating from a short 1949-1950 time span) were subsequently released over seven singles and two EPs, none of which attracted much of a buying audience. Most of them had been arranged and performed in a traditional pop-jazz vein, for which the former navy officer and high school dropout felt no strong affinity. At that point in time, singing was primarily serving as a means of supporting his ambition to become an actor.

Belafonte's other professional activities were not bringing much joy in his life, either. Already disappointed at the scarcity of non-stereotypical roles for aspiring young black actors, he also found himself increasingly loathing the racial segregation imposed in the nightclubs where he was performing. Reaching a state of full frustration, he quit singing altogether, and proceeded to scrape resources in order to open (with two friends) a small diner in New York's Greenwich Village.

Fortunately, Harry's withdrawal from the entertainment industry turned out to be brief. Though extremely busy at the 24/7 diner, the future King Of Calypso had kept on attending shows held by other artists in the neighborhood, where folk music was becoming especially popular. Revitalized by his exposure to such music, he delved into the world of so-called negro tunes, and readied to sing again. During an extremely well-received comeback act at the Village Vanguard (starting in October of 1951, and lasting 14 consecutive weeks), Belafonte recast himself as a singer of folk tunes who, for good measure, offered a strain of calypso music as well. With his career as a nightclub performer now booming locally, he attracted renewed attention from the record labels. RCA signed him in 1952.

It was thus during this first year with RCA that Harry Belafonte accepted an invitation from Peggy Lee and her team, to perform in Club 88. The traditional European folk ballad "O, No, John" (aka "The Spanish Merchant's Daughter") was his choice for a solo on this guest appearance, which would be followed by another on March 11, 1952. While only solos were heard on this initial occasion, a duet by Belafonte and Lee would be performed on the comeback episode.

RCA's release of the single "Matilda" in mid-1953 meant the end of the struggling spell for the "Banana Boat Song" man. In fact, the promising talent promptly became a triple threat. In addition to making his debut on film (1953) and earning a Tony award for theatrical work (1954), he concurrently scored three top 20 hits (1953-1954), plus a top three debut album (1954). And yet, Belafonte's music career would not truly kick into high gear until the 1956-1957 period. It was then that he placed two more albums at the top of the charts, the second of them being the ultra popular, career-definining Calypso.





Issues

1. At Last: The Lost Radio Recordings [CD]
This 2CD set consists of 45 tracks, all of them from Peggy Lee's own 1951-1952 shows on the CBS-radio network. (One of the 45 tracks is called "Peggy Lee Show Opening," and does not feature a song. All the other 44 tracks comprise vocals sung by Lee.) As can be seen above, three of the tracks are listed under the present episode of her 1952 show.

Be advised that many of the set's 45 tracks, including those listed above, are not definitively dated. They fall instead under an umbrella of tentative dates. The tentativeness is due to lack of enough specific information about the versions featured in the CD set. Let's take, for instance, the tune "It's A Most Unusual Day," which was sung by Lee in two episodes of Club 88 (January 24 & March 27, 1952). I simply do not know from which of the two episodes the CD's version comes. Faced with such a dilemma, I have picked the earliest of the logical possibilities. In the case of "It's A Most Unusual Day," the earliest possibility was, obviously, this broadcast's version. The same dilemma applies to 30 additional tracks from the set.

For the record, here is an alphabetically organized list of the CD tracks that have been conclusively identified: "And So To Sleep Again," "Come On-A My House," "Cry," "Domino," "Getting To Know You," "Go, Go, Go," "Heigh-Ho (It's Off To Work We Go)," "I'll Never Smile Again," "I'll See You In My Dreams," "Just One More Chance," "Little White Cloud That Cried (The)," "My Darling, My Darling," "Pretty-Eyed Baby," and "Singing In The Rain." (There is one additional CD track, titled "Peggy Lee Radio Show Opening," which has not been factored into this account. In total, 15 tracks.)

Crucial for the solution of this dilemma is the ability to do a close listening of the relevant audio sources, in order to pinpoint which of the reprised titles are the ones heard in the CD set. Unfortunately, I do not currently have access to the relevant audio sources -- hence, then, my decision to identify all 30 'dubious" tracks through educated guesses, at least for the time being. I remain hopeful to be able to conclusively date each track in the distant future, if additional information is then forthcoming.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Danny Scholl (v)

Guest




Coming to visit Peggy Lee during this episode was her contemporary Danny Scholl (born 1921), an actor who boasted a sizable physical build (6'4") and a similarly impressive resume. Spanning the worlds of Broadway, film, television, and music, such a resume included appearances as Glenn Miller's boy vocalist, roles in Johnny Mercer's Texas, Lil' Darlin' and Phil Silver's Top Banana, an Emmy-nominated turn in the TV series The Texan, singles recorded on major labels -- Decca, Coral, RCA Victor -- and exposure in numerous music variety TV programs. Most notably, he is said to have guested in over 40 episodes of Jack Paar's TV show (a claim that I have not confirmed).

Scholl also gained attention for his patriotism. Nicknamed "the singing soldier," he began his military career by spending about four years singing overseas with Miller's band, and later without him. Then he volunteered in the Air Force, spending various additional years as an active member. Regrettably, his well-earned rewards (e.g., one medal and two bronze stars for Bravery) were offset by a serious injury, incurred while stationed overseas: a broken spine, which directly led to relief from duty.

His health rapidly deteriorated afterwards. Not yet 40, Scholl suffered two strokes in the late 1950s, requiring brain surgery and extensive therapy. In or around 1961, a third stroke left him in a wheelchair, unable to walk for the remainder of his life. A fourth stroke hit him in 1979. Scholl was then told that he would never be able to sing again -- a grim verdict that his doctors had actually passed after the previous strokes, too. Once again, his vocal chords defied the odds. In 1983, he even self-released an album, whose front cover is shown above. The choice of title for the album (No Man Is An Island taken from a 1954 single) is telling, and so are some of the other numbers in the track listing: "The Impossible Dream," "With A Song In My Heart," and "My Way." The year of this album's release also brought about his passing, at age 63.

One curious chapter in this unfortunate artist's life revolves around his marriage -- the only matrimonial tie mentioned in the sources that I consulted. On Valentine's Day of 1965, a 44-year-old Scholl tied the knot with 71-year-old silent movie star Corinne Griffith. She is said to have sought an annulment within days, on the grounds that the marriage had not been consummated. (Gossip rags claimed that, during the court date, Scholl collapsed on the stand, while a possibly dementia-addled Griffith shocked witnesses with the absurd claims that she was not Corinne but her own -- and much younger -- sister, and that she was guilty of identity theft.)

But, back in 1952, Danny Scholl was a lucky thirty-year-old actor basking in the success of both Texas, Lil' Darlin' and Top Banana (with the Hollywood version of the latter in his near future). A happy camper while staying at Club 88, Scholl obliged hostess Peggy Lee with a solo version of "Undecided." In Lee's company, Scholl also took a pleasant musical stroll, as they merrily went "Singing In The Rain" together.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Jack Haskell, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




This episode's guest was Jack Haskell, best remembered nowadays as a TV personality who served as sidekick for Dave Garroway, as substitute announcer for Jack Paar, and even as occasional stand-in for Ed McMahon in Johnny Carson's show. His credits in the area of TV announcement were particularly extensive, comprising the shows of Mike Douglas, Gary Moore, and Ed Sullivan, in addition to some of the ones mentioned in the previous sentence. Haskell was actually a capable singer, too. In fact, his earlier years had been spent as a big band vocalist in the local Chicago area, from which he had graduated to a national stint with the orchestra of Les Brown (doing crooning duties next to female counterpart Doris Day). After his big band period, Haskell tried for a solo recording career (to no great success, despite fine singing ability) and also did a fair amount of acting in summer stock theater. But the work that he did on television remains his greater claim to recognition.

Jack Haskell and Peggy Lee probably became acquainted with one another through the TV show Songs For Sale, where they served as co-singers in at least one episode, broadcast on December 22, 1951. In the month that followed, Haskell made the guest appearance currently under discussion, and one month later the show's audience was treated to a second serving from the male singer (March 4, 1952). For this first appearance, Haskell sang of "Women, Wine And Song" solo, and shared with Lee a desire to "Let's Get Away From It All." The color photo next to the publicity shot above is was cropped from the 1957 LP Let's Fall In Love, which Haskell recorded for Jubilee Records.


Sponsorship

A listener of this episode has kindly shared with me the observation that "[a]t the end of this program there was a short jingle/commercial for Mercury."

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




The Golden Gate Quartet made a total of six appearances in Peggy Lee's radio series, all of them during the months in which the show was New York-based. (Beginning with a program dated May 6, 1952, Club 88 moved its headquarters to Los Angeles.) During their second appearance, the quartet accompanied Peggy Lee in a rendition of "Shadrack" and performed their own interpretation of "The Preacher And The Bear." For general comments about this group, consult the notes under the episode in which they made their first appearance (January 15, 1952).

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Bob Carroll, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




On board for the first of two guest appearances in her show, New Yorker Bob Carroll took on "Something Sort Of Grandish" with Peggy Lee. When all by himself, he tackled "Flamingo," the Herb Jeffries-Duke Ellington hit that was over ten years old by that time.

A baritone with enough vocal flexibility to work within both light opera and vintage pop genres, Carroll spent most of one decade as a boy singer with the big bands (1940s), and parts of a later decade as a soloist with Los Angeles Philharmonic, The New York Pops, and The Florida Orchestra. Between 1940 and 1948, Carroll sang for Henry King (e.g., "I Fell All Over Myself," 1940) Ted Fio Rito (e.g., "Rio Rita," 1942, that song becoming the band's theme shortly afterwards), Dick McIntyre (e.g., "Now Is The Hour," 1948), and Glenn Miller's Air Force Band. He hit the charts twice as Charlie Barnet's boy singer in 1941 (one of the hits being the #2 chartbuster "I Hear A Rhapsody") and thrice as Jimmy Dorsey's male vocalist, from 1946 to 1948 ("Ballerina" reaching the highest peak of the three, at #10).

Singing was not the only trade to which Carroll applied himself. He acted extensively in film, television, and on the stage. His work in professional theater began with the role of Ligniére The Poet in Mel Ferrer's Cyrano De Bergerac at the Alvin Theatre (1946-1947). A couple of years later, he would reprise the role on television, in The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse's own production of Cyrano De Bergerac (1949).

In spite of his extensive experience as a boy vocalist, Carroll's solo singing career never reached great heights. Before his two appearances in Peggy Lee's show, his only solo hit had not been really solo, nor his: "Charmaine" (1951) was released under Gordon Jenkins' name, with the singer credited merely as the single's 'soloist.' (I should mention, in passing, my vague suspicion that Carroll might have served as sort of an utility player -- or rather, an utility vocalist -- for Decca Records. Can the fact that so many of the bands with which he sang were signed to Decca be purely coincidental?) Given Peggy Lee's extensive work with Jenkins on Decca during 1952, this connection might have factored in her decision to extend an invitation to Carroll.

Carroll had two additional solo hits, both in 1953, on Derby Records. The highest-peaking of these post-big band outings was "Say It With Your Heart" (#14), whose sheet features the first of the above-shown photos on its front. (That photo was actually for several pieces of sheet music, as well as promotional Carroll material.) His aforementioned appearances as a featured soloist with various light classic orchestras took place in the 1980s.

It is, however, as a man of the theatre that Bob Carroll is best remembered nowadays. For details, consult the notes under his other appearance on Lee's show (April 3, 1952).

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Merv Griffin, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




On this occasion, Peggy Lee welcomed a young man by the name of Merv Griffin, later to become nationally famous through his long-lasting association with the tube. On TV, he would variously serve as game show host (1958-1963), music variety host (1965-1985), and creator/producer of two top game shows, Jeopardy and The Wheel of Fortune. After his television years, the 15-Emmy award winner would take on the world of real estate, becoming the owner of the Beverly Hilton Hotel and other large properties.

Naturally, owning real estate and hosting TV shows were not among the feats of his youth. When he was in his early teens, Griffin's earliest displays of talent had been as a pianist and church organist. Next, in his late teens and early twenties, he had moved on to a career as a vocalist. (He had also tried his hand at songwriting and would eventually dabble in film acting.) The youngster first sang professionally on a nationally syndicated show emanating from San Francisco. Next, he spent four years with The Freddy Martin Orchestra, mostly on the road. Griffin's period under Martin's fold resulted in various hits, including the multi-million seller "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts" (1949).

Attempts at careers as both a solo singer and actor would follow shortly afterwards. In fact, this visit to Peggy Lee's Club 88 catches Griffin near the start of his period as a solo vocalist. After he familiarizes the audience with what seems to have been an obscure number, suitably identified in my sources under the title of "Never Before," the guest and his hostess can't help but succumb to their ritziest desires: "Let's Go Slumming (On Park Avenue)" turns out to be their choice of a duet.

During the early 1950s, Merv Griffin managed to land contracts with both Columbia Records and Warner Brothers, the latter being the same film company under which Peggy Lee made the 1953 movie The Jazz Singer. Unlike Lee, Griffin was apparently more interested in acting than singing, but neither career took off for him. By the late 1950s, he was ensconced in the world of TV hosting. In the decades to come, Peggy Lee would make various guest visits to Merv Griffin's music variety show -- including one in which she and fellow singer Tony Bennett performed together.

Russ Case And His Orchestra, The Red Norvo Trio (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




On this Valentine's date, vibraphonist Red Norvo and the two other members of his trio dandily accompanied Peggy Lee during a rendition of "I Got Rhythm." The trio probably performed an instrumental selection as well, but information on this matter does not appear to be extant. After this February 14 turn, The Red Norvo Trio made a return about three months later (episode dated June 3, 1952).

Nicknamed "Mr. Swing," Red Norvo had once been married to one of Peggy Lee's vocal influences, Mildred Bailey -- herself naturally known as "Mrs. Swing." Lee's own husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, had worked for Mr. and Mrs. Swing in the mid-1930s. (Mildred Bailey passed away on December 12, 1951 -- i.e., about two months before this broadcast. Her divorce from Norvo had taken place some eight years before.) Norvo had also been part of The Benny Goodman Orchestra, with which Lee had spent a couple of formative years in the early 1940s. Lee must have become even better acquainted with Norvo's musicianship in 1947, when he played vibes in the sessions for her album Rendezvous With Peggy Lee. It was probably among his earliest album dates for a singer. Afterwards, Mr. Swing continued to accompany singers on both records and live dates, most notably during the late 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, when Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, and Norvo's then-partner Mavis Rivers benefitted from his musical dexterity. (Of course, he recorded albums on his own, too, as exemplified by the front covers pictured above.) After the early 1960s, health issues allowed Norvo to perform only sporadically, but he was still active in the mid-1980s, and remained alive until 1999.

A note about the members of Norvo's Trio. Although no file or oral identification is known to exist, we can confidently propose that the trio two other members were the same ones heard in the other Norvo episode below: Tal Farlow and Red Mitchell. (As for Charles Mingus, also known to have been a member around this period, he had actually quit the trio in 1951, and hence did not come over to Peggy Lee's show. Mingus seems to have connected with Lee on a personal basis at a later period, though. One of his biographers mentions various occasions in the 1960s on which Mingus and one of his wives went to see Lee perform live. Elsewhere, I have also read passing comments to the effect that he was actually friends with Lee, but I have yet to come across a reliable source on this particular matter. Corroboration or rebuttal would be appreciated. Mingus' high regard for the careers of both Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra is certainly apparent in some comments that he made for an interview conducted in the 1970s.)


Patter

1. "My Funny Valentine"
Peggy Lee sings this number as a dedication to a girl that she does not identify. She confides the following to the listening audience: I’d like to sing a song for a very special little girl. Her pet name is Plum Blossom. Today I’m going to call her my funny valentine. And by the way, her looks are not laughable, and she is photographable. Given Lee's silence about this girl's identity (whom Lee must have expected to be listening) and given the implication that she was Lee's own valentine, the mystery girl might have been the singer's only daughter, Nicki.


Sources And Issues

1. AFRS
2. Lacquer Disc
As will be more extensively explained in the notes near the bottom of this page, Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee was originally broadcast on CBS and re-aired a year later on AFRS stations. In some instances, both the AFRS and CBS versions survive; in most cases, only the AFRS version does. The episode under discussion is a very unfortunate exception: AFRS seems to have skipped producing its own version of the episode. Thanks to a transfer made to CDr, we know that half of the original CBS episode, containing the above-listed songs, has survived. The other half has not been located, and its contents are not listed anywhere. However, I believe that it too has to have survived, and that it is somewhere in the Library of Congress' archives, its existence perhaps inadvertently omitted from LOC's logs. In any case, my claim as to the existence of the above-listed lacquer disc needs qualification: half of its contents is must definitely extant, but the other half's survival should be deemed, for the time being, speculative.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




The Golden Gate Quartet made a total of six guest appearances in Peggy Lee's radio series. Their third appearance found them applying their harmonies to both the "Lonesome Road" and the spiritual "(Joshua Fit The Battle Of) Jericho." The latter was sung with Lee. For general comments about this group, consult the notes under the program dated January 15, 1952.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




During the fourth of their six guest appearances, The Golden Gate Quartet offered their interpretation of "Dry Bones" and accompanied Peggy Lee in a rendition of "Little David, Play On The Harp." General comments about this group's career and about their first Club 88 appearance can be found under the episode dated January 15, 1952.

The Barbara Carroll Trio, Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




A visitor of Peggy Lee's Club 88 more than 60 years ago, pianist Barbara Carroll still remained happily active at the time of this writing. She is set to reach the 90th birthday mark on January 25, 2015. [Update, 2017: Ms. Carroll passed away on February 12, 2017, at the age of 92.] Skilled at playing the keys since her childhood, Carroll has more than earned the moniker by which she has become known in recent decades: “the first lady of jazz piano.” Naturally, the bulk of her recorded work has consisted of of instrumental performances, but vocal interpretations have also been an active part of the lady's repertoire, especially during the last two or three decades. Among the numbers which Carroll has favored in recent times is, in fact, the Peggy Lee-penned "(I'm) In Love Again"; it can be found in her CDs One Morning In May (2002) and Live At Birdland (2005).

Back in 1952, Barbara Carroll came to Peggy Lee's program with the two other members of her trio, drummer Herb Wasserman and bassist Joe Shulman. An in-demand session musician who had joined the trio in 1951, Shulman might have served as a link between the two women: during the three preceding years, he had played bass for Lee on various dates. This time around, while in her show, Shulman and the other members of the trio accompanied Lee on a version of "Lullaby Of Broadway" and, when left on their own, offered an instrumental rendition of "Taking A Chance On Love." Love and chances were, indeed, in the air: marriage vows would be exchanged by the trio's bassist and pianist in 1954, though Shulman would sadly pass away just three years later (at age 33, of a heart attack).

In addition to bassist Joe Shulman, another human link between Peggy Lee and Barbara Carroll was Benny Goodman: both ladies had worked for the King of Swing. Around 1948, the woman who was then known as "the first girl ever to play bebop piano" had enrolled in Goodman's recently formed bebop combo, which would not prove long-lasting. It is worth noting, in passing, that The Barbara Carroll Trio had been hired as a replacement for The Mary Lou Williams Trio, with whom Goodman had had a disagreement. As will be shown shortly (program dated March 13, 1952), The Mary Lou Williams Trio would also become a guest of Peggy Lee's show.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




For their fifth and penultimate guest appearance in Peggy Lee's radio series, The Golden Gate Quartet accompanied Peggy Lee in a rendition of Willard Robison's "Yes, Lord" and performed their own version of "Fare You Well, Fare You Well," a spiritual that they had recorded for Columbia Records in 1947. Commentary about this group's career can be found above, in the notes under the January 15, 1952 broadcast.


Songs

1. "Come What May"
A 1952 top 10 pop hit for Patti Page, the song "Come What May" is credited to Allen Schiller (lyrics) and Al Sanchez (music) in sources such as Wikipedia and its many derivates. those credits seem mistaken. Vaughn Horton is listed as the sole songwriter in three other sources that qualify as more reliable: ASCAP (1), Page's Mercury 45 rpm single (2), and the song's sheet music (3).

This crediting error can also be found in the 2005 music chart book, Hit Records, 1950-1975. I do not know if the 2005 text, an United Kingdom publication, originated or just perpetuated the error. The fact that the book had been published in the UK made me wonder if the credits for the British hit version of "Come What May" could be the source for the error under discussion. But such is not the case, I subsequently found out: Lita Roza's Decca hit single also credits Horton.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Jack Haskell, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




For his second appearance in Peggy Lee's show, "Weaver Of Dreams" was Jack Haskell's solo number, and "Mountain Greenery" his duet with the hostess. The above-seen images of Haskell were cropped from two of the four existent LPs under his name: Madigan Sings, Haskell Swings (Sesac Recordings, 1957) and Jack [Haskell] Swings For Jack [Paar] (Strand Records, 1961). Viewers interested in details about Haskell's career are invited to consult the notes under the first of his two appearances (program dated January 31, 1952).

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, The Mariners (v)

Guest




One of the earliest integrated vocal groups to become nationally known, The Mariners graced this episode of Club 88. These four men (Nathaniel Dickerson, Martin Karl, James O. Lewis, Thomas Lockard) had first become acquainted with one another as members of the Coast Guard in Manhattan Beach, New York. At the request of one of their officers, they performed together for the first time in 1942 -- or thereabouts. The quartet's trajectory progressed from local, regional and Pacific military bases to national exposure on network radio. Such nation-wide exposure was made possible by Arthur Godfrey, who hired them for his popular radio show, and subsequently took them with him to his even more popular TV show.

The Mariners had their heyday in the early 1950s. From 1950 to 1952, while recording for Columbia, they placed three numbers within the top 30 of Billboard's main music chart, one of them being "They Call The Wind Maria." Though they certainly performed many secular pop numbers, including those with which they hit the charts, the quartet was primarily deemed a gospel group, with a sound that might come off as old-fashioned to modern-day ears. Later in the decade, work for Cadence Records commendably proved less old-fashioned and more swinging, but did not fare as well. By the 1960s, the group had unfortunately begun to fall into oblivion.

The first of their two guest appearances in Club 88 found the former service men fervidly declaring (in song) that "There Is Nothing Like A Dame." They also harmonized about "That Great Come-And-Get-It Day" with Peggy Lee.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Harry Belafonte, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Harry Belafonte's second guest appearance in Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee found him performing in something of a funerary mood, as he personified the narrator of "Streets Of Laredo (The Cowboy's Lament)." He also exchanged lines from "Johnny One Note" with the show's hostess. Remarks about Belafonte's career can be found above, in the notes under the January 24 episode of this 1952 series. He is first seen above in a publicity shot that appears to capitalize on his huge mid-1950s commercial success with folk and calypso material. The second image is a cropped reproduction of the front cover of his 1966 RCA Victor LP In My Quiet Room.

Russ Case And His Orchestra, The Mary Lou Williams Trio (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Two of the many guests that Peggy Lee welcomed to her 1952 show were female pianists who led their own trios: Barbara Carroll (program dated February 26, 1952) and Mary Lou Williams. Though merely in her early 40s at this point in time, triple treat Williams (composer, arranger, pianist) had already been widely touted as one of the greatest -- or even the greatest -- female jazz instrumentalist, a high rank that she would keep and strengthen over the succeeding decades. In addition to the respect that the quality of her own trio and solo work commanded, the artist's promoters could rightfully boast about the fact that she had worked for bandleaders as varied and prestigious as Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, and Benny Goodman.

What's more, one of Benny Goodman's best-remembered instrumentals had been composed and arranged by Williams in 1937, after he had asked her to write a blues for him. She had instead come up with a boogie woogie that came to be called "Roll 'Em," and which would become a popular Goodman item. It is worth noting that Peggy Lee sang a vocal version of this Mary Lou Williams instrumental in 1942, while serving as Goodman's canary. (The identity of that version's lyricist is not known.) A decade later, in the present episode of Club 88, Lee would sing yet another version of a Mary Lou Williams composition. On this occasion, the number was one called "Pretty-Eyed Baby," which Williams had co-written and published in 1951. During the rendition, Lee is accompanied by Williams and the other members of the trio. On their own, the trio performed an instrumental version of "Caravan," too.

Seen in one of the photos above is a 1944 edition of the trio (trumpeter Bill Coleman, pianist Williams, and bassist Al Hall). The 1952 edition heard in Peggy Lee's show might have instead featured bassist Carl Pruitt and drummer Bill Clark, both of whom had also joined Williams earlier that month (March 1952) for the recording of their 10" Atlantic LP (& EP) Piano Panorama, Volume 2.

Later this year, Williams would leave for the United Kingdom, with the intention of performing for just two weeks at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of the Big Rhythm Show Of 1952. The prospective two-week visit would turn into a two-year European stay, partially in response to the warm reception with which her music was met there, and partially an outcome of her dissatisfaction with various aspects of her career in the USA (e.g., relatively ineffective management, insufficient recording opportunities, and copyright battles such as the one set in motion by her claim that elements from the melody of her "What's The Story, Morning Glory" had been re-used by the songwriters of "Black Coffee"). But America still beckoned, and her enchantment with Europe might have faded. After two additional years spent in premature retirement, Williams returned to the American jazz scene, where she remained active until at least 1978, passing away in 1981.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Larry Douglas, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Having appeared in the very last episode of Peggy Lee's 1951 radio series, and also in one of the earliest episodes of the present series, Broadway staple Larry Douglas re-joined Lee for an encore. The Broadway star regaled Lee's listeners with a solo version of "Never Before" and accompanied the hostess in a duet presentation of "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off."

In the above-seen photos, he is accompanied by some of the several ladies who co-starred with him in mid-1950s theatrical productions of The Pajama Game. The production had had its Broadway premiere in 1954; Douglas was not part of it. First in view with Douglas above is Fran Warren, better known in her heyday as a popular singer. Taken in 1955, Douglas and Warren had the lead roles in what might have been the earliest West Coast production of The Pajama Game. Probably from the same 1955 run, next up is Douglas with another notable cast member, Pat Stanley (a Tony-winning actress and dancer, at one time married to songwriter Johnny Burke). Finally, from 1956, Douglas is shown in the company of Betty O'Neill (another capable singer, though primarily known as an actress

Douglas' earlier Broadway shows of note had included the Rodgers & Hart-scored Jumbo (1935-1936), starring Jimmy Durante, and the Cole Porter-scored Panama Hattie (1940-1942), starring Ethel Merman. The leading man also served as Robert Preston's understudy for the lead role of The Music Man, an immensely popular Broadway show (1957-1961). Trivia: Douglas' first wife (Onna White) choreographed the Broadway show version of The Music Man, whereas Douglas' second wife (Susan Lackey, m. 1964) acted in the movie version, playing the role of Zaneeta Shinn (1962). That second marriage lasted until his passing in 1996, at the age of 82.

See also notes under Douglas' aforementioned first visit to the show, on July 29, 1951. December 27, 1951 was the date of his second broadcast guest appearance, about which nothing else is known.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Golden Gate Quartet (v)

Guest




The Golden Gate Quartet made a total of six guest appearances in Peggy Lee's radio series (programs dated January 15, 1952 / February 5, 1952 / February 19, 1952 / February 21, 1952 / February 28, 1952 / March 20, 1952), thereby becoming semi-regulars during the program's earlier months. In their last appearance, the quartet accompanied Peggy Lee through a rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and, when left to their own devices, tried "Runnin' Wild" and "Tiger Rag" as a medley. General details about this group's career can be found in the notes under the earliest of the programs.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Louis Prima (v)

Guest




For the second of his five guest appearances in The Peggy Lee Show, Louis Prima offered "The Bigger The Figure" as his solo of choice and sang "Basin Street Blues" as a duet with Lee. Viewers interested in reading additional details about the Prima-and-Lee combination are invited to consult the notes under the first of his appearances, which actually took place in 1951 (July 8). See also next episode.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




"Boney Bones" was one of the two numbers sung by Louis Prima during the third of his five guest appearances in Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee. His other number from this episode is "Exactly Like You," sung in a duet with Peggy Lee. For commentary about his career, consult the notes under the first of his appearances, dated July 8, 1951.

Two of Louis Prima's big loves can be seen in the photos above: trumpets and horses. (Other loves: women and clothing.) Horse racing became his most expensive addiction during the 1940s, when he often spent far more money than what he was earning. He continued to indulge in the races throughout the decade of the 1950s, which found him in far less of a financial bing, thanks to the large revenue that his increasingly popular nightclub act was generating. At one time, he owned a full dozen horses, having paid over $30,000 for just five of them. One of the equine possessions was named after the third of his five wives (Tracelene). Three others honored his catchphrase play pretty for the people, through names that played on that phrase. The second photo seen above is from 1952 (the same year as this episode's appearance), and captures Prima serenading one of the animals, which in those days was housed, along with the others, at the Aqueduct Racetrack Casino in Queens, New York. (No word on whether the serenaded horse was King Pretty, That's Pretty, Play Pretty, or even Tracelene, but he certainly seems mighty pleased with Prima's pretty playing.)

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Jackie Paris (v)

Guest




An appealing vocalist who developed a strong cult following, Jackie Paris counted Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald among his most notable admirers. Vaughan and Fitzgerald manifested their admiration through the praise that they bestowed on him publicly and in the press. Meanwhile, Peggy Lee proved a more proactive admirer: she tried to convince Capitol to sign Paris to a record contract. Unfortunately, Capitol Records ended up passing on the man with the kissy voice -- per Vaughan's praises. (Although he never made it to Capitol, Paris did record for more than a handful other companies, including ABC's jazz branch Impulse!, Atlantic's Eastwest, Decca's Coral, Mercury's Wing Records, and MGM's music label.)

During the early and mid-years of his singing career, Paris achieved quite a few noteworthy distinctions in the realm of jazz. He was the only professional male singer to appear with Charlie Parker (and Quintette). Paris was also Charles Mingus' pick for the vocal parts of the recordings that the bassist made on his own label. The singer worked with Dizzy Gillespie's big band as well, and is said to have been the first Caucasian vocalist to tour with Lionel Hampton. Still further, Paris introduced both Thelonius Monk's " 'Round Midnight" (i.e., the vocal version) and Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark." The latter was enthusiastically endorsed by Carmichael, and certainly ranks among the very best interpretations of that standard.

Through this invitation to her nationally broadcast show, Peggy Lee provided the relatively young Jackie Paris (then 27 years old) with an opportunity to expand his profile beyond inner jazz circles. Raising to the occasion, Paris performed a tasteful rendition of "My Kinda Love." Lee's invitation also resulted in a charming version of "Oh, Look At Me Now," which guest and hostess sang in conjunction. (Side note: Another great singer whom Peggy Lee admired and asked to appear in her show was David Allyn. Unlike Paris, that excellent balladeer did not raise to the occasion. Allyn's personal demons kept him away from taking full advantage of the opportunity.) (Second side note: Other ardent and proactive admirers of Jackie Paris included bassist Charles Mingus and comic Lenny Bruce. As it had happened to Lee when she pitched Paris to Capitol, Lenny Bruce was also unsuccessful in his attempts: the comedian could not talk his manager into signing the singer. Critic Leonard Feather and vocalist Anita O'Day spoke favorably about Paris, too.)

Despite a childhood career as a tapper in the vaudeville circuit and an adult life during which he had the option of supplementing his singing with his fine guitar playing, Jackie Paris never lived up to his full potential. Temper(ament) and circumstance contributed to keeping him away from the limelight, and many good opportunities ended up passing him by. By the 1970s, his voice had begun to lose its luster, and the increasingly hip elements of his singing had worn out their welcome. Still, he continued to record on a sporadic basis until five years before his passing in 2004. Made in 1999 but released in 2001, the swan-song album The Intimate Jackie Paris signified a return to form for both the singer and the guitarist in him.


Performances

1. CBS Versus AFRS Episodes
2. "It's A Big, Wide, Wonderful World"
Club 88 first aired over the CBS radio airwaves, then re-aired on the American Forces Radio Service network. (The notes found near the bottom of this page explain matters pertaining to AFRS in greater detail.) "It's A Big, Wide, Wonderful World," one of the songs listed as part of this episode's repertoire, seems to have been heard only in the AFRS version of the show, not in the original CBS broadcast.

The likeliest explanation for this discrepancy: AFRS' version of this CBS episode might contain a song inserted from another CBS episode of the show. Certainly, there are three other Lee versions of "It's A Big, Wide, Wonderful World" listed in this page. They are from the CBS episodes broadcast on February 5, March 13, and September 11, 1952. Due to chronological proximity, the March 13 version stands as the prime suspect to have been incorporated to AFRS episode no. 25.

Unfortunately, this is a subject matter that I cannot further explore at the present time, because I do not have access to the sources needed for comparison. Faced with such a dilemma, I have decided to enter “It's A Big, Wide, Wonderful World" under the present broadcast, as if it would have been part of the original CBS show, despite my suspicion that it is instead the same version listed under March 13 -- or, if not March 13, either February 5 or September 11, 1952.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Bob Carroll, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




During the second of his two guest visits to Peggy Lee's show, Bob Carroll did a solo rendition of "At Last." In the company of the female vocalist, he reprised "Something Sort Of Grandish," the song from Finian's Rainbow that they had also tackled during his previous visit (program dated February 7, 1952).

An erstwhile big band sing who found his niche as a man of the theatre, Carrol is best remembered for his well-received portrayals in two Harold Prince productions that toured nationally, Fiorello! (role: mayor La Guardia, August 8, 1960 - March 31, 1962) and The Fiddler In The Roof (role: Tevye, second national tour, December 27, 1969 - July 1971, and again in a revival, May 1993). He also performed in several other productions of The Fiddler In The Roof as well, filling in different roles (Lazar, Morcha). Different Faces, a LP released around 1970 (second picture above) capitalized on those Carroll credits. It sports a front cover that shows images of him as La Guardia (second of the LP's four images) and Tevye (third of the LP's four images). Moreover, the album opens with "Sunrise, Sunset" and closed with "If I Were A Rich Man."

Of the above-seen photos, the first one is a publicity shot highlighting Carroll's lead role as Mayor La Guardia in an early 1960s national tour of Fiorello. The second presents him with the clothes he used in the lead Fiddler On The Roof role. Further details about Carroll's career can be found on the notes under the February 7, 1952, his earlier appearance on Lee's show.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Johnnie Ray (v)

Guest




Staying true to his reputation as an emotionally charged interpreter of weepy ballads, Johnnie Ray sang about being "Brokenhearted" during this episode, which marked the third of his four appearances in Peggy Lee's show. Shifting to a more joyous mood, Ray then joined Lee for a duet version of "Walkin' My Baby Back Home." Additional details about Ray and his guest appearances in Club 88 can be found in the notes under the second episode of this series.


Issues

1. Stars For Defense, Program No. 14 [Transcription Disc]
I have not listened to this 16" transcription disc, and my research has not disclosed some key details about it. For those reasons, its entry under the songs listed above is speculative. A more elaborate explanation will be offered in the next paragraphs.

I know this disc to contain a program hosted by Peggy Lee in the company of announcer Olen Tice and bandleader Russ Case, as well as Case's orchestra. Lee is heard pitching for the Defense Program and introducing Case's instrumental rendition of "Sophisticated Lady." Given the personnel, I strongly believe this Stars Of Defense program to be a variation of Club 88. Following a pattern that I have noticed for other governmental/AFRS shows, the episode probably culled performances from Club 88 and added new dialogue around them.

The available information indicates that Lee sang the following songs in Stars For Defense, Program no. 14: "Just One Of Those Things," "Be Anything," and "The Lady Is A Tramp." All three titles were heard in multiple episodes of Club 88. The question to be pondered is: from which episodes of Club 88 do these versions stem? Out of the various possible choices, I have tentatively selected two of the titles from the present episode ("Be Anything," "The Lady Is A Tramp") precisely because they are together in one single episode. (Among the other episodes from which to choose, none includes more than one of the three pertinent songs.)

In the case of "Just One Of Those Things," I picked the version from the show's April 15, 1952 episode only because it is chronologically the closest to the aforementioned renditions of "Be Anything" and "The Lady Is A Tramp.". Another sensible candidate would be the version of "Just One Of Those Things" that was heard in the episode dated March 25, 1952.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Louis Prima (v)

Guest




Fulfilling the fourth of his five guest spots in Peggy Lee's Club 88, Louis Prima came armed with the tongue-in-cheek novelty "Basta." Keeping the humorous and playful mood, "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was the guest and hostess' pick for a duet. Viewers interested in basic details about Prima's career are invited to consult the notes under the first of his appearances (July 8, 1951).


Performances

1. "My Baby Just Cares For Me"
Sung by Peggy Lee and Louis Prima as a hip duet, this version of "My Baby Just Cares For Me" includes special material about minxs, stoles, the Riviera and, of course, lasagna.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, The Mariners (v)

Guest




In this episode of Peggy Lee's show, The Mariners returned to celebrate all good things in life, singing "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive" with the hostess as company. While by themselves, the vocal quartet rhapsodized about a "Jeanine." General information about this Arthur-Godfrey-connected group can be found in the notes under their other guest appearance (program dated March 6, 1952).


Performances

1. "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive"
Unlike her more widely available version on World Transcription Records, this Peggy Lee interpretation of "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive" includes the song's verse.


Issues

1. Stars For Defense [Transcription Disc]
My entry of this issue under the present session should be deemed tentative. For an explanation, consult the notes for the episode dated April 8, 1952.

Russ Case And His Orchestra, The Mary Lou Williams Trio (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




While guesting for a second time in Peggy Lee's radio show, Mary Lou Williams performed "Fine And Dandy" with the members of her trio. All three members accompanied Lee in a rendition of "I Got Rhythm," too. For basic commentary about Williams' career, consult the notes under her first guest appearance (program dated March 13, 1952).

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Johnnie Ray (v)

Guest




The last of Johnnie Ray's four guest appearances in Club 88 found the popular singer tackling "The Wheel Of Fortune," a then-hot-and-current number that would turn into a bestseller for one of his influences, Lee's labelmate and friend Kay Starr. When it came to performing a duet, "Oh, Look At Me Know" was the ambivalent lament chosen by Ray and Lee. Additional commentary about Johnnie Ray and his guest appearances in this radio series can be found in the notes under the second episode of the series.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Louis Prima's fifth and last guest appearance in the show generated two solo renditions: a reprise of "The Bigger The Figure" (previously heard on the episode broadcast on March 25, 1952) and a fresh attempt, "Pennies From Heaven." No duets were performed on this occasion.

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Alan Dale, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




During this episode, guest Alan Dale offered his interpretation of Cole Porter's "Night And Day" and injected Italian flavor into the lyrics of "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off," which he rendered as a duet with Peggy Lee. Then 26 years old, the Italian-American crooner had begun his professional career on the radio. (His father, a comedian, had his own show). In the mid-1940s, the former Aldo Sigismondi had also sung at a casino and done vocal duties with a couple of big bands (Carmen Cavallaro, George Paxton). Going solo in 1947, he promptly acquired not only a record contract (on Signature Records) but also a gig on a radio show (Sing It Again, a popular music quiz program led by Roy Bloch with His Orchestra, beginning in late 1948 or thereabouts) and two solid spots on television. One of those two solid gigs was actually a televised edition of Sing It Again (1950-1951), and the other was a program of his own, The Alan Dale Show (1948: Dumont; 1950-1951: CBS). During this period, he also made recordings that were released on Columbia and its subsidiary Harmony.

A rough patch lay ahead, however. Overtaxed at work and overwhelmed at home (due to marital problems), the spring of 1951 found him hospitalized and undergoing abdominal surgery to treat an ulcer. The ulcer had actually caused him to faint while performing live, on camera, during a 1950 episode of his TV show. Among the adverse side effects of this medical situation was the loss of both TV and radio programs. Meanwhile, differences with Mitch Miller, newly brought into Columbia Records as a producer, had compelled the temperamental Dale to quit the label (ca. mid-1951). Fortunately, by November of 1951 the singer had already grabbed a contract with Decca, and then with its subsidiary Coral. It was during this period of transition that Lee extended him an invitation to be her guest.

Dale was definitely back on track by 1953, when his contract with Coral resulted in a couple of hits. One of them was the top ten record "Heart Of My Heart," sung in a trio with Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond. (All three male vocalists happened to become guests of Peggy Lee, Cornell in 1951, the other two in 1952). Dale's success continued with his acquisition of not one but two million sellers in 1956 ("Sweet And Gentle," "Cherry Pink And Apple Bosom White"). Forays into the world of rock 'n' roll would follow next, with moderate success.

Unfortunately, no other career triumphs would ensue. Allegedly beaten up for refusing to cater to a criminal organization's request to manage him, Dale believed the mafia to be behind the many doors that closed for him afterwards. Though on a smaller scale and without success at the national level, he still continued to perform for decades, passing away at the age of 76.


Dating And Crossreferences

As part of her chatter, Peggy Lee mentions that she has just returned from Chicago.


Promotion And Sponsorship

During this episode, announcer Olen Tice promotes two CBS shows: the network's news, with Edward R. Murrow, and Life With Luigi (a situational comedy about the misadventures of an Italian immigrant in Chicago, starring Irish-American actor J. Carroll Naish and airing on Tuesdays from 9:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.). Right after the conclusion of the show, listeners also heard an advertisement for Collier's magazine -- or, as it was then known, Collier's Weekly. (This broadcast aired a year before the magazine's transition into the biweekly publication that would become simply known as Collier's.)

Russ Case And His Orchestra (acc), Johnny Desmond, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




American crooners of Italian descent filled the last two guest spots of The Peggy Lee Show's New York edition. Following in the footsteps of Alan Dale, Johnny Desmond was the featured guest during the very last episode. As his solo, the man who had been baptized as Giovanni Alfredo De Simone chose "At Last." Shortly afterwards, he was heard singing "Let's Get Away From It All" with the woman who had been originally known as Norma Deloris Egstrom. This was the first of two guest appearances for the Italian crooner; the second appearance would take place a few months later in LA, while he was visiting that city (episode #61).

Johnny Desmond first entered the nationwide leagues of music as part of a vocal group called The Downbeats, which he had apparently formed. In 1940, they were permanently hired by orchestra leader Bob Crosby and renamed The Bob-o-links. Fairly soon afterwards, Desmond made attempts at having a separate career, promptly finding work as the boy vocalist of The Gene Krupa Orchestra (1941). An additional year brought another transition to the singer's career: starting in 1942, he performed with Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces Orchestra (mostly abroad, while on the Army). Desmond did well under all three aforementioned bandleaders, earning top 20 hits with both Krupa and Crosby, as well as his fair share of attention in the role of Miller's wartime crooner. In fact, while the members of Miller's ensemble were stationed in Europe, the British took to calling Desmond "the G.I. Sinatra" and the French "Le Cremaire," or "the creamer."

Still, Desmond's greater period of commercial success did not come until after his return from war. Between 1946 and 1957, he hoarded 22 hits, including the #3 charter "The Yellow Heart Of Texas" and the #23 "Trying" -- this last one being the number that he would sing during the second of his guest appearances in Club 88. Within the first decades of the LP era, Desmond would also record a string of albums for Coral and Columbia. Furthermore, he participated in two radio shows. One of them became a long-running affair for him: six years as the vocalist of the Chicago-based morning program The Breakfast Club.

Johnny Desmond's acting credits were not insubstantial, either, especially within the world of theater. In 1958, he would make his debut on Broadway, performing in Say, Darling with Vivian Blaine, Robert Morse and David Wayne (the latter a guest of Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee as well). In 1964, he would begin a four-year-period as the successor to Sydney Chaplin's male lead role in Funny Girl, performing first with Barbra Streisand and then with Mimi Hines. Though never achieving top-tier fame, Desmond also acted and sang steadily on television, film, and nightclubs. Illness cut his still ongoing career in the mid-1980s, when he passed away at the age of 65.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Dick Haymes, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Hollywood-based balladeer and actor Dick Haymes joined Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke in the first LA-beamed episode of her radio series. All three artists are pictured above, during this inaugural occasion. "Welcome home, Peggy," Haymes says to Lee right at the start of his guest singing appearance, which consists of a solo vocal ("Nice Work If You Can Get It") and a duet with the songstress ("Walkin' My Baby Back Home"). Once deemed Frank Sinatra's greatest rival for the title of best -- and most popular -- crooner, Haymes' huge mainstream potential went to waste due to the man's unwise handling of both his business career and personal life. Among his six wives, Haymes counted both Hollywood star Rita Hayworth and comely singer Fran Jeffries; among his problems, financial debt, costly alimony demands, tax troubles, stormy relationships, and heavy alcoholism. Even so, he still had a very strong run in the world of Hollywood entertainment, working steadily on film and television during two long periods (1943-1956, 1965-1976) and amassing 50 hits from 1941 to 1951, including three chart-toppers that would become American Songbook standards ("I'll Get By," "It Can't Be Wrong," and "You'll Never Know").

Dick Haymes first crossed paths with Peggy Lee in the summer of 1942, when he joined The Benny Goodman Orchestra as its boy vocalist for a couple of months. She had been fulfilling the position of girl vocalist since August of 1941, and would continue to do so during those two months. Later on, between 1948 and 1949, Lee would bring Haymes in as a guest of The Chesterfield Supper Club (the radio show which she was hosting at that time) on three separate occasions. The present episode of Club 88 thus marked his fourth appearance as her guest. Lee would reciprocate in the mid-1950s, when she made one guest turn in the Haymes-hosted radio show Club 15.


Dating

All Los Angeles episodes of Club 88, starting with this very first one, are listed and dated in Radio Series Scripts, 1930-2001, a book authored by Jeanette M. Berand and Klaudia Englund. Due to its apparent accuracy and comprehensiveness, their book has taken precedence as my dating source for all ensuing sessions. However, I have still checked and compared their dating information against the more scattershot sets of dates that are found in my other sources.

In the case of this particular broadcast, such additional sources include the caption on the back of the above-seen press photo. Both the caption and the Berand-Englund book give May 6, 1952 as the broadcast's date. Another source prints the date as 4/6/52, but I believe the first digit to be an instance of human error.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




This episode of Club 88 featured the piano playing of Liberace, a consummate showman who became known for his overtly friendly, sentimental, even nostalgic approach to music, and for the ornate opulence of his settings (both onstage and at home). An expert pianist, Liberace also sang serviceably well. However, his Club 88 appearance was limited to an instrumental performance of "We Kiss In A Shadow;" there was no singing from him. The episode was broadcast in the same month that Liberace scored his first Billboard hit, "September Song" (#27).

Born in 1919 (one year before Peggy Lee), Władziu Valentino Liberace had spent his teens and part of his tweens playing primarily within the realm of classical music, where his talent was well regarded. As the 1940s progressed and his drive for fame grew, the young pianist of Italian-Polish descent increased the degree of attention that he had been paying to popular music, shifting the emphasis of his repertoire from classical numbers to pop fare with light classical touches.

As part of his search for success in the entertainment industry, the Wisconsinite moved across the nation. During the early 1940s, he sought out fame and fortune in New York, with limited success. By 1947, he had (according to the writer of his Wikipedia page) moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of North Hollywood and was performing at local clubs such as Ciro's and The Mocambo [mostly as an intermission act] for stars such as Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, and Shirley Temple. He had also been adding visual flash to his performances -- a practice that he had been known to favor since his school days.

At the time of this visit to Lee's show, Liberace was making the transition from increasingly successful LA-based performer to nationally known and, eventually, high-grossing entertainer. In the early 1950s, Liberace would score not only a performance at the White House (for president Truman) but also his own network television show, which would debut on July 1, 1952 -- about a month after this episode of Club 88. A summer replacement on the advantageous Dinah Shore Show slot, Liberace's program would become a bona fide national success after its return as a syndicated program in 1953. The program was a tasteful and friendly albeit relatively formal affair, for which Liberace wore three-piece concert suits, with tie, handkerchief, and tails also in sight. He made a trademark out of his penchant for placing a candelabra on top of his piano, and occasionally winked at the audiences. But, otherwise, the performer stayed away from any hijinks or gaudiness at this point in time. His skills on the piano were the focus of the episodes, which also had the ring of a family affair: his violin-playing brother functioned as the leader of the backing orchestra.

Liberace's years of greatest success would not really kick into full gear until the mid-1950s, when mass audiences began to flock to see him live, or simply continued to watch him on the tube. Previously kept in check, the flashiness of his presentational style increasingly took over in the next two decades. Without foregoing the fast-playing skills for which he had been long admired, the showman also heightened the sentimentality conveyed by his piano, in a style that attracted adult female audiences in particular. A more gimmicky source of attraction was the ever-increasing amount of jewelry and sartorial ostentation in his visual presentation, which kept audiences intrigued. As an entertainer in need of a high salary to support a very lavish lifestyle, Liberace knew was he was doing. By 1978, the Guinness Book of World Records was declaring him holder of the title of "highest paid musician."

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Following in the flamboyant footsteps of Liberace, Peggy Lee's show enjoyed the presence of yet another showman with a gift for a sentimental approach: Max Bygraves (1922-2012), the all-around British entertainer who would in time become a household name in his native land. Early signs of a possibly successful career in showbusiness were already apparent back in 1935, when the artistic activities of then-13-year-old altar boy progressed from school talent competitions to singing a Handel piece at Westminster Cathedral. His next noteworthy brush with success would happen during the war years, while he was serving as an airframe fitter at the Royal Air Force: his impressions of various celebrities were cherished by the troops.

Around 1946, Bygraves formally adopted a professional career in entertainment, focusing on comedy and singing, and touring the United Kingdom's theatrical circuit. Within the next three years, he would make his first appearances on film and would participate on two successful radio shows, one of them being the comedy Educating Archie, which brought national recognition to his comic style and trademark phrases.

Bygraves' path toward (inter)national recognition continued at the London Palladium. Some time around 1949, he happened to fill in for another comedian. His three appearances as a substitute were to the liking of the Palladium's Val Parnell, and the impresario's seal of approval led to a total of 14 concert engagements at the top venue, over a ten-year period. One of those engagements featured Judy Garland as the bill's main attraction. It started on April 9, 1950, lasting four weeks. The shows must have gone very well: Garland took Bygraves to New York, where he appeared as her opening act at the Palace Theatre.

But that was not all there was to the connection with Miss Showbusiness: in the words of The New York Times, Judy Garland then chose him to open for her on tours of the United States from 1950 to 1952. The above-seen photos of the British gentleman could be pointing to the connection with the American lady. However, I find the photos likelier to be serving as allusions to his best-remembered hit, the self-penned "You Need Hands," for which he was awarded the 1958 Ivor Novello Songwriter Of The Year award.

Max Bygraves' guest appearance in Peggy Lee's show seems to belong to the tail end of his USA period with Garland. On May 13, 1952, listeners of Club 88 heard him do a number or routine called "The Mixed-up Vocalist." There is no indication of any duets with Lee.

During this same period, Bygraves' five-year-old son would make headlines when the pair of Frank Sinatra and James Mason came to his rescue, as the boy was reportedly drowning in a pool. (ByGraves and his family were at Mason's house for a get-together that also included Sinatra and Ava Gardner. In ByGraves' own account of the story, only Mason came to the child's rescue -- not Sinatra.)

Max ByGraves would soon return to the United Kingdom for good, solidly cementing a career in entertainment there. The entertainer's success is more than apparent from the 31 gold records that he earned in his lifetime, and from a very large number of appearances on television, among various other factors. After the advent of Beatlemania, he became more of a nostalgia act, concentrating in recording music hall songs and singalong albums, still with considerable success. Nowadays, he is also remembered for his multimillionaire status, his collection of 53 Roll Royces, and his 69-year-long marriage (that last feat regrettably marred by public revelations of at least three sons sired out of wedlock with different women).

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Bob Crosby, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




This was the first of two Bob Crosby visits to Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee In addition to singing a solo number ("Goody Goody"), he also tackled "Lullaby Of Broadway" as a duet with Peggy Lee. For biographical details about Crosby, see notes under his other guest appearance, dated September 4, 1952.


Sponsorship

Starting with this episode, Oldsmobile became the regular sponsor of The Peggy Lee Show.


Sources

One of my two sources for details about this CBS episode is the text Radio Series Scripts, 1930-2001, coupled by Jeanette M. Berard and Klaudia Englund. My other source is a review published on the May 21, 1952 issue of Variety.


Critical Reception

The aforementioned Variety review was probably prompted by the news that the show had picked up an important sponsor. In a so-called Radio Followup, reviewer Herm. (most likely, Herman Schoenfeld) opined that continues as one of the neatest song sessions on the airlanes. Nothing pretentious about this stanza, but the music is excellent, and the pace is breezy. Miss Lee is not only a solid song stylist but she's also a charming femcee. On last week's show, she socked across [three numbers]. Bob Crosby guested on this session with a vocal ... and a duet with Miss Lee ... It was a listenable lineup all the way."


Preservation

I have no evidence of this episode's preservation. The original CBS broadcast is not known to exist, and neither is an AFRS version of it. Not is there a listing to be found in the AFRS logs, at the Library of Congress.

Thus AFRS seems to have bypassed this particular episode. I suspect that the service was not allowed (or did not want) to use broadcasts featuring Bob Crosby. My suspicions are raised from the fact that Crosby's other guest appearance on this show (September 4, 1952) also lacks a known AFRS counterpart.

AFRS' abstention could have stemmed from the fact that Bob Crosby was the host of Club 15, the show with which Club 88 alternated its time slot. It is also possible to conceive a scenario in which AFRS would have decided to incorporate these two Club 88 appearances (either in full or in part) those from Club 15. In other words, AFRS' log of episodes from Cosby's Club 15 (aka The Bob Crosby Show) would be worth searching for any Peggy Lee material.

Another possible explanation for AFRS' abstention would be an excessive amount of promotional commentary throughout this episode. The service followed a strict policy of eliminating commercials and promotional chatter. Because the CBS show had just picked up a steady sponsor, the present installment could have included too many allusions to Oldsmobile. On that note, the Variety review does carry a suggestion of multiple promotional spots: "[p]lugs for Oldsmobile were of the jingle variety based on the old standard, In My Merry Oldsmobile." (Lee is likely to have sung this jingle at both the start and finish. For further details about Oldsmobile's sponsorship, consult this page's final notes, which include a sic-section on this topic. An explanation of AFRS' involvement with this CBS show can also be found in the same final notes.)


Songs

The song listing was obtained from the aforementioned Variety article. The title which I have entered as "unknown" is described in the article as a "calypso number."

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Hoagy Carmichael (p, v), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Peggy Lee dedicated four episodes of her radio show to the work of a particular songwriter. In each of the four programs, the feted songwriter was present as a guest: Johnny Mercer (episode dated May 27, 1952), Matt Dennis (August 12, 1952), Frank Loesser (August 21, 1952) and, in the instance under discussion, Hoagy Carmichael. As part of the proceedings, Carmichael offered a solo version of "In The Cool, Cool, Of The Evening," one of his own compositions. He also joined forces with Lee in the above-listed medley of his songs. Vocals for all the medley selections were handled by Lee alone, except for the closer "Two Sleepy People," during which Carmichael vocalized with her.

Being such a famous figure in American music, there is no need for an account of Hoagland Howard Carmichael's life here. Suffice it to point out that the composer, pianist, and singer was also a good actor, scoring about 15 acting credits in Hollywood's filmland. Mister Carmichael and Miss Peggy Lee actually appeared together, both in lead acting roles, during an episode of the legal series Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law (1972). According to Carmichael himself, he also owed the title of his second autobiography (Sometimes I Wonder, 1965) to Lee, who suggested it while they were sitting next to one another on a plane trip.


Performances

1. Hoagy Carmichael Medley
Each performance from this medley is preceded by an information byte, uttered by Lee. For instance, Carmichael's recent Academy Award for "In The Cool, Cool Of The Evening" receives mention right before the song is performed. "Rockin' Chair" is prefaced with credit to Mildred Bailey for recording the version that made the song known.


Personnel

1. Hoagy Carmichael
During the entire medley of compositions written by Hoagy Carmichael, he is presumed to be playing piano behind Lee.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires {Conlon, Mack McLean, Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman, Charles Parlato, Gloria Wood} (bkv)

Guest




Though billed as guests, Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires qualify as semi-regulars of Club 88. In addition to this broadcast, they would also be featured in many other episodes (June 10, August 7, possibly August 19, September 2, October 2, October 16, October 21, October 23, and October 28, 1952). The total is 10 episodes -- far more than any other act who nominally guested in this series. (The group might have actually participated in additional episodes, where they would have functioned as background vocalists for Lee and other guests. However, this possibility cannot be confirmed or denied at the moment; I have only listened to a tiny fraction of the series' 83 or 84 installments.)

On this initial visit to Club 88, the quintet backed the songstress during an interpretation of "Little David, Play On Your Harp." Sans Lee, they sang a number that my main sources simply identify as "Wonder." One of the other sources at hand calls it "Wonder If You're Ever Lonely." (As long as the correct full title remains unclear, the theme of the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland is also a possible candidate, albeit a less likely one. The theme's title: "Wonder Where.")

In the sources that I have consulted, the five individuals identified as members of The Rhythmaires are Mack McLean, Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman, Charles Parlato, Gloria Wood and, naturally, the group's leader. In a later episode of the show (September 4, 1952), the presence of all five members is confirmed by the hostess herself, who calls them by name -- "Judd, Loulie Jean, Gloria, Mac, Charlie. During that same episode, Lee chats with Conlon, too. They were well acquainted with one another due to the many radio shows and recording sessions for which he and his musical partners were regularly hired to sing background vocals. After multiple joint appearances in episodes of Bing Crosby's show, Lee herself had hired the Rhythmaires for about five episodes of an earlier radio show of hers, the Thursday edition of The Chesterfied Supper Club (1949-1950). Then there were the handful of 1949 and 1950 Lee sessions on which the leader and his companions had been alternatively billed as The Jud Conlon Singers or The Jud Conlon Choir. (More can be added to this topic; see notes under session dated September 2, 1952, on this page.)

Like many other acts of their day, Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires appear to have made a satisfactory transition from radio to television. The second of the above-seen photos is from one of their musical contributions to the debut episode of Dinah Shore's TV show (1952). The quintet was still active on television programs and record dates in 1958, when they were featured in Alvino Rey's Decca album My Reverie and in the earlier episodes of Milton Berle's TV show. Afterwards, their track grows cold.

Nowadays, Jud Conlon's name (also printed under the variant Judd Conlon, and more rarely as Justin Conlon, his birth name) is more readily associated with classic Disney films such as The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad (1949), Alice In Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953), in all of which he contributed to the scores and the choral singing. Another Disney flick, Babes In Toyland (1961), is the last Conlon credit of which I have become aware; the Wisconsonite would pass away in 1966, at the age of 56. As for the quintet's other members, three of whom had separate solo careers, consult the notes under episodes dated June 10 (Mack McLean), August 7 (Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman), October 2 (Gloria Wood), and October 16 (Charles Parlato).


Issues

1. Peggy Lee (Program No. 80) [16" ET]
My listing of this disc under two of the present performances relies on an educated guess of mine. The disc (to which I have not listened) does include versions of "It's A Good Day" and "Forgive Me," but Lee sang both numbers on multiple broadcasts of Club 88. A longer explanation of my reasoning can be found down below, under the date October 30, 1952.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Johnny Mercer (v)

Guest




Peggy Lee dedicated four episodes of her radio show to the work of particular songwriter. In each of the four programs, the feted songwriter was present as a guest: Hoagy Carmichael (episode dated May 20, 1952), Matt Dennis (August 12, 1952), Frank Loesser (August 21, 1952) and, in the instance under discussion, Johnny Mercer. As part of the proceedings, Lee and Mercer alternated numbers in a medley of his songs, during which Mercer offered solo renditions of "Goody Goody," "One For My Baby," and "Mandy Is Two." Together, Mercer and Lee finished their medley with "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive." For further details about Mercer and Lee, consult the notes under his preceding guest appearance on a show of hers (July 22, 1951).


Performances

1. "Mandy Is Two" [Or Is That Three?]
The song "Mandy Is Two" is actually sung by Johnny Mercer as "Mandy Is Three," to reflect the fact that his daughter Amanda had become one year older since the writing of the song. Mercer also incorporates some new lyrics, in which he enthuses about how sharp his girl is becoming.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Jeff Chandler, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest







This episode's guest was Hollywood star Jeff Chandler, a Jewish-American actor best remembered for playing American Indian roles. In fact, the former Ira Grossel became the first actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for portraying a Native American (Cochise, in Broken Arrow, opposite James Stewart, 1950). Chandler also dabbled in singing, releasing various singles (on Decca & Liberty), one EP (on Decca), and two LPs (on Liberty, one of them reissued on Sunset; for photos of the front covers, see episode dated September 25, 1952). Lee had Chandler as her guest three times, beginning with this episode. (Next: July 15, 1952.) All but the last of the above-seen photos probably comes from a rehearsal for the present episode. (One additional photo from this session can be found amidst this page's final notes, as well as photos from one of Chandler's other guest appearances.) "You Made Me Love You" was Chandler's solo selection for the episode, which also featured him doing some "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" with Peggy Lee.

Although Chandler had a steadily active film career from 1945 until his death in 1962, the aforementioned 1950 flick Broken Arrow remained its peak. Notwithstanding appearances in about 50 movies and earlier acting work in radio shows, he never achieved further notoriety for any other role, and remained mostly within the realm of B pictures. It must be said, however, that the opportunities to branch out into more solid roles were cut short much too soon for the imposingly tall (6'4") actor. He died at age 42, under circumstances that led to a successful malpractice lawsuit. (After having injured his back while playing baseball, he would undergo what sounds like a botched surgery. During the procedure, one of his arteries was hit, with subsequent hemorrhaging and lethal blood poisoning.)

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra, The Red Norvo Trio (acc), Tal Farlow (g), Red Mitchell (b), Red Norvo (vib), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest





Making their second guest appearance in Club 88, The Red Norvo Trio played an instrumental version of "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and, with Peggy Lee again on vocals, did an encore of "I Got Rhythm." The photos above show two editions of the trio. The first, featuring Tal Farlow on guitar and Charles Mingus on bass, was active in 1950 and 1951. The second, featuring Jimmy Rainey on guitar and Red Mitchell on bass, was active in 1953. The 1952 edition that came to Peggy Lee's show featured Farlow and Mitchell (both also pictured individually above).


Personnel

1. The Red Norvo Trio
Before they embark in their joint version of "I Got Rhythm," Peggy Lee identifies each member of the trio by name. She also states that the Trio was currently fulfilling an engagement at the Encore Club, and makes mention of the industry people who had gone to see Norvo and company on the previous night (Axel Stordhal, Mitch Miller, Percy Faith).

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Tommy Dorsey (tb), Sonny Burke (p), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Following the guest appearance of vibraphonist Red "Mr. Swing" Norvo in the previous episode, Peggy Lee invited another instrumentalist to guest in the present program: trombonist and bandleader Tommy "The Sentimental Gentleman Of Swing" Dorsey. Continuously working with big bands from 1920 until his death in 1956, Tommy Dorsey had an extensive music career, during which he amassed a grand total of 286 hits in Billboard singles chart. This episode finds him reprising -- while accompanied by Peggy Lee on vocals -- some of his biggest hits, including those which had featured Frank Sinatra as Dorsey's boy vocalist: "This Love Of Mine" (#3) and "I'll Never Smile Again" (#1 for 12 weeks, and thus the bandleader's greatest hit). As part of this hits medley, Dorsey also performed instrumental versions of his staples "Marie" and "Song Of India."

Lee and Dorsey had probably become well acquainted with one another in July and August of 1949, when they shared a bill at New York's Paramount Theatre. The photos above show them backstage during that engagement. Along with them is her then-husband, guitarist Dave Barbour.


Poetry

1. William Butler Yeats
You know, we have been getting a lot of mail on your poetic introductions to song. You have one tonight?," asks the show's announcer, Bob LeMond. "Yes, I have, Bob," replies Lee. "This is by William Butler Yeats:

The cry of a child by the roadway,
The creek of a lumbering cart,
Are wronging your image that blossoms
A rose in the deeps of my heart."

Lee's recitation of these lines function as the verse of her rendition of "These Foolish Things." She culled them from Yeats' poem "Aedh Tells Of The Rose In His Heart" (more generally known as "The Rose In The Deeps Of My Heart"), anthologized in the poet's 1899 collection The Wind Among The Reeds.

The sequence of the poem's first half, from which the above-quoted lines were taken, is actually as follows:

All things uncomely and broken,
All things worn-out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway,
The creak of a lumbering cart,

The heavy steps of the ploughman,
Splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms
A rose in the deeps of my heart.


Performances

1. Dorsey Medley
This episode includes a segment dedicated to songs popularized by Tommy Dorsey And His Orchestra. The issue If I Could Be With You suitably groups them together under the title "Dorsey Medley." As already suggested above, the medley consists of two instrumentals ("Marie," "Song Of India") and two vocals ("This Love Of Mine," "I'll Never Smile Again").


Issues

1. At Last:  The Lost Radio Recordings [CD]
2. If I Could Be With You [LP, CD]
3. "Just One More Chance" [Song]
The 2CD set At Last:  The Lost Radio Recordings contains tracks culled from The Peggy Lee Show (both this 1952 edition and the summer edition from 1951). The set does not provide recording dates for its tracks, however. As a result, some of the numbers on the CD cannot be dated with full certainty -- specifically, those bearing titles sung by Lee more than once in her show. Lack of access to the CBS broadcasts and AFRS re-broadcasts prevents fully assured identification.

We are exceptionally fortunate in the cases of two tracks found on that 2CD set: "Just One More Chance" and "I'll Never Smile Again." I have been able to identify them as being the ones heard on the present session. Confident identification became possible thanks to the availability of the AFRS re-broadcast, in the form of the various above-listed LP and CD incarnations of If I Could Be With You.


Technical Note

This session features blue arrowheads. If you click on them with your cursor, you will see a longer list of issues containing songs from the session.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Sonny Burke (p), Desi Arnaz, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Cuban-American personality Desi Arnaz made a guest appearance in this episode of Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee. Though primarily remembered as the husband of comedienne Lucille Ball (in real life and also in the classic TV sitcom I Love Lucy), Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha had had his very own career in music long before getting married. His years as a professional entertainer had begun in Miami nightclubs, where he sang and played both conga and guitar (though the latter far less dexterously than the former). After also spending half a year as a member of The Xavier Cugat Orchestra, he went on his own, forming The Congra Orchestra in late 1939 or early 1940, and recording a few sides for Columbia at that time. In the ensuing decade, he continued to actively play with his band at a variety of nightclubs, but his recording career did not really kick into full gear until the decade's second half, when The Congra Orchestra was signed by RCA (1946-1947) and Decca (1949). The band's repertoire mixed Latin-oriented numbers ("Babalu," "Holiday In Havana," "Cuban Pete," etc.) with the big band-era numbers of the day ("Green Eyes," "Mr. Five By Five, " etc.), though naturally leaning toward the ethnic material. Various female vocalists sang with and/or were part of the band in those years, but the bandleader -- Desi Arnaz -- still assigned a fair share of the vocal repertoire to the band's boy vocalist -- Desi himself. Transitioning into acting around the time when he married Ball, he played an orchestra leader in I Love Lucy (1951-1956). Naturally, the extremely popular show showcased his singing and playing skills from time to time. During this visit to Lee's program, Arnaz sings "Similau," an Afro-Caribbean spiritual chant that both singers had separately recorded in 1949. Together, they tackle her self-penned 1948 hit "Mañana."


Performances

1. "Mambo Jambo"
As part of an episode to which Lee refers as Latin-flavored, Sonny Burke And His Orchestra perform their version of the instrumental "Mambo Jambo."

2. "Mañana"
This episode's duet is peppered with various interjected phrases from Arnaz, all of them uttered in Spanish. Those include "mucho frío" (after the line "I'll be soaking through my skin") and "¡Arriba, linda!"


Poetry

1. Frederick William Thomas
"You got that poetic look in your eyes," says the show's announcer. Lee's response: "Well, Frederick William Thomas said it, Bob." She proceeds to recite the opening lines of Thomas' long Song, from which she segues into her version of "Perfidia." The lines:

’T IS said that absence conquers love!
But, oh! believe it not;
I’ve tried, alas, its power to prove,
But thou art not forgot.

Thomas' poem can be found in An American Anthology, 1787–1900, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman and published in 1900.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires {Conlon, Mack McLean, Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman, Charles Parlato, Gloria Wood} (bkv)

Guest




During their second guest appearance in The Peggy Lee Show, Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires backed the hostess as she sang "That Great Come-And-Get-It Day" and "Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho." When performing by themselves, the quintet picked a tune titled "Wonder," which they had sung in their previous appearance as well. For more general details about Conlon and company (including pictures of the group), consult the notes under that previous episode, dated May 22, 1952. As for specifics about individual Rhythmaires (besides Conlon), they can be found under some of the notes for the additional ten episodes which featured the quintet, beginning with the present one.

Arguably the least documented member of the group, Mack McLean worked extensively in the world of choral and vocal-group music. Unlike the other members, however, he did not have a solo career as a music performer. McLean is actually credited with over a dozen film appearances in musicals and shorts dating from 1940 (e.g., Torrid Tempos) to 1954 (i.e., Brigadoon). But he made all such movie appearances either as part of the vocal groups to which he belonged (e.g., the musical short Torrid Tempos, featuring Six Hits And A Miss) or as an often uncredited background/choir singer (e.g., the number "Sons Of A Desert" from Abbot & Costello's Lost In a Harem, in which McLean's voice is just one among various accompanying actor Adia Kuznetzoff). Ditto for his radio and record session credits.

Before joining Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires in the late 1940s, McLean had been one of the so-called Hits in the group Six Hits And A Miss. All six group members are seen above, in a color shot from the 1940 Twentieth Century Fox film Down Argentine Way. He is the second man from the left. (This nice photo is included herein only on account of McLean's presence. Six Hits And A Miss were at the height of their professional activity between the years 1937 and 1944; they did not appear in Lee's 1952 series.)

McLean appears to have kept on performing as a member of the Rhythmaires through the 1950s, and is said to have passed in 2002, short just a year from becoming a nonagerian. The Internet Movie Database lists a TV appearance in an 1970 episode from the third season of the Lucille Ball series Here's Lucy. After auditioning a print of the episode, called Lucy And Rudy Valle, I regret having to report that there are no traces of either Mack McLean or Gloria Wood (another Rhythmaire credited with an appearance in this episode). Perhaps a scene featuring the voices of McLean, Wood, and other singers (e.g., Sue Allen) was cut. My thanks to Adrian Daff for his kind assistance during the search of information and photos for this date.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Dan Dailey, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




A multi-talented entertainer, Dan Dailey acted, sang, and danced in Hollywood musicals, thereby putting to good use the lessons that he had learned back when he was a child performer in the minstrel and vaudeville circuits. Three years after Babes In Arms served as his Broadway debut, Dailey started his Hollywood career on MGM (1940). Though probably best remembered for musical films such as There's No Business Like Show Business (1951), Meet Me At The Fair (1953), and Give My Regards To Broadway (1948), he also took non-acting lead roles, such as that of Jerome "Dizzy" Dean (a 1930s and 1940s baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs) in the biopic The Pride Of St. Louis (1952), which Daily had happened to wrap shortly before his visit to Club 88. After years spent in Hollywood, the New York-born man transitioned into TV acting. For the first of his three guest appearances in Peggy Lee's show, Dailey sang "Tea For Two" solo, "Oh! Look At Me Now" as a duet with her. Listeners of Lee's CBS program would hear from Dailey again twice in subsequent months (episodes dated July 29 and October 14, 1952).

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), George Jessel, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Following Dan Dailey's guest appearance in the previous broadcast, this episode of Peggy Lee's radio series showcased George Jessel, another New Yorker with roots in minstrel shows and the vaudeville circuit. Raised by a mother who worked as a ticket seller in one of the theaters near 42nd Street (The Imperial Theatre), Jessel was also able to infiltrate the world of Broadway at a young age, thereby acquiring ample experience in the world of entertainment before he had reached his twenties. During the ensuing decades, the entertainer's varied career found him acting in Hollywood films of the silent era, writing songs with a sentimental or old-fashioned bent (his best-known one being "My Mother's Eyes," which he recorded in 1929), and producing musicals for 20th Century Fox.

At the time that the present episode of Club 88 went on the air, Jessel's latest film production was Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie, inspired by the 1905 hit song of that title, and starring a man who was also slated to visit Lee's program, David Wayne (episode dated August 19, 1952). The film's imminent release was probably the reason why guest Jessel and hostess Lee decided to sing the old-time song as a duet. Jessel's parts during "Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie" were his only singing contributions to the proceedings.

George Jessel was a recording artist as well, with a discography dating back to the 78 rpm era. During the vinyl era, he made nostalgia LPs filled with songs from the end of the nineteenth century (e.g., George Jessel Sings Tear Jerkers Of The Not-So-Gay Nineties) and retrospective albums in which he fulfilled the role of narrator (e.g., From Vaude To Video). There were also comedy LPs (e.g., Bedtime Stories For Grownups) and albums with various assorted themes (i.e., Seeing Israel With George Jessel). As a comedian, his work is said to have had a slant toward Jewish-flavored humor.

As the years passed, Jessel would become a Hollywood staple, serving as either master of ceremonies or featured speaker at numerous (celebrity, charity, political) events, and rightfully earning the nickname "Toastmaster General of the United States." In the second of the above-shown photos, Lee and Jessel are seen together in 1953, at a fundraiser for victims of cerebral palsy. That same year, the program George Jessel Salutes premiered on the radio airwaves, and the next year The George Jessel Show would debut on television.

Jessel and his publicists offered not one but several autobiographies, too. Three of them are pictured here: So Help Me (1944), Jessel, Anyone? (1960), and The World I Lived In (1975). Finally, one noteworthy detail mentioned in most of Jessel's biographical capsules is the fact that, having played the lead role in the original Broadway version of The Jazz Singer, he was originally slated to play in the film version (1927), too. Disagreements over Jessel's salary led to Warner Brothers' eventual pick of Al Jolson.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest





Singer Frankie Laine was no stranger to playing the role of Peggy Lee's guest in the radio airwaves. He had filled that position a dozen times in The Chesterfield Supper Club, another radio series that she had hosted (1948-1949). Making the total number a lucky 13, this Club 88 guest appearance found the former Frank LoVecchio exchanging"Tea For Two" choruses with the former Norma Deloris Egstrom. Solo, he also sang the standard "On The Sunny Of The Street," probably as a promotional strategy on behalf of the 1951 low-budget musical feature Sunny Side Of The Street, which counted him among the cast's performers.

Seven years Lee's senior, Chicagoan Laine had spent 17 years trying to make it in Hollywood, finally achieving success around the age of 34, with the top 4 hit "That's My Desire" (1947). Subsequently, his steady, long-lasting career as both a concert and recording artist made up for the long, arduous road to success that he had once endured. It is not surprising, then, that he continued to cultivate his career until the twilight of his lifetime. Even after quadruple bypass surgery in the 1980s, he kept on making periodic visits to recording studios and performing venues. His last public appearance happened in 2005, when he had reached the age of 91, and was merely two years away from passing away. The longevous artist would manage to hit the charts posthumously, too: a compilation of his hits would enter the British album chart in 2011, climbing to its top 20.

Laine's peak in popularity had happened much earlier, of course -- in the first half of the 1950s, when his producer established Laine as one of the defining voices of pre-rock pop. Under the guidance of Columbia's gimmickmeister Mitch Miller, the man nicknamed "Old Leather Lungs" enjoyed a string of belted-out, boomingly voiced but catchily entertaining top 3 sellers, most of them falling within the categories of novelties and/or melodrama (e.g., "Mule Train," "The Cry Of The Wild Goose," "Jezebel," "Jealousy"). However, Laine's roots were elsewhere: he had spent the previous decade singing in a more jazz-oriented manner, to which he would return periodically in the 1950s. Country would become another genre that he would eventually cultivate as well, due in part to his success as a singer of western themes for both television and film (e.g., Rawhide, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, 3:10 To Yuma, Blazing Saddles).

It is worth noting that Frankie Laine shared with Peggy Lee a talent for writing hit-making lyrics. As a songwriter, Laine is remembered for his numbers "It Only Happens Once" and, in particular, "We'll Be Together Again."

During the broadcast, we hear Peggy Lee introduce her guest as someone who had come in "zooming between plane connections." Reference is then made to his recent concert engagements in London.


Personnel And Photos

1. Frankie Laine
First in view is the front cover of a Mercury 78 album, released in 1947. Also on display is one of several Laine shots at a session said to date from 1946, presumably done for Mercury. The two photos in Lee's company are from either the rehearsal or the taping of this 1952 episode. Both bear June 26, 1952 stamp dates on their backs.

2. Carl Fischer
Frankie Laine's pianist Carl Fischer was shown in a preceding image also featuring Lee and Laine (and Jeff Chandler). That photo bears the same date as the two that were included in this section; all three were presumably taken during the same rehearsal and/or taping. Given the pictorial proof of Fischer's presence, we can naturally assume that the pianist performed in the show as well, at least for the duration of Laine's solo.


Performances

1. "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard"
Unlike her better-known studio recording on Decca, Peggy Lee's radio versions of "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard" included the song's fairly long verse. (There is a total of three radio versions, all from Club 88, programs dated June 26, August 12, and September 18, 1952.)

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Bill Lechner, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Out of the dozens of guests featured by Peggy Lee in her Club 88 show, Bill Lechner (1924-1994) is easily the most obscure name of them all. Primarily an actor, he actually has over 60 credits in that field, some from Hollywood movies and some from television series, all of them accumulated within a span of about 30 years (1938-1970). The quality of the credited roles is not as impressive as the quantity, however: they are bit appearances in minor features -- so bitty that many of the characters played by him bear no name. However, in this one episode of Club 88, Lee gives Lechner his due, showcasing him as a capable singer and worthy guest. He sings "It's A Big, Wide, Wonderful World" solo, and tackles "Something Sort Of Grandish" in Lee's company.

Why was the Club's spotlight shone on such an obscure actor? Though no household name, Bill Lechner certainly was a star in the world of the Oldsmobile-sponsored Club 88: he played one of the two leads in the company's TV commercials of the early 1950s, which featured an Oldsmobile-loving fictional couple named Lucille and Johnny. Part of the sponsor's promotional machine, Lucille and Johnny were also regulars of Peggy Lee's show, being heard from time to time in the radio commercials that eulogized Oldsmobile's 88 brand of cars.

Bill Lechner also starred in promotional Oldmobile shorts such as The Lady And The Rocket. That 1952 color film tells the story of Johnny (Lechner), a talent scout who falls head over heels for Lucille (Jean Ruth), a nightclub singer, star actress and, naturally, expert driver of Oldsmobile cars. "Terrific engine, terrific girl," the script declares at one point. The above-seen photos are shots of Lechner, playing Johnny in two scenes from The Lady And The Rocket. Both of them find him on the wheel of an oldsmobile. In the first, he and Lucille are in hot pursuit of the villain, who is on a motorcycle -- no rocket for him. (I should add that Lechner was just one out of vseveral actors who played the role of Johnny over the years. He is not, for instance, the actor who appears as Johnny in the 1951 black & white short Trail Of The Rocket. Incidentally, this 1951 show is a science fiction spoof in which Johnny faces the tall prospect of having to stop, all by himself, a branch of extraterrestrial invaders eager to uncover the secrets behind Oldsmobile's "88 rocket" line.)

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, The Merry Macs (v)

Guest




The founding members of The Merry Macs first hit the radio airwaves in the mid-to-late 1920s, when they were temporarily known as The Mystery Trio and, subsequently, as The Personality Boys. The boy group consisted of three brothers who actually sang in the company of their unbilled mother. (She vocalized the melodies.) In 1930, the hitherto unbilled female role was re-assigned to a young girl named Cheri McKay. With McKay's official incorporation and ensuing billing as part of the group, the ensemble became a quartet. Needing a new name, the McMichael brothers focused on the fact that all members of the quartet had last names that started with 'Mc.' Hence the group ended up calling itself The Merry Macs.

They had their heyday during the first half of the 1940s, scoring a dozen hits for Decca Records, and enjoying a ten-year contract with Universal Pictures. As a result of the latter, The Merry Macs performed side by side with Ella Fitzgerald in the 1942 flick Ride 'em Cowboy, her debut on film. In the charts, the four-harmony group's greatest success was "Mairzy Doats," a smash that stayed five weeks at the top. Among their other top ten hits were "Sentimental Journey" and "Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition." A sojourn to Majestic Records (1946-1947), followed by a return to Decca (1947-1949) did not prove half as successful; neither period generated chart hits for the group.

In 1950, both The Merry Macs and Peggy Lee performed (separately) in the Bing Crosby film vehicle Mr. Music. To be more specific, Peggy Lee was one of three guest acts to interpret the movie's theme ("Life Is So Peculiar"), and The Merry Macs was another. (Groucho Marx was the third guest who performed "Life Is So Peculiar." The versions by both Lee and Marx were rendered as duets with Crosby.)

Happening two years after that movie's release, this episode of Club 88 would have been the perfect get-together for Peggy Lee and The Merry Macs to reenact "Life Is So Peculiar" in unison. Apparently, however, La Lee and the Merry ones were in too happy a mood to tackle any (pseudo) philosophical song. Instead, the Merry quartet went "Singing In The Rain" with the hostess. By themselves, the group also took a trip down memory lane. They sailed through a close-harmony medley which consisted of three songs that had been erstwhile hits for them: "The Hut Hut Song" (1939) "Ta Hu Wa Nu Wa," aka "Hawaiian War Chant" (1941) and "Sentimental Journey" (1945).

Naturally, The Merry Macs underwent personnel changes over their decades of activity. Four different vocalists would successively take over the group's female singing role. Blonde-haired Marjory Garland turned out to be the last and longest-lasting choice. By the time of this 1952 appearance in Club 88, she was already in place, and would continue on till the quartet's disbandment.

The wartime death of the youngest of the brothers (Joe) also led to at least three replacements over the years. In 1952, 'non-brother' Dick Baldwin (1945-1954) was the member harmonizing next to brothers Ted and Judd.

Besides their common appearances on radio and film, Peggy Lee and The Merry Macs briefly shared a similar trajectory at Capitol Records. Both acts were (re-)signed in 1957, and were at the recording studio during the first half of that year. Their respective albums, The Man I Love and the above-pictured Very Merry, were both released by Capitol on July 22, 1957. Unfortunately, the group's offering did not meet with success. The Macs' work at Capitol did not go beyond that LP.

But the quartet did succeed at recording for other labels in the 1950s. There were pre-Capitol sessions for Mercury and Era, as well as post-Capitol singles for Design and Primo (the latter seeming to have been a songwriter Bernice Petkere vanity label). Era and Design released LPs as well, and so did the budget label Halo. All these items qualified as obscure, though -- or, at least, far from popular.

By the early 1960s, the distinguished Merry Macs qualified as more of a nostalgia circuit act. Their activities would officially cease in 1964. A final concert billed as a reunion took place in 1968 at the Hollywood Bowl. A new edition, formed by their offspring, was operating at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Jeff Chandler, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Introduced by Peggy Lee as "the virile and versatile star of Universal Pictures," this episode's guest was Jeff Chandler, making the second of his three appearances in the show. "That Old Black Magic" was his choice for a solo, "Slumming On Park Avenue" his duet with Lee. For details about this singer and actor's career, consult the notes under program dated May 29, 1952.


Performances

1. "It's A Good Day"
2. Dating
The above-listed performance of "It's A Good Day" is, for the most part, an instrumental. The vocal parts amount to just a couple of lines sung by Lee ("yes, it's a good day for singing a song and it's a good day for moving along"). Also heard are the words "this is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service," spoken by an announcer. Obviously, this rendition of "It's A Good Day" served as the closer for the episodes in their AFRS edition.

Since I have been not been able to listen to more than a handful of the show's episodes, I could not confidently ascertain how often this closer was heard. My current belief is that the AFRS episodes ended with the number, and that many of the CBS episodes beamed from LA did too. (Not so in the case of the NY-beamed episodes.) The "It's A Good Day" theme might have also opened some episodes.

Dating this theme is problematic. It is not listed in my main sources. In the Jazz Band CD Live, 1947 & 1952, it shows up last (track #25); the tracks that immediately precede it are from AFRS program no. 49. Hence, in the absence of concrete dating, and due to my need to place the track somewhere in the discography, I decided that the present session was my best option.

This closing theme could of course be an edit of any of the other five versions that Lee sang in full during the show’s history. Those versions were heard on the episodes with the following datings: February 19, May 22, August 14, September 23, and October 23, 1952.


Poetry

1. Alexander Pope
"Hi Peggy; you've got that poetic look in your eyes," declares Bob LeMond, the show's announcer. "Alexander Pope said it, Bob," Lee replies. She then recites the following lines:

Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.

This couplet comes from Alexander Pope's 1734 Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot, which served as the prologue to his poetic anthology Imitations Of Horace. In the present episode of Lee's program, the couplet served as a preface to her rendition of "Frenesí."


Photos & Dating

Two publicity shots of Jeff Chandler are shown above. As for the photo below, it features Peggy Lee in the company of not only Jeff Chandler but also Frankie Laine and Laine's pianist, Carl Fischer. Part of the CBS Photo Archive and available through Getty Images, this picture bears a June 26, 1952 date. That is indeed the date on which an episode with Laine as a guest was broadcast. Chandler's presence in the photograph provides strong support for the argument that this July 15, 1952 broadcast had actually been taped on June 26, 1952.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Gordon MacRae (v)

Guest




Gordon MacRae graced this episode of Club 88 with his healthy pipes and all-American guy presence. A baritone whose robust voice suggested the breadth and training of an opera singer, MacRae was actually untrained, and did not sing opera. He operated instead in the worlds of pop and Hollywood musicals, achieving the peak of his popularity through lead roles in the now-classic film versions of Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956). MacRae thus made his greatest impact in Hollywood and, secondarily, on record, even though he also appeared on Broadway, radio, and television. Those three fields -- television in particular -- sheltered MacRae after the decline of movie musicals.

As both a singer and actor, his professional career started off in the early 1940s, when he spent two years as the boy vocalist of Horace Heidt's band and replaced a secondary character in the Broadway play Junior Miss. During the second half of the 1940s (with his service in the Air Force over), he played another minor yet attention-grabbing role in a Broadway show (Three To Make Ready), which led to contracts with Warner Brothers and Capitol Records. On the matter of records, he went on to share with Peggy Lee a notable distinction: both were Capitol recording artists for 22 years -- longer than just about any other pop artist on that label (MacRae: 1947-1969; Lee: 1944-1951 & 1957-1972).

The singer Gordon MacRae is especially remembered for his duet partnerships with Jo Stafford (on Capitol Records) and Doris Day (in Hollywood films). As for Peggy Lee, she and MacRae did not do any duet recordings while both were on Capitol, but they made up for such an omission by duetting in this radio show ("Tea For Two") and also on TV. (A 1955 episode of the The Colgate Comedy Hour catches them singing "Long Ago And Far Away" and "The Birth Of The Blues.") MacRae's visit to Club 88 in the summer of 1952 also produced a solo interpretation of "Cuban Love Song." Listeners of the show would hear from him again some three months later -- on October 7, 1952.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Dan Dailey, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




The second of Dan Dailey's three appearances in Club 88 Starring Peggy Lee found the guest singing "This Can't Be Love" as a solo and "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" as a duet with Lee. For general comments about this song-and-dance man's career, see notes under his first appearance (program dated June 17, 1952).

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




In this episode of Club 88, married couple Andy & Della Russell paid a visit to their former Capitol labelmate, Peggy Lee. After an apprenticeship period as both drummer and vocalist with a variety of bands (Ramón Cruz, Gus Arnheim, Alvino Rey, Johnny Richards, Sonny Dunham, Stan Kenton), Andy had done his first session for Capitol on December 17, 1943 (less than 15 days before Peggy). Bilingual versions of "Bésame Mucho" and "Amor" can be found among the earliest Capitol singles released by the former Andrés Rabago Pérez. Both numbers would become top 10 hits for him, and would greatly benefit Capitol as well, by providing the then-starting record company with access to the international Spanish-speaking market. A third and lesser Russell hit from 1944, "What A Difference A Day Made," was entirely sung in English, but its melody had been written by Mexican composer María Grever, and originally sung to a Spanish lyric ("Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado"). Another María Grever tune, "Magic Is The Moonlight," would be used for the flip side of Russell's 4th hit, "I Dream Of You" (1944).

The Mexican-American vocalist continued to do well during most of the 1940s. From 1945 to 1948, he scored eight additional hits on Capitol, nearly all of them in a more traditionally American mold. Afterwards, the hits dried up, but his work on radio and television did not. He had had his first radio show in late 1943 or early 1944. His second show was actually one of the earliest radio programs to feature Peggy Lee as a solo guest, on March 31, 1945. Russell's next and third radio gig was on the popular Your Hit Parade (1946), where he succeeded Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Tibbett as featured male singer.




Little has been publicly written about Andy's first wife, to whom he was already married by 1946. Her husband's career seems to have provided an opportunity for Della to be noticed as someone with her own set of artistic skills, including singing. By 1947, she was doing the occasional duet number with her husband, on Capitol Records. In late 1950 and 1951, they hosted and sang together in Cook's Champagne Party, a five-minute musical program that TV stations used as filler between regularly scheduled programs. Besides such credits in her husband's company, Della's career had one additional credit of significance -- though one that Mrs. Russell once again shared with others. A devout Catholic, she enjoyed a million-selling single in 1954, when she joined voices with three other religiously-oriented Hollywood artists (Beryl Davis, Connie Haines, and Jane Russell) for the recording of "Do Lord." The four women -- who belonged to different religious denominations but participated in the same non-denominational gatherings -- did four additional masters for Coral Records. Subsequent activity by the female ensemble on Capitol Records did not involve Della Russell.

For their 1952 appearance in Peggy Lee's show, Andy and Della Russell did a comedy routine called "The Honeymoon Is Over," and Della's husband sang "Tell Me Why" solo. There were no duets with Peggy Lee. After this initial visit with his wife, Andy Russell would make a second visit to Club 88, that time on his own. The second visit would generate a duet performance with Lee (program dated September 11, 1952).

Oftentimes seen together on radio, television, and at celebrity events, the Russells were perceived as one of Hollywood's most stable marriages. In the mid-1950s, the dissolution of their marital partnership would draw a fair share of criticism from certain Catholic and Mexican-American sectors, who felt deeply disappointed by the rupture of an union which they had put on a pedestal. The balladeer's once prosperous career was seriously hit by such criticism, coming as it did from a large portion of his fanbase. To make matters worse, Capitol had parted company with him around 1950 and there is no indication of a recording contract during the first half of that decade. Facing another adverse factor in the advent of rock 'n' roll, Russell's decision to relocate to Mexico City proved a wise one. It generated quite a few years of solid success as a recording artist, theatre performer and, especially, television star within the Spanish-speaking world. He even ended up signing again with Capitol Records (and re-marrying) in the mid-1960s. Less felicitous was his decision to return and permanently stay in the United States. The last few decades of his life (d. 1992) found him doing the occasional, periodic appearance, and lamenting his native land's penchant for marginalization and typecasting.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), MacDonald Carey, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest





"Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives ...” Heard as part of the voiceover that starts each episode of the still ongoing soap opera Days Of Our Lives, such words were famously uttered by MacDonald Carey, the man who for decades would play the central, patriarchal role of Dr. Tom Horton, Senior. The good doctor was introduced in the soap's very first episode (November 1965) and would make his last showing in February of 1994 (episode #7214), merely a month before the actor's actual death. Peggy Lee had extended Carey an invitation to appear in her Club 88 forty-two years earlier, at a time when the thespian was more than a decade away from achieving such TV stardom.

An actor through and through, MacDonald Carey (1913-1994) did his masters degree in drama -- or in speech, according to other sources which might be more precise. While in school, he had also sung baritone in choirs and played lead roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Beginning in 1937, he cultivated dual careers on the radio airwaves, performing as both vocalist and soap opera actor. Also trying his hand at a theatrical career, he made his Broadway debut with a minor appearance in Jerome Kern's 1939 drama Mamba's Daughters. (That drama seems to have included only one musical performance, sung by Ethel Waters, the star of the show.) His second Broadway experience gave him a more sizable role. In Kurt Weill's and Ira Gershwin's 1941 production of Lady In The Dark, Carey played the role of Charley Johnson and joined the other male lead, Victor Mature, for the singing of the number "The Best Years Of His Life."

Through the decade of the 1940s, Carey turned himself into a staple of the B movie world, too. The actor was cast in at least 30 flicks, beginning around 1942 and continuing into the mid 1950s. Oftentimes he played the lead male role, (In one of the more prestigious films to come his way, Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow Of A Doubt, he settled for second lead.) A handful of his 30 flicks were musicals, and two of them were released just a year before his singing participation in Peggy Lee's series (Meet Me After The Show, Excuse My Dust). However, I have found no clear indication that Carey did any singing or dancing in either musical.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, this steadfast professional enjoyed a very extensive career in television, appearing as an actor not only in the aforementioned soap opera but also in many TV movies and TV series. Around 1966, he was chosen to hold the position of First Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild.

For this Club 88 appearance, Carey poured his soul into a solo rendition of "My Heart Stood Still." When it came to duetting, the future patriarch of Days Of Our Lives and the future interpreter of "Is That All There Is?" confessed their shared wish to "Let's Get Away From It All." Seen above are publicity shots, probably taken during the rehearsal for the episode.


Dating

I count with two sources for this episode's dating, and they are in agreement. The first is Jeanette M. Berard and Klaudia Englund's Radio Series Scripts, 1930-2001. The second is the following caption, found under the above-shown press photo: "Blonde vocal star Peggy Lee beams happily with the screen's McDonald Carey, who makes his singing debut on her CBS radio Peggy Lee Show on Tuesday, August 5 (KNX-CBS Radio, 9:45 to 10:00 PM, PDT. From Hollywood.)

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee (v), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires {Conlon, Mack McLean, Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman, Charles Parlato, Gloria Wood} (bkv)

Guest




During the third of their 10 guest appearances in Peggy Lee's show, Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires backed the hostess as she sang "O Dear, What Can The Matter Be?," "Once In A While," and "Little David, Play On Your Harp." When performing by themselves, the quintet's tune of choice was "On The Alamo." In addition to reading the next paragraphs, curious viewers wanting to know more about this group and its connections to Peggy Lee should consult the notes under the episode dated May 22, 1952.

Seen in the photos presented above is Loulie Jean Norman, the soprano voice amidst the quintet. Despite the whiff of maturity to her looks, the first image probably dates from her high school period in Birmingham. The Alabamian had been born in 1913 in Jefferson County. After moving to New York to seek a career in entertainment (singing being her main vocation), she briefly worked as a model and was the subject of shots such as the second above.

Miss Norman's national singing career began on the network radio during the second half of the 1930s. She successfully auditioned for a position in an ensemble known as the Rhythm Singers, best known for accompanying Kay Thompson, one of the most multi-talented stars of the era who not only sang but also work as a choral director. After joining the star, Norman and the rest of the ensemble proceeded to do work with Thompson in her numerous radio gigs.

The possibility of a solo career arose in 1940, when Loulie Jean hosted the summer edition of Chamber Music Society Of Lower Basin Street, on the Blue (NBC) network. Having debuted in February, the show was at that time a brand new, year-long variety radio program which would prove of special significance to two of its earliest regular female vocalists. To be more specific, it would first put Dinah Shore on the national map, and would subsequently prove instrumental in Lena Horne's acquisition of a career-making solo recording contract with RCA Records. Regrettably, however, the show did not really achieve high level of popularity until the second half of the year. Hence Loulie Jean Norman's summer stay did not elicit a rise to solo stardom comparable to Shore or Horne. (The ad pictured below features Norman's image as it might have been promoted for the NBC radio show.)





The bulk of Louile Jean Norman's career remained circumscribed to choral work. After getting married and beginning the rearing of four children, her operatic voice was put to use as a member of both The Mel-Tones (led by singer Mel Tormé) and the Kay Kyser-featured Campus Kids. Those were groups primarily active in the 1940s. Her years with The Rhythmaires followed. Then the 1950s and 1960s found Loulie Jean doing extensive work with the original edition of The Ray Conniff Singers. But that was not all. Among the less widely remembered groups (some of them created only for special occasions, some just non-lasting) of which she was also member, let's mention The Belvederes and G-6. The former was an ensemble devised for Ray Anthony's TV show, the latter a session group that can be heard in the Judy Garland-Gordon Jenkins album The Letter.

Mrs. Norman actually had a solid solo career as well -- and a noteworthy one, at that. But it was not a career in the limelight: she served as movie dubber for better-known acts, including Diahann Carroll (the "Summertime" vocal from the 1959 film version of Porgy And Bess), Jane Powell (Athena; vocalese sections only) and Juliet Prowse (G. I. Blues). In other instances, she was the memorable yet unbilled (or, otherwise, second-billed) act behind performances that became major hits and/or classics: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (as immortalized by The Tokens), the Star Trek theme (the version from the original, earlier seasons), the singing ghost of Disney's "Haunted Mansion" theme park attraction, and the titular "Swamp Girl" of Frankie Laine's top twelve hit. There was also work done for various Frank Sinatra projects, including his Trilogy (Future album).

The color picture at the start of this section is a candid from the singer's later years. Nearly reaching the ripe age of 90, Loulie Jean Norman passed away in 2005.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Matt Dennis, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




Peggy Lee dedicated four episodes of her radio show to the work of a particular songwriter. In each of the four episodes, the feted songwriter was present as a guest. There was Hoagy Carmichael (episode dated May 20, 1952), Johnny Mercer (May 27, 1952), Frank Loesser in an installment to be discussed below (August 21, 1952) and, in the present episode, Matt Dennis. A composer who also stood out as a pianist-singer, the multi-talented Dennis both accompanied himself and sang with Peggy Lee during this show. Together, they interpreted four of Dennis' compositions as a medley. The medley's opener ("We Belong Together") was performed as a duet. Vocal duties for the next two numbers were evenly split between the two artists, with Dennis tackling "Old Uncle Fud" and Lee going for "Angel Eyes" next. Also sung by Lee alone was the closer "Let's Get Away From It All" -- a number that she had constantly performed as a vocal duet with her guests in earlier shows. Separately from the medley, Dennis also sang and played piano on "Violets For Your Furs," a song that he had composed around 1941, and which would be popularized by Frank Sinatra. (On record, the song had been debuted by Sinatra at that time, when he was the boy vocalist of Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra. Back then, it did not become a hit, but eventually it would reach the status of a standard from the Great American Songbook. The version through which the song became immortalized was not the one from the early 1940s, but a Sinatra reprise from his 1954 Capitol album Songs For Young Lovers, conducted by Nelson Riddle.)

The least known of Lee's songwriting honorees (but just as noteworthy), Matthew Loveland Dennis (1914-2002) came from a musical family with roots in vaudeville -- his father a singer, his mother a violinist. Young pianist Dennis would go through stints with the big bands of Horace Heidt (1933, just one season) and Paul Weston (late 1940-1942).

Being an above-average musician who not only played and sang but also composed and arranged, Dennis worked closely with various vocalists. He was a vocal coach for The Stafford Sisters, Martha Tilton, and Margaret Whiting. Sister Jo Stafford recommended him to her then-boss, Tommy Dorsey. (Having gotten married to Paul Weston, Jo Stafford might have also served, along with Weston, as catalysts to Dennis' signing of a short-term contract with Capitol Records.)

Dorsey was a particular beneficiary of Matt Dennis’ talents. Many of Dennis' compositions (done almost exclusively in partnership with lyricist Tom Adair) were first recorded by the Dorsey band, with a handful of them becoming hits right away, and various others reaching the rank of standards as the decades went by. Then there was Dennis' association with Frank Sinatra, which dated back to this Dorsey period, when the bandleader assigned to his boy vocalist some of Dennis' compositions ("Let's Get Away From It All," "Everything Happens To Me," "The Night We Called It A Day," etc.).

Dennis also established a close link with Dick Haymes, one of Sinatra's music rivals of the 1940s, and another guest of Peggy Lee (May 6, 1952). In the late 1930s, Dennis hired Haymes as the vocalist and nominal leader of the band that he (Dennis) had formed. Haymes repaid the favor in the mid-1940s, by hiring Dennis as the musical director of his (Haymes') radio program. Naturally, Dennis held other radio and television jobs over the years, including his own 15-minute Matt Dennis Show on NBC-TV in the summer of 1955.

On his own, Matt Dennis made half a dozen albums on various labels (RCA, Jubilee, Trend/Kapp), all of them featuring both singing and piano playing, and all of them worthwhile to a greater or lesser extent. In 1947, he also released various vocal singles on Capitol. All his Capitol material -- including two earlier and hitherto unissued masters -- was recorded in the company of conductor and presumed friend Paul Weston.

The bulk of Dennis' professional life was spent not in the studios, however, but as a pianist-singer at nightclubs in the LA area (Lighthouse Café, The Encore, Tally Ho's, The Captain's Table, Howard Manor, etc.). The man also became a regular at nightclubs elsewhere: he usually performed in New York (The Living Room), Toronto (Town Tavern), and other big cities. It should come as no surprise, then, that Matt Dennis is nowadays remembered as both an excellent composer and a lounge nigthclub act -- with the word 'lounge' carrying strictly positive connotations in this instance.


Personnel

1, Matt Dennis
Peggy Lee introduces her guest as "the very versatile and extremely talented Matt Dennis."


Performances

1. Poetry: Tennyson
2. "Everything Happens To Me"
As a prelude (or verse) to her version of "Everything Happens To Me," Peggy Lee recites the lines "For man is man and master of his fate." These words are from Lord Alfred Tennyson's The Marriage of Geraint, which is in turn part of his epic text Idylls Of The King.

3. "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard"
Unlike her better-known studio recording on Decca Records, Peggy Lee's radio versions of "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard" included the song's fairly long verse. (There is a total of three radio versions, all of them sung for the show under discussion during the following episodes: June 26, August 12, and September 18, 1952.

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee (v)

Guest




This broadcast of Club 88 finds singer-pianist Nat King Cole and singer-songwriter Miss Peggy Lee duetting on Rodgers & Hart's "Johnny One Note." For his solo spotlight, Cole further offers "Somewhere Along The Way," a number that had recently become a top ten hit for him. With the present broadcast, he was actually making his sixth appearance as a guest of a Peggy Lee-hosted radio show. The other guest appearances had taken place in September and October of 1948, when the King had graced the first five episodes of her previous hosting gig, at The Chesterfield Supper Club. Conversely, Peggy Lee had served as a guest of Cole's own radio show, King Cole Trio Time, at least once, in 1947. The next year, with her husband Dave Barbour in tow, Peggy had further gone on to guest-host one episode of King Cole Trio Time, while Nat was reportedly enjoying a honeymoon vacation with his wife Maria Cole. After the 1952 get-together under discussion, another joint Cole-Lee appearance would take place in 1957. On that occasion, the medium was not radio but television, and the artist making the guest appearance was Lee, on NBC's Nat King Cole Show. Regrettably, the legendary pianist and crooner would prematurely pass away less than a decade later (in 1965), at the age of 45. Also turning 45 that same year, Peggy Lee was among the fellow artists who attended his funeral (as seen in footage incorporated to the DVD The World Of Nat King Cole). In later decades, Lee would join the voices of the many artists who have expressed great admiration for Cole's talents, thereby honoring the memory of the man who had been a long-term labelmate at Capitol and, occasionally, her duet partner over the radio airwaves.


Personnel

1. Nat King Cole
In this episode, songbird Peggy Lee gives us a bird's eye view of her guest's touring itinerary: he had just finished engagements in New York (at the Paramount) and Los Angeles. His next stop was alter to be Lake Tahoe, in Nevada.


Performances

1. Poetry: Shakespeare
2. "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart"
As a poetic introduction to her singing of the number "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart," Peggy Lee recites from the second act of William Shakespeare's play Romeo And Juliet ("parting is such sweet sorrow").

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, David Wayne (v), Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires {Conlon, Mack McLean, Loulie "Lily" Jean Norman, Charles Parlato, Gloria Wood} (bkv)

Guest




Enlisted as this episode's guest was David Wayne, the man who is best-remembered in popular culture as the villainous Mad Hatter of the 1966 TV series Batman (1966-1967; first photo above). That role was merely one, however, in a long list of Hollywood, Broadway, and TV land credits that stretched from the 1940s into the 1980s.

As a Hollywood actor, Wayne played mostly secondary but solid roles near luminaries such as Marilyn Monroe (How To Marry A Millionaire, 1953) and Frank Sinatra (The Tender Trap, 1955). Premiering about four months before his guest appearance in Lee's show, the Susan Hayward vehicle With A Song Of My Heart featured Wayne as the pianist who accompanied the biopic's real-life character, Jane Froman. (Incidentally, that movie's soundtrack includes one of Peggy Lee's self-penned numbers, "It's A Good Day," sung onscreen by an overdubbing Jane Froman.)

In Broadway, the Irish-American actor's career was even more distinguished, boasting roles in musicals such as Finian's Rainbow (1947-1948) and comedies along the lines of Say, Darling. Peer recognition came with his reception of the very first Tony Award in the category of Best Actor Featured In A Musical (1947, for personifying Finian's Rainbow's Og The Leprechaun). There would be two more nominations, one of them being for his characterization of Grandpère Bonnard in the 1968 musical The Happy Time. The other nomination, for his role as the Japanese interpreter Sakini in The Teahouse Of The August Moon, led to his reception of the 8th Tony Award in the category of Best Actor Featured In A Play (1954).

Fresh out of his appearances in the aforementioned films With A Song Of My Heart (April 1952 premiere) and Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie (July 1952 premiere), Wayne came to Lee's show in a Finian's Rainbow mindframe: he tackled "Something Sort of Grandish" with Lee, and "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love" as a solo.

Also listed as being on board for this episode were Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires. (I hasten to add that only one of my sources lists them. Because I have not listened to the broadcast, I can neither corroborate nor deny. Hence this credit is subject to change.) They were making the fourth of their 10 guest appearances in Peggy Lee's show. The act did not perform by itself, but they did back the hostess as she sang "That Great Come-And-Get-It Day." Viewers interested in learning more about this group and its connections to Lee should also consult the notes under program dated May 22, 1952.


Personnel

1. David Wayne
Peggy Lee introduces her guest as the star of the original version of Finian's Rainbow, and makes reference to his then-current movie, Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie.


Performances

1. Finian's Rainbow
In a mini-tribute to Finian's Rainbow, three songs from that musical are consecutively sung in this episode: "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love," "That Great Come-And-Get-It Day," and "Something Sort Of Grandish."

2. "Botch-a Me"
If my ears did not deceive me, Peggy Lee makes a sly, coily self-referential change to this novelty. Instead of "tra-la-la-la-la-loo," Lee sings "tra-la-la-la-la-lee." (Other singers, none of them named might have made a similar change, however. One who definitely did was British vocalist Lita Roza.)

Sonny Burke And His Orchestra (acc), Peggy Lee, Frank Loesser (v)

Guest




Peggy Lee dedicated four episodes of her radio show to the work of a particular songwriter. In each of the four programs, the feted songwriter was present as a guest: Hoagy Carmichael (episode dated May 20, 1952), Johnny Mercer (May 27, 1952), Matt Dennis (August 12, 1952), and, last but not least, Frank Loesser. As part of the proceedings, Lee and Loesser performed the above-listed medley, through which all four numbers were treated as vocal duets except for "On A Slow Boat To China," sung by Lee solo. Although not as famous a name as Carmichael and Mercer, Frank Henry Loesser (1910-1969) is still too well-known a songwriter to require extensive biographical commentary herein. He is primarily remembered for his Broadway musicals Guys And Dolls (1950), The Most Happy Fella (1956), and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961). When these musicals were still running on Broadway, Peggy Lee happened to perform one song from each: "A Bushel And A Peck" (from Guys And Dolls, sung by Lee on the radio in 1950), "Joey, Joey, Joey" (from The Most Happy Fella, recorded by Lee for Decca in 1956), and "I Believe In You" (from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, recorded for Decca in early 1962). She also recorded his ballads "Moments Like This" and "I Wish I Didn't Love You So," as well as his upbeat tune "I Hear Music." Loesser's most popular song is probably "Baby, It's Cold Outside," often performed as a duet and frequently tied to the holiday season.


Personnel

1. Frank Loesser
Peggy Lee introduces her guest as "Mr. Guys & Dolls himself." Being a songwriter who also knew how to play the piano and sing, Loesser might have accompanied Lee on that instrument while the two of them went through the medley of his songs. However, I have no corroboration on the matter. (The singing credits have been, on the other hand, corroborated.)


Performances

1. Poetry: Rupert Brooke
2. "My Darling, My Darling"
Peggy Lee prefaces her version of "My Darling, My Darling" with lines from a poem by Rupert Brooke. Unfortunately, the content of the lines is not known to me; hence I am not able to identify the poem at the present time.