50 years ago: Les Paul & Mary Ford hit #1 with “How High the Moon”

How High the Moon Les Paul & Mary Ford

Writer(s): Morgan Lewis/Nancy Hamilton (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 31, 1951 Peak: 19 US, 3 HP, 12 CB, 10 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK, 1.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.5 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Hamilton and Lewis wrote the Broadway revues One for the Money, Two for the Show, Three to Get Ready, and New Faces. They also collaborated on the Oscar-winning documentary film, Helen Keller – Her Life. Without question, though, their most noable accomplishment was “How High the Moon.” Lewis was known for witty songs which lacked social significance, but when Two for the Show needed a romantic ballad, he adjusted. SB Alfred Drake and Frances Comstock sang it in the 1940 revue and it went on to be a chart hit for Benny Goodman and His Orchestra with Helen Forrest on vocal (#6). It was also a hit for Mitchell Ayres (#18, 1940) and Stan Kenton (#20, 1948) and was covered by Count Basie, Nat “King” Cole, Duke Ellington, Anita O’Day, Billy Taylor, and Mel Tormé. The most noted version, however, was by guitarist Les Paul and his singing wife Mary Ford. They developed a reputation in the pre-rock era for “pretty, perky renditions of classic pop tunes.” TM “How High the Moon” was originally “a slow fox-trot, a song of longing where the moon is just a distant prop for melancholy.” TM However, Paul sped it up and infused it with guitar power chords which established a template for rock and roll. TM Bill Haley borrowed the song’s opening descending chord pattern for “Rock Around the Clock.” TM The Beatles’ Paul McCartney said, “We used to start our gigs with the opening riffs from ‘How High the Moon.’” TM He also, without the benefit of audiotape, merged 21 different tracks of vocal and guitar parts – and no drums SA – into “a bubbly blast of pop immortality.” TM His pioneering over-dubbing and multi-tracking techniques are still used today. NRR The result was a #1 hit which became “a jazz and nightclub favorite” JA and “the bebop national anthem.” SA Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Les Paul DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Mary Ford JA David A. Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 79. NRR National Recording Registry SA David Sadowski (1999). Haven’t Named It Yet: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Prehistory, 1926-55. SB Songbook1.wordpress.com TM Time magazine (10/24/2011). “All Time 100 Songs” Last updated 8/16/2022.

50 years ago: Kiss Me, Kate opened on Broadway

Kiss Me, Kate Cole Porter (music & lyrics)

Cast Album

Stage Debut: December 30, 1948 Charted: February 26, 1949 Peak: 110 US Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US and UK) Genre: show tunes

Soundtrack

Charted: January 23, 1954 Peak: 7 US Sales (in millions): -- Genre: show tunes

Songs on Cast Album: Song Title (Performers) Overture c Another Op’nin’, Another Show (ANNABELLEL HILL) c Why Can’t You Behave? (LISA KIRK/ HAROLD LANG) Wunderbar (PATRICIA MORISON/ ALFRED DRAKE) So in Love (PATRICIA MORISON) We Open in Venice (ALFRED DRAKE/ PATRICA MORISON/ LISA KIRK) Tom, Dick or Harry (LISA KIRK/ HAROLD LANG/ EDWIN CLAY) I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua (ALFRED DRAKE/ MEN’S CHORUS) I Hate Men (PATRICIA MORISON) Were Thine That Special Face (ALFRED DRAKE) Too Darn Hot (LORENZO FULLER/ EDDIE SLEDGE/ FRED DAVIS) Where is the Life That Late I Led? (ALFRED DRAKE) Always True to You in My Fashion (LISA KIRK) Bianca (HAROLD LANG) c So in Love (Reprise) (ALFRED DRAKE) c Brush Up Your Shakespeare (HARRY CLARK/ JACK DIAMOND) I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple (PATRICA MORISON) Finale: Kiss Me, Kate (ALFRED DRAKE/ PATRICIA MORISON) c on cast album only Songs on Soundtrack: Song Title (Performers) Too Darn Hot (ANN MILLER) So in Love (KATHRYN GRAYSON/ HOWARD KEEL) We Open in Venice (KATHRYN GRAYSON/ HOWARD KEEL/ ANN MILLER) Why Can’t You Behave? (ANN MILLER) Were Thine That Special Face (HOWARD KEEL) Tom, Dick or Harry (ANN MILLER/ BOBBY VAN/ TOMMY RALL) Wunderbar (KATHRYN GRAYSON/ HOWARD KEEL) Always True to You in My Fashion (ANN MILLER/ TOMMY RALL) I Hate Men (KATHRYN GRAYSON) I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua (HOWARD KEEL) From This Moment On (TOMMY RALL/ ANN MILLER/ BOBBY VAN) s Where is the Life That Late I Led? (HOWARD KEEL) Brush Up Your Shakespeare KEENAN WYNN/ JAMES WHITMORE) Kiss Me, Kate (KATHRYN GRAYSON/ HOWARD KEEL) s on soundtrack only Singles/Hit Songs: As was common in the pre-rock era, songs from musicals were often recorded by artists not associated with the musical and released as singles. Here are some of the most notable hit singles resulting from the show: “So in Love” – Patti Page (#13, 1949), Gordon MacRae (#20, 1949), Dinah Shore (#20, 1949)

Rating: 4.487 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings for cast album and soundtrack combined) Awards (Cast Album and Soundtrack): (Click on award to learn more).

About the Show: “Kiss Me, Kate was the most successful Broadway musical of Cole Porter’s career, much to his and everyone else’s surprise. Porter was thought to be in decline in the late ‘40s, having suffered such recent failures as Around the World in Eighty Days on-stage and The Pirate in movie theaters.” R-C “Like Irving Berlin before Annie Get Your Gun, he was apprehensive about…writing character songs for a book musical in the manner of Rodgers & Hammerstein, having come out of a tradition in which the songs in a musical were more ornamental than substantive. And he was initially resistant to the idea for Kiss Me, Kate, a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.” R-C “Some credit for that no doubt went to the clever book by Bella and Samuel Spewack, which gave the plot a backstage, show-within-a-show framework in which the actors were playing actors who were appearing in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew, allowing Porter to write in both contemporary and Elizabethan modes. And the actors themselves – Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison in the leading roles, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang in the secondary ones – added to the success of the work.” R-C “But the main drawing card was still Porter, who turned in one of his most tuneful and witty collections of songs.” R-C “The lyrics were full of puns and sly sexual references, also Porter hallmarks. This was a score that not only featured an excellent romantic ballad, So in Love…but also a parody of operetta, Wunderbar, that began with the geographic joke ‘Gazing down on the Jungfrau/From our secret chalet for two,’ an impossibility, since the Jungfrau is a mountain in the Swiss Alps that tops 13,000 feet!” R-C The show opened on December 30, 1948 and had a run of 1077 performances. It also won the Tony for Best Musical. When Columbia Records went to record the cast album, they opted for their new 12” LP format instead of the usually ten-inch records. This gave them room for 48 minutes of music. The result was “a commercial success that rivaled the stage production.” R-C The soundtrack for the 1954 film was mostly “inferior to the…cast album,” R-S although there were exceptions. Howard Keel’s performance as Fred Graham was “the equal of Alfred Drake, who took the part on Broadway, and Ann Miller, as Lois Lane and Bianca, is at least as effective as Lisa Kirk was on-stage and gets more to do as well, having been given the song Too Darn Hot, which was sung by a different character on Broadway.” R-S On the flip side, the censors “made themselves felt heavily in the song lyrics… [excising parts of the score which were] very suggestive [and] full of sexual innuendos, puns, references, and mildly naughty words.” R-S “Maybe this is what had to be done to get a film into movie theaters in 1953, but music fans can only be disappointed at the airbrushing of a classic score.” R-S Notes: A 1998 reissue of the cast album “restored the play's original overture (left off of the original recording), from a recording of the piece made a decade later. Unfortunately, its presence is also a reminder of the fidelity, warmth, and crispness that is lacking in the original cast material.” BE The 1990 CBS Special Products reissue “lengthened the album from 39 to 51 minutes. Six years later, Rhino stretched that out to 63 minutes [and 27 songs] by including more instrumentals and underscoring, and the reissue producers stripped off the sound effects.” R-S

Resources and Related Links: BE Bruce Eder, All Music Guide (cast album) R-C William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide (cast album) R-S William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide (soundtrack) Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 5/19/2011; last updated 12/21/2021.

50 years ago: Oklahoma! debuted on Broadway

Oklahoma! Richard Rodgers (music), Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics)

Cast Album

Recorded: 10/20/43 – 5/24/44 Released: December 4, 1944 Peak: 4 US Sales (in millions): 3.0 US Genre: show tunes

Soundtrack

Recorded: August 1, 1955 Peak: 18 US, 13 UK Sales (in millions): 2.0 US Genre: show tunes

Tracks (from Cast Album): Song Title (Performers) Overture Oh, What a Beautiful Morning (ALFRED DRAKE) The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (ALFRED DRAKE) Kansas City (LEE DIXON/ MALE CHORUS) I Cain’t Say No (CELESTE HOLM) Many a New Day (JOAN ROBERTS) It’s a Scandal! It’s a Outrage! (JOSEPH BULOFF) * People Will Say We’re in Love (ALFRED DRAKE/ JOAN ROBERTS) Pore Jud Is Daid (ALFRED DRAKE/ HOWARD DaSILVIA) Lonely Room (ALFRED DRAKE) * Out of My Dreams (JOAN ROBERTS) The Farmer and the Cowman (BETTY GARDE/ RALPH RIGGS) All Er Nothin’ (LEE DIXON/ CELESTE HOLM) Oklahoma! (ALFRED DRAKE) Finale (ALFRED DRAKE/ JOAN ROBERTS) * * Songs not on soundtrack version. Tracks (from Soundtrack): Song Title (Performers) Overture Oh, What a Beautiful Morning (ALFRED DRAKE/ GORDON MacRAE) The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (ALFRED DRAKE/ GORDON MacRAE/ SHIRLEY JONES) Kansas City (LEE DIXON/ GENE NELSON/ CHARLOTTE GREENWOOD) I Cain’t Say No (CELESTE HOLM/ GLORIA GRAHAME) Many a New Day (JOAN ROBERTS/ SHIRLEY JONES/ GIRLS CHORUS) People Will Say We’re in Love (GORDON MacRAE/ SHIRLEY JONES) Pore Jud Is Daid (GORDON MacRAE/ ROD STEIGER) Out of My Dreams (SHIRLEY JONES) The Farmer and the Cowman (GORDON MacRAE/ CHARLOTTE GREENWOOD) All Er Nothin’ (GLORIA GRAHAME/ GENE NELSON) Oklahoma! (GORDON MacRAE/ CHARLOTTE GREENWOOD) Singles/Hit Songs: As was common in the pre-rock era, songs from musicals were often recorded by artists not associated with the musical and released as singles. Here are some of the most notable hit singles resulting from the show: ”People Will Say We’re in Love” – Bing Crosby (#2, 1943), Frank Sinatra (#3, 1943), Hal Goodman (#11, 1943) ”Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” – Frank Sinatra (#12, 1943), Bing Crosby (#4, 1944) ”The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” – Alfred Drake (#22, 1944)

Rating: 4.395 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings for cast album and soundtrack combined) Quotable: “Often called Broadway’s greatest ever” – Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954 Awards (Cast Album): (Click on award to learn more). Awards (Soundtrack): (Click on award to learn more).

About the Show: “The Broadway opening of Oklahoma! in 1943 is remembered as a landmark in American musical theater. The show was the first written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, though both were theater veterans. Rodgers & Hammerstein turned out an exuberant, tuneful score in which all the songs grew out of the characters and the situations, an unusual approach in musical theater, where songs often had little relationship to the action. The point was made right at the start, when the choral number that opened most musicals was eschewed in favor of an off-stage leading man coming on and singing Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” RC “It ran over five years, becoming the longest running musical in Broadway history up to its time. The score threw off several hits and standards, including ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,’ The Surrey with the Fringe on Top, People Will Say We’re in Love, and the stirring title tune.” RC Oklahoma! “also made history as the first album…to become a major chart hit, and the first significant original-cast album.” JW “Although there had been a tradition of recording music from stage works in their original form with the stage performers in Great Britain, such recordings were only occasional in the U.S., and the idea of putting together an album of several 78 rpm records containing a show’s major songs as performed on-stage was relatively new. On the day that Oklahoma! opened, the American record industry was closed down by a musicians strike but shortly after Decca Records settled with the union, company president Jack Kapp brought the Oklahoma! principals together in the recording studio and cut 12 of the show’s songs…The result…was a commercial smash that forever changed the record business and led to the domination of record sales by the cast and soundtrack albums for the next 20 years.” RC It would more than a dozen years after the Broadway debut before the movie version emerged. Rodgers and Hammerstein were giving enough power over the production that they “assured that it would be more faithful than most Hollywood treatments. Only two songs, Lonely Room and It’s a Scandal! It’s a Outrage!, were excised from the stage show for the two-and-a-half-hour film, for which conductor Jay Blackton and Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations were retained.” RS “The casting responded more to musical values than to box office clout, with Gordon MacRae, best known for several cinematic pairings with Doris Day, taking the male lead role of Curly and 20-year-old Shirley Jones, a Rodgers and Hammerstein discovery, making her film debut as Laurey, the female lead. The two, along with Gloria Grahame in the showcase role of lusty Ado Annie, brought a vocal assurance to their singing that allowed them to be intimate and conversational, giving detail to an otherwise lavish (and possibly oversized) production.” RS “These qualities come off especially well on the soundtrack album, as do Bennett’s arrangements, which really shine in the stereo separation denied them on the original Broadway cast album. The result is an outstanding rendering of the score that gives it a bigger, broader interpretation and has continued to sound impressive over the decades, which may be one reason why the album, which topped the charts upon release and sold more than two million copies, has remained in print continually since it first appeared.” RS

Resources and Related Links: RC William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide (review of cast album) RS William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide (review of soundtrack) JW Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954 (page 341). Record Research: Menomonee Falls, WI. Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 6/28/2010; last updated 12/21/2021.