100 years ago: “Moonlight Bay” hit #1

Moonlight Bay American Quartet

Writer(s): Edward Madden, Percy Wenrich (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 9, 1912 Peak: 18 US, 112 GA, 18 SM, 2 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.16 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Arguably the best moonlight song ever written,” PS “Moonlight Bay” “conjures up an entire lost era of a slower-paced America that…had plenty of time for gentle spooning in an unspoiled natural setting.” SS It is “a very durable song from Tin Pan Alley about an idyllic setting for romance.” RCG Edward Madden, who also wrote “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” penned the lyrics about “sailing across the bay at night in the moonlight while losing one’s heart to true love.” RCG The music was written by Percy Wenrich, “one of the era’s specialists in sentimental ballads.” SS. He came from a musical family wrote a number of hits in the rag genre and performed with his wife, Dolly Connelly, in vaudeville. PS It was Connelly who introduced the song in vaudeville and took it to #3 on the U.S. pop charts in 1912. It also became a “huge barbershop-quartet song as exemplified by the American Quartet,” JA who made the tune the biggest hit of 1912. CPM The song was revived by Alice Faye in the 1943 film On Moonlight Bay and again in 1951 in a Doris Day and Gordon MacRae film of the same name. The song has appeared many times in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. WK In 1951, Bing and Gary Crosby took their version of the song to #14. JA Resources: DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 136. PS ParlorSongs.com RCG RimChiGuy.com The Old Songs (1900-1929) SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland.Page 587. CPM Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Record Research, Inc.: Menomonee Falls, WI. Page 23. Related Links: Last updated 3/19/2023.

100 years ago: “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” hit #1

By the Light of the Silvery Moon Billy Murray & the Haydn Quartet

Writer(s): Edward Madden, Gus Edwards (see lyrics here) First Charted: December 1909 Peak: 19 US, 13 GA, 16 SM (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Edward Madden crafted the words for “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” around Gus Edwards’ “somewhat dreamy music that lends itself to soft shoe.” RCG The song had much the same sentiment as “Shine On, Harvest Moon” from a year earlier. In “Silvery Moon,” the singer wishes for a silvery moon by which to spoon with his girl, hoping he can croon a love song to her and she’ll agree to marry him in June. Its “moon-June-croon rhymes” are “cliché by today’s standards,” RCG but were representative of the Tin Pan Alley era which dominated music in the early 1900s. The song first surfaced in vaudeville in the School Boys and Girls revue. Child star Georgie Price, a member of Gus Edwards, troup of children, sang it. TY2 Lillian Lorraine also interporolated it into the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909. TY2 In 1909 and 1910, three versions of the song charted. The Peerless Quartet and Ada Jones each got to #2, but Billy Murray’s recording with the Haydn Quartet hit #1 and was one of the top five hits of the decade. TY2 On their version, Murray sang the verses, slow and deliberately, and the quartet came in on the chorus. SM As big as their song was – it spent 9 weeks at the summit – it wasn’t the biggest hit for either Murray or the Haydn Quartet. In 1909, the Haydn Quartet peaked at #1 for eleven weeks with “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnett.” Murray’s biggest hit was just around the corner – just a couple months later, his take on “Casey Jones” with the American Quartet would also spend eleven weeks on top. PM “Silvery Moon” proved to have stamina, hitting #12 for Ray Noble in 1942 PM and becoming a glee club and barbershop quartet standard. RCG It was also in the movies Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), The Birth of the Blues (1941), Babes on Broadway (1942), Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943), Sunbonnet Sue (1945), The Jolson Story (1946), Always Leave Them Laughing (1949), and Two Weeks with Love (1950). TY2 In 1953, Doris Day and Gordon MacRae sang the song in the movie musical . Resources: DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 29. SM Sharon Mawer Charts (1900-1968) RCG RimChiGuy.com The Old Songs (1900-1929) TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 47. PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954 (1986). Menomonee Falls, WI; Record Research, Inc. Page 481. Related Links: First posted 4/23/2012; last updated 12/15/2022.