On the 7th December 1941, the
radio networks flashed the news to a stunned American nation that they were at war.
The first ‘Command Performance’
was broadcast almost exactly, three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, under the aegis of the Office
of War Information.
Its success paved the way for the creation of the Armed Forces Radio
Service in May 1942, under the command of Colonel Tom Lewis. Time magazine described ‘Command
Performance’ as being, ‘the best wartime programme in
America’. This dallied a little with the truth, as very
few listeners in the United States ever heard it and it would appear that the Christmas ‘Command
Performance’ of 1942 was the only programme of the
series to be broadcast to a general audience. In Britain, we were more fortunate, as the BBC Forces programme
had been transmitting the series, on
Monday evenings, virtually since its inception.
All talent was donated,
including production staff, gratis and the major networks allowed free use of
their studios for the shows. On ‘Command Performance’ No. 162, an all-star cast
including, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore,
Jimmy Durante, The Andrews Sisters and others, spoofed the popular comic strip,
‘Dick Tracy’ in a sixty minute operetta. It was estimated that the total bill
for this assembly would have run to well over $100,000 - an enormous sum for
the time. Requests from homesick G.I.’s kept the sound effects men on their
toes, entrusting the microphone to deliver,
- ‘a sigh from Carole Landis’; ‘ foghorns on San Francisco Bay’; ‘Errol
Flynn taking a shower’ (I’ll bet he didn’t!); ‘a slot machine delivering the
jackpot’ and ‘Bing Crosby mixing a bourbon and soda for Bob Hope’.
At the outset, the AFRS was
short waving the shows but obviously, lacking the modern marvels of today’s
satellite links, the reception was often distorted or spoiled by fading and
static. They had also overlooked that
many servicemen had no access to a short wave receiver. These problems were resolved when the Armed
Forces Radio Service sought permission from the four major networks to record favourite programmes on 16"
transcription discs. As many as seventy
of these programmes were recorded and produced each
week, especially for the armed forces, together with ‘Command Performance’,
‘Mail Call’, ‘G.I. Journal’ and various other series. At the peak of the war, around 21,000
transcriptions were being shipped to troops in Europe, Asia and the South
Pacific and over 800 radio stations, operated by servicemen and for servicemen,
were set up to cover all theatres of war, in order to provide music and
laughter from home. The United Kingdom boasted 44 of these AM stations and a great deal of ‘dial twiddling’
was employed by an enthusiastic population in
pursuit of their favourite American bands and
vocalists.
Positive identification and
dating of ‘Command
Performances’ can pose difficulties, largely due to inconsistencies on
the part of the AFRS. The regular weekly
broadcasts were normally allotted thirty minutes of air time and although
numbered consecutively, they were not necessarily issued in that order. Whereas, programmes
designated as ‘Specials’, were unnumbered (apart from the same general matrix)
and again, but not always, may have been of a different duration to those of
the regular series.
Some shows are politely,
described as ‘assembled’, being composed, either entirely or partially, of
so-called ‘wild’ tracks, probably ‘lifted’ from the domestic radio series. Remembering that this was before the advent
of magnetic tape, the shows were produced and transcribed with some expertise.
To this day, any ‘joins’ are remarkably unobtrusive and untutored listeners
would have harboured few doubts that, at the very
least, they were hearing a bona fide recording of a live show. It may well be that these huge incursions
into the previously ‘no go’ area of transcribed radio programmes
may have been fundamental in fostering Bing’s own interest and later
involvement with the process.
Precise details of some programmes are still incomplete but it has been established
that, including ‘Special Command Performances’, Bing Crosby was featured in, at
least, forty of the shows, frequently, as Master of Ceremonies and a glance at
the index will reveal that, during the series he sang (including medleys) in
excess of a hundred songs, rarely repeating a title.
‘Mail Call’ was heralded as, ‘a
letter written by the folks at home to a serviceman abroad’ and the first of
these thirty-minute programmes was recorded on 11th August 1942, at the CBS Studios in Hollywood. In the beginning, the series
included sound track excerpts from current movies and in fact, Bing Crosby’s
first appearance on ‘Mail Call’ No. 11, recorded on the 4th November 1942, was with Fred Astaire in a potted version of
‘Holiday Inn’. However, after three months,
this format was abandoned in favour of the
combination of music, songs and comedy routines that had ensured the success of
‘Command Performance’ and again, servicemen were encouraged to ‘write in with
their requests’.
Occasionally, ‘Command
Performances’ had been given a particular theme, such as, an ‘All Western Programme’ or an ‘All Female Programme’
or, they were specially dedicated, ‘A Tribute To The British Army’ or ‘A
Tribute To Walt Disney’ etc. ‘Mail Call’
became even more embroiled with this procedure, choosing, ‘American states’ for
their dedications and it will be appreciated that, once started, this ‘theme’
would have been difficult to conclude before running the whole gamut. Bing took part in a number of these
‘dedications’ and there will be many who cherish the famous outtake from ‘Mail
Call’ No. 73 when he encounters a few problems with Meredith Willson’s new song, ‘Iowa’.
‘G.I. Journal’ made its appearance,
almost a full year after the advent of ‘Mail Call’ and was described as ‘a
newspaper of the air’. The first
‘edition’ was recorded on 29th June 1943. The M.C. was known as ‘the
Editor’ and for the first year, this post was filled, variously, by Bing
Crosby, Bob Hope, Kay Kyser and Jack Carson. Perhaps the cast lists were not quite so star-studded as those of ‘Command Performance’ or ‘Mail
Call’ but the ‘journalistic staff’ were portrayed by regular appearances of, ‘Rochester’, Jerry Colonna, Ish
Kabibble, Arthur Q. Bryan and Mel Blanc, who found
more or less permanent residence as ‘Private Sad Sack’.
There were more than a hundred
of these programmes.
The presence of Bing has been traced to nineteen of them but again, as
with the ‘Command Performance’ and ‘Mail Call’ series, details are sketchy or
incomplete for many of the shows, so there may be more. A particular feature of Bing’s appearances
was that the ‘closer’ for the programme was a
‘community sing’ of a perennial favourite,
incorporating the cast and audience, such as, ‘Down By The Old Mill Stream’, ‘Daisybelle’, ‘In The Good Old Summertime’ etc. There are
indications that some of the songs used were taken from Kraft Music Hall
broadcasts.
Special thanks are offered to George O’Reilly whose
generosity and tenacity of purpose, allowed access to
many shows that otherwise, I might never have heard.
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by Paul Douglas.
With John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal,
The Merry Macs, George Givot, Max Baer, Carole
Landis, Hugh Herbert, Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby and Don Ameche
(m.c.)
Jingle,
Jangle, Jingle
The Merry Macs
Triumphal
March from ‘Peter & The Wolf’ (Prokofiev) The John Scott Trotter Orchestra
*Johnny Doughboy Found A
Rose In Ireland
(a)
with
The Music Maids & Hal
Mad About
Him, Sad About Him, How Can I Be Glad
About Him Blues Dinah Shore
Note:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Bureau
Of Public Relations Show 30th August 1942 (75 mins) (S1)
Produced at National
Theatre, Washington, DC. Announced by Paul Douglas. With Dr Frank Black and the NBC Orchestra,
Kay Kyser and his Orchestra, Frank Ladd, Bert
Wheeler, Ginny Simms, Dinah Shore, Hedy Lamarr, Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, Connie Boswell,
James Cagney and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
Connie Boswell
*Clementine
with
The Music Maids
Embraceable You
Ginny
Simms
*Vaudeville Parody
with James Cagney
*Down By The Old Mill Stream
with
James Cagney
Jingle, Jangle,
Jingle
Kay Kyser & his
Orchestra with
Harry Babbitt & Julie Conway
(Vocal)
How Come You Do Me Like You Do?
Dinah Shore
Bolero (Ravel)
Larry
Adler (Harmonica)
*Basin Street Blues
with
Connie Boswell
*Stardust
Note: The programme
was edited to create Command Performances Nos.30 & 31 and a portion of No. 34
No. 30 30th August 1942 K
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Paul Douglas. With Dr Frank Black
and the NBC Orchestra, Kay Kyser and his
Orchestra, The Music Maids, Bert Wheeler, Hank Ladd, Larry Adler, James
Cagney and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
I Can’t
Give You Anything But Love
Connie
Boswell
*Clementine
(a)
with The Music
Maids & Kay Kyser and his Orchestra
*Vaudeville Parody
with James Cagney
*Down By The Old Mill
Stream
with James
Cagney
Note:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der
Bingle - Volume 5”
No. 31 30th August 1942 K
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Paul Douglas. With Dr Frank Black
and the NBC Orchestra, Kay Kyser and his Orchestra,
Connie Boswell, Hedy Lamarr,
Ish Kabibble, Bud Abbott
& Lou Costello and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Jingle,
Jangle, Jingle
Kay
Kyser & his Orchestra with
Harry Babbitt & Julie Conway (Vocal)
*Basin Street Blues
with Connie Boswell
*Stardust
(a)
Note:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5” (Shown as originating from Command
Performance No. 30)
NOTE: K The two programmes noted above were assembled
from - “The Bureau Of Public Relations Washington
Show”
No. 36 13th October 1942
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Don Wilson. With John Scott
Trotter and his Orchestra, The Charioteers, The Music
Maids & Hal, The Ambassadors, Mary Martin, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*You Are My Sunshine
(a) with The Music
Maids & Hal
Do It
Again!
Mary
Martin
*Wait Till The Sun
Shines Nellie
with
Mary Martin
Ride,
Red, Ride
The Charioteers (James Sherman - Piano)
I’ve Got A Gal In Kalamazoo
Dinah
Shore with The Ambassadors
*My Old Kentucky Home
(b) with Dinah Shore
*Medley:
(c) with Dinah Shore
One Dozen
Roses; Sleepy Lagoon; Put On Your Old
Grey
Bonnet; Blues In The Night, Honeysuckle Rose;
Deep
Purple; Only Forever; Three Little Words;
Always In My Heart.
*Stardust
*Where The Blue Of The
Night
(d)
Notes:
(a) Spokane
32 - “Der Bingle - Volume
5”
(b) This item does not appear on the AFRS listing.
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(c) Spokane 31 - “Bing & Dinah” Unaccompanied fragments - Titles in italics
are by
Dinah Shore only.
(d) A
few lines only at the close of the programme.
Christmas
Command Performance 1942 24th December 1942 (60 mins)
(S2)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With 20th Century Fox Orchestra conducted by
Alfred Newman, Kay Kyser and his Orchestra,
Spike Jones and his City Slickers, The Charioteers, Harriet Hilliard, Charles
Laughton, The Andrews Sisters, Red Skelton, Edgar
Bergen, Ginny Sims, Ethel Waters, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bing Crosby and Bob
Hope (m.c.)
Pennsylvania Polka
The Andrews Sisters
Jingle
Bells
Spike
Jones and his City Slickers
Saving
Myself For Bill
Ginny
Simms
*Basin Street Blues
with The Charioteers
Dinah
Ethel
Waters
Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition Kay Kyser & his
Orchestra with The Glee Club
Why Don’t
You Fall In Love With Me? Dinah
Shore
Friendship
Jack
Benny & Fred Allen
HOLLYWOOD––
People with umbrellas – and rain coats – stood in front of CBS. It was a drizzling
rain. But no-one’s spirits were dampened in the slightest.
“There
goes Bing Crosby” some one called – as Bing stepped out of a cab – and rushed to
the entrance.
It was
“Command Performance” night. The broadcast was to be heard not only from coast
to coast – but to all of our fighting men on all fighting fronts. It was an auspicious
occasion indeed.
Stars
on the broadcast were ones directly requested from letters from our soldiers and
sailors and marines – and of course the coast guard and air corps – all branches
of the service.
Several
men in uniform stood hopefully and wistfully by the ticket window. The house
was a sell-out. Although all tickets are free.
Fortunately
our party had one extra ticket. We handed it to the nearest soldier and how his
face lighted – when he accepted the ducat that would permit him to go inside.
The entire
downstairs is reserved for service men and their ladies. We sat on the top row
of the top balcony – which a decade ago – might have been called “nigger heaven.”
Bob Hope was master of ceremonies.
You might know he’d be chosen.
Bing
Crosby – whom Bob introduced as “The Groaner” – sang songs. Red Skelton and Harriet
Hilliard presented a skit. The Three Andrews Sisters – were a trio of glamour –
with their bright colored hair and dresses. The boys in uniform – see uniforms all
day in camp. They want girls to be ultra-feminine – with gay pretty dresses – and
the girls oblige by leaving their tailored suits at home.
Edgar
Bergen and Charlie McCarthy presented a skit with Charles Laughton and Dinah
Shore, who had George Montgomery waiting for her at the stage door – sang. So did Ethel Waters, the chocolate
singer of blues songs. Ethel sang her famed “Dinah.” The Charioteers male chorus
and Spike (Der Fuehrer’s Face’) Jones and his City Slickers – were part of the
star-studded show.
Kay Kyser
got a big hand when he and his men played “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.”
And
did everyone watch to see what would happen when Miss Ginny Simms – formerly with
Kay’s orchestra – and in Kay’s heart – appeared for a song! After the show – which
lasted a full hour – Ginny and the boys of Kyser’s band – had a hand-shaking spree
on the stage. But Kay seemed to disappear from sight.
Presented
by the war department in cooperation with the office of war information – these
command performances heretofore have only been aired shortwave by transcription
for service men on the foreign fronts.
Fred Allen
and Jack Benny joined the broadcast from New York.
As Bob
Hope said, “If we don’t please folks tonight with all these Hollywood names we’d
just as well pack our suitcases and go back where we started from.”
It was
a grand show – and everyone’s hoping “Command Performance” will have another public
appearance.
Out
in the rain – and throngs of people – waiting to see the stars leave. CBS has front entrance and departure. It’s a cinch
to see the stars – who can’t run out the back stage door. Bob Hope received a wild round of applause and
he stood in the rain – signing autographs.
And
that’s Hollywood!
(May Mann’s Going Hollywood, The Ogden Standard–Examiner, January 21, 1943)
‘The War Department on Christmas
Eve gave domestic listeners their first taste of a series that had been going
out to the Armed Forces on short-wave for 43 consecutive weeks. The purpose of
the special occasion as Elmer Davis, Office of War Information chief, expressed
it in a forward to the show, was to forge a link between the servicemen abroad
and the folks on the Home Front. A
recorded version of the show was short-waved, all over the world, the next
day….Hope emceed, tossed off a monologue and cross-fired with Crosby. A special treat in the vocal department was
the version of ‘Basin Street Blues’ that came out of the tonsil partnership of
Bing Crosby and The Charioteers’
(“Variety” 30th December 1942)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With Kay Kyser and
his Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal, The
Charioteers, ‘Brenda and Cobina’, Victor Borge, Jose Iturbi, Bing Crosby and Kay Kyser
(m.c.)
Further details
unknown.
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unknown orchestra, The Music Maids &
Phil, The Merry Macs, The Charioteers, Richard Crooks, Pat O’Malley, Martha O’Driscoll, Janet Blair and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Abraham
(a) with The Music
Maids & Phil and The Charioteers
Embraceable You
Janet
Blair
The Lion And Albert (Edgar)
Pat
O’Malley (Madge O’Malley - Piano)
Ave Maria
(Schubert)
Richard
Crooks
*De Camptown Races
(b) with Richard Crooks
*Beautiful
Dreamer
(c)
with Richard Crooks
Brazil
The Merry Macs
*Miss You
(a)
Notes:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5”
(b)
Delos CD DE5501 "Richard
Crooks: Opera Arias / Songs (1925-1945)"
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(c) Delos CD DE5501 "Richard Crooks: Opera Arias / Songs (1925-1945)"
Any time the old groaner,
Bing Crosby, feels like singing, he can be sure of a ready-made audience. So,
for that matter, can Richard Crooks, star of ‘Voice of Firestone’. Put the two
together and what do you have? A ‘command performance’.
Also some darn good harmony. Also a priceless record.
But that’s the last line of this story.
Earlier this year, the two
silver throats stood before a group of servicemen on the West Coast as talent
on the shortwaved program, Command Performance. Bing did his stuff on a couple of hits and
Crooks sang ‘Ave Maria’. When they tried to leave, the boys clamored for more,
preferably a duet.
“What’ll we do?” asked
Crooks. Bing suggested Stephen Foster’s ‘Camptown
Races’. That suited Crooks, so they began, completely unrehearsed, while
Meredith Willson’s men filled in. Sometimes Bing
carried the melody, sometimes Crooks. Sometimes they both jumped to the
harmony, at which points the orchestra heightened the melody.
Nowadays, one of Crooks’
prized possessions, played for friends with a great deal of needle lifting, is
the single battered record of this high-class, hilarious jam session.
(Bob
Bentley, The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 12, 1943)
No. 54 24th February 1943 - A Tribute To The British Army
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Harry Von Zell. With AAF Orchestra conducted by Major Eddie Dunstedter, (Guest conductor - Meredith Willson), The Music Maids & Phil, Carmen Miranda, Dinah
Shore, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c)
Moonlight
Becomes You
Dinah
Shore
*It’s A Long Way To Tipperary
(a)
(b) with Dinah Shore
Stairway To The Stars
The
AAF Orchestra
O Tic Tac Do Meo
Coracao
Carmen
Miranda
*You Are My Sunshine
(b) with The Music
Maids
*It Ain’t Necessarily So
(a) (c) with Dinah Shore & Orchestra conducted by
Meredith Willson
Notes:
(a) Spokane 31 - “Bing & Dinah”
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(b) V-Disc
No. 24-B
(c) V-Disc No. 2-A
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With John Scott
Trotter and his Orchestra, The Charioteers, The Music Maids & Phil, Bob Burns,
Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Great Day
(a) with The Music
Maids & Phil
Taking A Chance On Love
Dinah
Shore
Smiles
(Roberts)
Bob
Burns (Bazooka)
Were You
There When They Crucified My Lord The Charioteers (James Sherman - Piano)
*Medley:
(b)
Margie; Tangerine; Somebody Else Is Taking My
Place; with Dinah Shore
I Love
You Truly; Conchita Marquita Lopez;
I’ll Be With
You In Apple Blossom Time; Basin Street Blues; Dear Mom;
Blues In The Night
*Easter Parade
(c) with Dinah Shore
*As Time Goes By
(d)
Notes:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5”
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(b) Spokane
31 - “Bing & Dinah” (Parodied fragments - titles in italics by Dinah Shore only)
(c) Spokane 31 - “Bing & Dinah”
(d) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5”
No. 71 19th June 1943 - Dedicated To The British Commonwealth
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra, The
Murphy Sisters, ‘Baby Snooks & Daddy’ (Fanny
Brice & Hanley Stafford), Mel Blanc, Ziggy
Talent, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby (m.c.’s)
I Don’t
Want Anybody At All
Dinah
Shore
When I
Grow Up
Vaughn
Monroe Orch (Ziggy Talent -
Vocal)
*It Can’t Be Wrong
(a)
Let’s Get
Lost
Vaughn
Monroe Orch (Vaughn Monroe & The Murphy Sisters Vocal)
*Summertime
(b) with Dinah Shore
Notes:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5”
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(b) Spokane
31 - “Bing & Dinah”
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With AFRS
Orchestra, Harry James and his Orchestra, Trudy Erwin, Leo ‘Ukie
‘Sherin, Artur Rubinstein,
Betty Grable and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Wait For Me, Mary
(a) with Trudy Erwin
The Right
Kind Of Love
Harry
James Orch (Helen Forrest - Vocal)
*My Melancholy Baby
with Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin (Ukulele)
Ritual
Fire Dance (De Falla)
Artur Rubinstein (Piano)
Back Beat
Boogie
Harry
James Orchestra
*I Never Mention Your Name
(b)
Notes:
(a) Spokane
23 - “Bing & Trudy - On The Air”
(b) Spokane
32 - “Der Bingle - Volume
5”
No. 81 28th August 1943
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With Kay Kyser and his Orchestra, Pinto Colvig,
Julia Conway, Georgia Carroll, Sully Mason, Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante and
Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Embraceable You/The Man I Love
Judy
Garland
Ma! He’s
Making Eyes At Me
Kay
Kyser Orchestra
*Sunday, Monday Or
Always
(a)
*Inka Dinka Doo
(b) with Jimmy Durante
*Medley:
(c)
You Made
Me Love You; I Remember You; That Old
with Judy Garland
Black
Magic; I’m Always Chasing Rainbows; Over
The
Rainbow; Moonlight Becomes You; Why Don’t
You Do
Right?; This Love Of Mine; You’d Be So
Nice To Come
Home To; Three O’Clock In The
Morning; Where The Blue
Of The
Night; Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life; I Ain’t Got
Nobody; It’s A Great
Day For The Irish
*People Will Say We’re
In Love
(d) with Judy Garland
Notes:
(a) Spokane
32 - “Der Bingle - Volume
5”
(b) Natasha
Imports NI-4026 (CD) - “Jimmy Durante - September Song” (Bing’s contribution is
minimal)
(c) Parodied
fragments only. Titles in italics are by
Judy Garland only.
(d) JSP 965 4-CD set - “Judy Garland – The Lost Recordings 1929-1959”
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
JSP977B CD "Judy Garland - Classic Duets"
Produced in Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With AFRS
Orchestra, The Charioteers, Tony Romano, Frances Langford, Bing Crosby and Bob
Hope (m.c.)
You’ll
Never Know
Frances
Langford
Pistol Packin’ Mama
The Charioteers
You’re
Priceless
Tony
Romano (Guitar & Vocal)
*On Moonlight Bay
(a) with The
Charioteers
*These Foolish Things
with
Frances Langford
Note:
(a) Spokane
32 - “Der Bingle - Volume
5”
The
Bing Crosby Christmas Album
Christmas 1943 (15 mins) (S3)
*Jingle
Bells (commercial recording used)
with The
Andrews Sisters
*Adeste Fideles
*Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
(commercial recording) with
The Andrews Sisters
*Silent
Night
*White
Christmas
No. 97 18th December 1943 (a)
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With The 370th
Army Air Force Band conducted by M/Sgt. Skinnay
Ennis, The Charioteers, Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby (m.c.’s)
Over
There
Ken
Carpenter
*Mr. Gallagher And
Mr. Shean (parody) with
Dinah Shore & Ken Carpenter
*Basin Street Blues
(b) with The Charioteers (James Sherman - Piano)
*Mr. Gallagher And
Mr. Shean (parody) with
Dinah Shore
How Deep
Is The Ocean?
Dinah
Shore
I’m An
Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande) Dinah Shore with Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin (Ukulele)
*San Antonio Rose
with
Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin (Ukulele)
Home On The Range
Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin
*Empty Saddles
with
Dinah Shore & Leo ‘Ukie’ Sherin
(Ukulele)
Shoo Shoo Baby
(b) The Charioteers (James Sherman - Piano)
*Medley:
(c)
Little
Brown Jug; When You Wore A Tulip; I
Want with
Dinah Shore
A Girl
Just Like The Girl; Put Your Arms Around Me
Honey; Pistol Packin’
Mama; I Can’t Give You Anything
But Love, Baby; Blues In The Night; Where The Blue Of
The
Night; Jim; White Christmas; I’ll See You In My Dreams;
Lover,
Come Back To Me; Little Brown Jug
*Oh! What A Beautiful
Morning
with
Dinah Shore
Notes:
(a) The
complete programme was issued on Spokane 31 - “Bing &
Dinah”
(b) JASCD
714 "Swing Low, Sweet Charioteers"
(c) Parodied fragments. Titles in italics by Dinah Shore only
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With John Scott
Trotter Orchestra, Ticker Freeman, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore (m.c.)
Blues In The Night
Dinah
Shore
Speak
Low
Frank
Sinatra
*Candlelight & Wine
(a)
with
John Scott Trotter (Piano)
*Medley:
(b)
Little Sir
Echo; This Is The
Guy; Was That The Human with
Frank Sinatra & J.S. Trotter (piano)
Thing To Do?; The Last Round-Up;
If I Had My Way;
Pony Boy; Falling In
Love Again; I Wonder What’s Become
Of Sally; It Makes No Difference Now; I
Heard You Cried
Last Night; The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze;
Learn To
Croon; Dinah; Stardust; Sunday,
Monday Or
Always; Deep Purple
*People Will Say We’re
In Love
with
Frank Sinatra
Note:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(b) Parodied fragments only. Titles in italics are by Frank Sinatra only.
Somebody wrote a script for the Bing
Crosby - Frank Sinatra radio broadcast last night, but the two singers found
the document valuable chiefly as something to deviate from as they rollicked
through a 40-minute program and kept a capacity studio audience skittering from
chuckles to chortles to forthright guffaws.
Vocalist Dinah Shore made some remark
about Sinatra having plenty of backbone to get where he is.
“Sure,” said Bing, “far as I can see,
the guy is all backbone” – which he wasn’t supposed to say at all. Then Frankie
spoke unkindly about Bing’s stomach, which really isn’t very pronounced, and
said he wished he had it full of war bonds, which wasn’t in the script either.
Most of the asides were drowned by
studio laughter. But they were picked up by the microphone and will be heard by
the troops overseas, for whom the broadcast was staged. It was a “command
performance” program at CBS under sponsorship of the Armed Forces Radio Service
and was not released for United States consumption.
Press agents had billed the encounter
as a baritones’ battle of the century but if it was a fight, both Crosby and
Sinatra seemed to have a lot of fun waging it.
Barring an impromptu duet on a local
golf course last Sunday, inspired by their success in selling war bonds, it was
the first appearance together of these two crooners, who have become close
friends in the last few months.
After sparring around a while with
Crosby singing excerpts from songs Frankie has popularized and Sinatra
reciprocating, they joined in a duet of “People Will Say We’re In Love”.
Frankie who has taken a lot of kidding
about his frail-looking physique, enjoyed a joke at his own expense. Maj.
Meredith Willson, conducting an army orchestra, suggested that Frank elevate
the microphone slightly.
“I’ll do it if I can lift it,” Frank
responded, and Bing laughed and laughed.
(James Lindsley, writing in the Hollywood Citizen News, February 2, 1944)
In 1943 and 1944 and 1945, Bing
and Frank made more benefit appearances, did
more radio shows for soldier
and sailor consumption than either
has been able to remember or account for. A
series of appearances on the most glamorous
of the service shows, Command Performance, drew devastating laughter
from studio audiences and similar response from the
boys for whom they were intended. The fan mail received from
camps and bases overseas was understandably heavy and enthusiastic. Take
the second anniversary show of Command Performance.
Dinah Shore was mistress of
ceremonies. She introduced Frank, seriously, decorously. He
sang Speak Low. She introduced Bing
with well-weighed words about
his importance as a singer and a personality, as an
institution. He sang Candlelight and Wine. Then
came the talk, fast talk, much of it very
funny, all of it beautifully timed by some of the most
practiced entertainers in the business, by the three
biggest singers of the time.
“You know, Bing,” Dinah said,
“a singer like Frank Sinatra comes along only once in a lifetime.”
“Yeah.” Bing responded ruefully with
the famous line that has been placed in a hundred other
contexts and used several times by Bing himself and
that actually originated in this fast ad lib interchange
on Command Performance. “Yeah, and he
has to come along in my lifetime!”
“No, no, Bing,” Dinah
protested. “He’s quite a man, really.”
“I know.”
“He has a lot of backbone,”
Dinah continued.
“He’s all backbone,” Bing commented.
“Well, how about your pot
tummy, Dad?” Frank asked.
“It’s not so big,” said Bing.
“1’d like to have it full
of war bonds,” said Frank.
Then the singers told each other
how much each genuinely admired the other’s singing,
with serious asides to Dinah to give their
fulsome mutual praise conviction. To keep it
from becoming maudlin, too lush
or gushy, in spite of the honesty of
their stated opinions, they launched a duet, singing a
big song of the year, a wonderfully apposite song, People
Will Say We’re in Love. Everybody in the audience and
on the show, including Bing and Frank, broke up.
Followed a skit in Scottish
dialect, in which they played Crooner McCrosby and
Swooner MacSinatra,
each vying for Dinah McShore’s hand. The forced
moments and the poor dialect were quickly compensated for
by the ensuing battle of songs between the two men. Sinatra
sang I Wonder What’s Become of Crosby, the Sinatra
of 1909. When Frank sang Stardust, Bing
commented wryly, “That’s my song. I introduced it in
1904. It was very big for me in Des Moines.”
The loose, relaxed, informal
nature of that show on February
1, 1944, was the proper carry-over from the
open golf tournament and bond auction of the day before at
Lakeside.
(Barry Ulanov, The
Incredible Crosby, pages 226-227)
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by
Ken Carpenter. With
unidentified Orchestra, Myrtle Cooper & Scott Wiseman (‘Lulubelle
& Scotty’), Shirley Mitchell, Yehudi Menuhin,
Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Mexicali Rose
Sunday
Monday Or Always
Shirley
Mitchell
Unknown
composition
Yehudi Menuhin (Violin)
Does Your
Spearmint Lose Its Flavour
On The Bedpost Overnight? ‘Lulu Belle & Scotty’
It’s
Love, Love, Love
Dinah
Shore
*Medley:
(a)
She’ll Be
Comin’ Round The Mountain;
I’m Forever with Dinah Shore
Blowing
Bubbles; Put Your Arms Around Me Honey;
I Like Mountain Music; Alone; Why Don’t You Fall
In Love With Me?; As Time Goes By; Take It Easy;
I’ll Be Home For Christmas; In
The Evening By The
Moonlight; Your Feets’ Too Big; These Foolish
Things; Let The Rest Of The World Go By
*Dancing In The Dark
with
Dinah Shore
Note:
(a) Parodied fragments. Titles in italics are by Dinah Shore only.
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, The Music Maids, Gypsy Rose Lee,
Betty Hutton, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c.)
*Swinging On A Star
(a) with The Music
Maids
Pig Foot
Pete
Betty
Hutton
*Long Ago And Far Away
(a)
*‘Schoolroom’ Sketch
(b)
*A Pretty Girl Is Like A
Melody
Notes:
(a) Spokane
32 - “Der Bingle - Volume
5”
(b) The sketch involves the
cast singing parodied fragments of songs (sometimes only one line). Ken Carpenter plays the schoolteacher and
piano accompaniment is provided by Ticker Freeman. Titles used include, ‘I’ll Get By’, ‘The
World Is Waiting For The Sunrise’ & ‘Say A Prayer For The Boys Over There’
- Bing Crosby; ‘Did I Get Stinkin’ At The Club Savoy’
& ‘They’re Either Too Young Or Too Old’ - Betty Hutton; ‘When The Lights Go
On Again All Over The World’ - Bob Hope; ‘I Want My Mama’ - Gypsy Rose Lee
No. 122 3rd June 1944 (a)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bing
Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c.)
The
Dixieland Band
Judy
Garland
*I Love You (Porter)
All The Things You Are
Frank
Sinatra
*You Are My Sunshine
(b) with Frank Sinatra
*You’re The Top
(b) with Frank Sinatra & Bob Hope
*Sonny Boy
(b) with Frank Sinatra & Bob Hope
*You’re The Top (reprise)
(b) with Frank Sinatra & Bob Hope
*Something To Remember You By
(c) with Judy Garland
Notes:
(a) The complete programme
was issued on Tandem Records LP-1903 “Mail Call” and on Laserlight
15413 (CD) - “Mail Call” and as part of Radiospirits 40062 (6-CD set) “On The Road Again”.
(b) Parodied
versions.
Hallmark
303372 (CD) - “Bing Crosby & Friends - The Radio Years”
(c) JSP 965 4-CD set - “Judy Garland – The Lost Recordings 1929-1959”
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
JSP977B CD "Judy Garland - Classic Duets"
One place where
the trio let themselves go is on “Command Performance,” the GI radio show. The
insults and lowerations flow fast and furious. Bing and Frank were warbling off
a duet, for instance, the other day for the soldiers, Cole Porter’s “You’re the
Top.” Suddenly Bing heard Frank change the lyrics. “You’re the top,” Frank
sang, “you’re the head canary!” Bing thought that was pretty nice. But the next
line showed Frank was just suckering him. “You’re the top,” he chanted, “though
your top ain’t hairy!” That’s Bing’s real weakness, his shiny head of vanishing
fuzz.
(Modern
Screen, October 1944)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, Shirley Ross, Lena Horne, Lotte Lehmann, Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, Frank
Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Connie Haines (m.c.)
Gee, I
Love My GI Guy
Connie
Haines
Good For Nothing Joe
Lena
Horne
Thanks For The Memory
Shirley
Ross
Brahms Lullaby
Lotte Lehmann
I’ll Be
Seeing You
Frances
Langford
*If I Had My Way (Parody)
with Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope
& Jerry Colonna
Note:
(a) The complete programme was issued on HLC
Records 6647 (CD) – “Crosby In Command”
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, Harpo
Marx, Gary Cooper, Georgia Gibbs, Ann Miller, Bing Crosby and Jack Benny (m.c.)
*You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby (a)
Stormy
Weather
Georgia
Gibbs
*My Blue Heaven
(b)
with
Harpo Marx (Harp)
*One Alone
(c)
Note:
(a) Spokane 32 - “Der Bingle - Volume 5”
(b) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(c) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, The Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland
and Bing Crosby (m.c.’s)
*Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?
with
The Andrews Sisters
Long Ago And Far Away
Judy
Garland
Medley
- ‘Your All Time Flop Parade’: (a)
*Yachting
Hammacher Schlemmer
Judy Garland
K-K-K-Katie (parody)
The
Andrews Sisters
Yes, We
Have No Bananas
Unidentified
vocalist
*Thanks For The Memory (b)
*I’ll Remember April
*Medley:
(c) with Judy Garland & Sgt. Gene
Plummer (Piano)
Hand Me Down My Walking Cane (parody);
De Camptown Races (parody); Beyond The Blue Horizon;
The Music Stopped; My Old Kentucky Home;
Alabamy Bound; Goodnight, Wherever You Are
Notes:
(a) The
complete medley was issued on Curtain Calls No. 100/2 - “Both Sides Of Bing Crosby”
(b) Unaccompanied
fragment
(c) Fragments only. Titles in italics by Judy Garland only
Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
JSP977B CD "Judy Garland - Classic Duets"
No. 142 14th October 1944 - Highlights Of 1944 (a)
Produced In
Hollywood.
Announced by and m.c.
Ken Carpenter. With various Orchestras,
Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Groucho Marx, Bob Hope,
Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, Ziggy Elman, Les Paul, Judy Garland, The Andrews Sisters
and Bing Crosby.
Life’s Full Of Consequence
Lena
Horne & Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson
Long Ago And Far Away
Dinah
Shore
Lydia, The Tattooed Lady
Groucho
Marx
Honeysuckle Rose
(b) Ensemble
*Going My Way
Dena
Danny
Kaye
*Medley:
Your All Time Flop Parade (c) with Judy Garland
& The Andrews Sisters
Notes:
(a) This
was an ‘assembled’ programme
(b) The
ensemble consisted of Tommy Dorsey (Trombone); Artie Shaw (Clarinet); Ziggy Elman
(Trumpet); Illinois Jacquet (Tenor Sax); Lionel Hampton (Vibraphone); Ed
McKinney (Bass);
Les Paul (Guitar) and
Buddy Rich (Drums)
(c) Dubbed from Command
Performance No. 129
Swinging Round The Clock October 1944 (a) (60 mins) (S5)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Don Wilson. With the Orchestras of Count Basie, Jimmy
Dorsey, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Kay Kyser,
Gene Krupa, Vaughn Monroe and Tommy Dorsey, Spike
Jones and his City Slickers, Louis Jordan and his Tympany
Five, Ella Mae Morse, Ginny Simms, Lena Horne and Bing Crosby.
Grand
Central Getaway
Jimmy
Dorsey Orchestra
Patty
Cake Man
Ella
Mae Morse
Is You Is
Or Is You Ain’t My Baby
Louis Jordan (Vocal) & his Tympany Five)
I’ll Get By
Harry
James Orchestra (Buddy Moreno - Vocal)
Milkman
Keep Those Bottles Quiet
Kay
Kyser Orchestra (Sully Mason - Vocal)
‘Deed I
Do
Lena
Horne
Air Mail
Special
Benny
Goodman Orchestra
*Swinging On A Star
(b) with The Charioteers & The Music
Maids
Dance With A Dolly
Ginny
Simms with The Bombardiers
Amen
Woody
Herman (Vocal) with his Orchestra
Amor
Tommy
Dorsey Orchestra & The Sentimentalists
Drumboogie
Gene
Krupa Orchestra
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
Johnny Mercer
with The Pied Pipers
Lili Marlene
Vaughn
Monroe (Vocal) with his Orchestra
Holiday For Strings
Spike
Jones & his City Slickers
Jumping
At The Woodside
Count
Basie Orchestra
Notes:
(a) An
‘assembled’ programme designed for transmission on
New Year’s Eve
(b) Probably
from Command Performance No. 44
No. 154 16th December 1944 (a)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unidentified Orchestra, The Stan Kenton
Orchestra, The Andrews Sisters, Lauren Bacall, Stan Kenton, Bing Crosby and Bob
Hope (m.c.)
Rum And Coca Cola
The
Andrews Sisters
And Her Tears
Flowed Like Wine
Stan
Kenton Orchestra (Anita O’Day - vocal)
*More And More
*Don’t Fence Me In
with The Andrews Sisters
Note:
(a) The
complete programme was issued on Tulip TLP-108 -
“Bing Crosby Command Performance/Music Hall”
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unidentified
Orchestra, The Andrews Sisters, Ann Sheridan, Benny Goodman Quartet, Bing
Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c.)
*Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
with
The Andrews Sisters
*More And More
Rachel’s
Dream
Benny
Goodman Quartet
*Brahms' Lullaby
(a)
*Put It There Pal
with
Bob Hope
Note:
(a) A
capella included in comedy
routine
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unidentified
Orchestra, Edward Arnold, Carmen Miranda, Jack Carson, Bing Crosby and Gloria
de Haven (m.c.)
The Man I
Love
Gloria
de Haven
Tico Tico
Carmen
Miranda
The Music
Stopped (Parody)
Jack
Carson
*Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral
No. 162 15th February 1945 - Dick Tracy In B
Flat
(a) (60 mins)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Harry Von Zell. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Jerry
Colonna, Bob Hope, Frank Morgan, Judy Garland, The Andrews Sisters, Jimmy
Durante, Frank Sinatra and Cass Daley.
*Happy, Happy, Happy Wedding Day (Overture) with Cast
*Whose Dream Are You?
*Barnacle Bill The
Sailor (Parody)
with
Dinah Shore
Tess’s
Torch Song (Parody)
Dinah
Shore
You’re
The Top (Parody)
Bob
Hope
A
Wandering Minstrel I (Parody)
Frank
Morgan
The Music
Goes ‘Round And ‘Round (Parody) Jimmy Durante
Over The
Rainbow (Parody)
Judy
Garland
I’m
Strong For You
Judy
Garland & Bob Hope
*Whose Dream Are You? Reprise)
I’ll Be With You In
Apple Blossom Time
The
Andrews Sisters
*All The Things You Are
(Parody)
with
Frank Sinatra
*Sunday, Monday Or
Always (Parody)
with
Frank Sinatra & Bob Hope
The
Trolley Song
Cass
Daley
*Happy, Happy, Happy Wedding Day (Finale)
with Cast
I’m
Strong For You
(b) Bob Hope
I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time (Parody) (b) The
Andrews Sisters
The Music
Goes ‘Round And ‘Round (Parody) (b) Jimmy Durante
The
Trolley Song (Parody)
(b) Cass Daley
All The Things You Are (Parody)
(b) Frank Sinatra
Meet Me In St. Louis (Parody)
(b) Judy Garland & Frank Morgan with
Chorus
*Whose Dream Are You?
(b) with Dinah
Shore & Chorus
(a) The complete programme was
issued on the following:
For Collectors Only 100B - “Bing Crosby - For Collectors Only”;
Scarce Rarities Productions SR5504 - “Dick Tracy In B Flat”;
Pro-Arte CD505 (CD) - “The Original Dick Tracy”;
EMI Comedy 7243 53950927 (CD)
“Dick Tracy In B Flat”; and as part of Radiospirits
40062 (6-CD set) “On The Road Again”.
(b) These items represent ‘curtain calls’ from the main members of the cast
as they are introduced, individually, at the close of the programme by Harry
Von Zell.
Waxing the Comics: Our invitation to the Command Performance read 9:30
p.m. but the show didn’t really get under way until 9:40, as Frank Sinatra was
busy over on Dinah Shore’s program. When it did get going, friends, you
couldn’t buy a show like that for five cool millions and yet every week
Hollywood stars give their time rehearsing hour upon hour for a request radio
program for the boys overseas.
This was a special night however, for the boys had requested a Dick
Tracy show with stars taking the parts of the various comic strip characters.
And how’s this for a line-up: Bing Crosby as Tracy, Bob Hope as Flattop , Frank
Sinatra as Shaky, Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart, Frank Morgan as Vitamin
Flintheart, Jimmy Durante as the Mole, the Andrews Sisters as the Summer
Sisters, Cass Daley as Gravel Gertie, Judy Garland as Snowflake, Jerry Colonna
as the Chief? From the western front to the Philippines, in remote bases over
the world, on ships at sea, in hospitals and at the very fronts, the boys will
hear this side-splitting show — one of 125 such programs that have been made
exclusively for them.
“Heavens, but I’m nervous,” Hope screamed from the stage, which, of
course, was ridiculous. The script, highly seasoned, brought roars of laughter
from the invitational audience. The actors kidded Bing’s baldness, Frankie’s
slenderness and Hope’s weight. At one point Bing produced a picture of Hope
clad only in long underwear which was passed among the audience to Hope’s
open-mouthed astonishment. First time Cal ever saw Bob stopped. Frank Morgan in
a horrible fur coat exactly like Vitamin’s, and carrying the usual cigaret
holder, was a riot. At one point they altered Durante’s script and the look on
his face as he read the risque line was so paralyzing neither Hope nor Crosby
could continue for five minutes. What an evening!
(Photoplay, May, 1945)
In Hollywood on February 15, 1945 Bing, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and a
notable cast put on the most gala performance of a Dick Tracy story ever known
to radio. The occasion was an Armed Forces Radio Service Command Performance,
which records programmes for the United States troops overseas. Bing played the
square-jawed detective Dick Tracy. Hope played the villainous Flat-Top and
Sinatra, the despicable Shaky. The title of the show was “Dick Tracy in B Flat”
or “For Goodness Sake Isn’t He Ever Going to Marry Tess Trueheart?” The show
managed to do what Tracy’s creator, cartoonist Chester Gould, had never done -
marry Tracy to Tess.
The act opened with a Tracy - Tess wedding scene and song - “Oh Happy,
Happy, Happy Wedding Day” which faded into the sound of an auto, the squeal of
tyres, a machine gun burst and three pistol shots. Subsequent wedding scenes
were interrupted by a bank robbery, a kidnapping and a hold-up with 13 people
killed. Most of the songs were clever parodies and the entire show was one big
laugh from beginning to end. However, the programmes best moment was not in the
script and was never heard on the air!
Unplanned and unrehearsed Bing whipped out a photograph of Bob hidden in
his script, and handed it to a sailor in the first row of the audience. Hope was terrified lest it
be an embarrassing shot which Bing had been threatening to show of him. Hope
almost dived over the footlights to retrieve it. Bing tried to restrain him.
The blushing Hope tore the photo out of the sailor’s hand. Bing made as if to
kick him, while Sinatra and the rest of the cast howled with laughter. Hope
examined the photo and discovered to his great relief that it was just a
harmless photo of himself, wrapped sarong-fashion in a sheet!
(The Crosby Collector magazine, July, 1966)
Produced in
Hollywood in CBS Studio A.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Major
Meredith Willson, Marilyn Maxwell, The Charioteers, Lionel Barrymore, Dame May Whitty, Johnny Mercer and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*This Heart Of Mine
(b)
Saturday
Night (Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week) Marilyn Maxwell
*Mr. Crosby And Mr.
Mercer
with
Johnny Mercer
*Dear Old Girl
with
The Charioteers
*The Fifth Marines
Notes:
(a) The complete programme was issued on HLC Records 6647 (CD) – “Crosby In Command”
(b) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unidentified
Orchestra, Lauritz Melchior, Jimmy Durante and Bing
Crosby (m.c.)
*My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time
*A Little On The Lonely
Side
Mattinata (Leoncavello)
Lauritz Melchior
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
Lauritz Melchior
Down By The O-Hi-O (Parody)
Jimmy
Durante & Lauritz Melchior
*After Awhile
VE
Day Show May
1945 (30 mins)
(S6) (a)
Produced in
Hollywood.
With AFRS Orchestra, “GI Jill” (Martha Wilkerson) , The Ken Darby
Singers, Dinah Shore, Frances Langford, Ginny Simms, Johnny Mercer, Judy
Garland, Loretta Young, Charles Boyer, Lin Yu Tang, Herbert Marshall, Michael
Chekhov, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (m.c.’s)
America The Beautiful
The
Ken Darby Singers
*Praise The Lord And
Pass The Ammunition
with
The Ken Darby Singers
This Is The Army, Mister Jones
Frances
Langford
I’ve Been
Working On The Railroad
Dinah
Shore with The Ken Darby Singers
Don’t Sit
Under The Apple Tree
Ginny
Simms
Gee Mom I
Want To Go Home
Dinah
Shore with The Ken Darby Singers
The G.I.
Jive
Johnny
Mercer
The
Battle Hymn Of The Republic (Parody)
Frances Langford, Dinah
Shore & Ginny Simms with The Ken Darby Singers
Medley: We’re Off To See The Wizard (Parody);
I’ve Got
Sixpence; Bless ‘Em All
Judy Garland with The Ken Darby Singers
The Beer
Barrel Polka
Bob
Hope with The Ken Darby Singers and cast
*Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer
(b)
with
The Ken Darby Singers
Old
Hundredth Doxology
The Ken Darby Singers
*The Battle Hymn Of The
Republic
with
The Ken Darby Singers
Notes:
(a) This programme of thanksgiving is not included in the AFRS listing of Command Performances, nor is an exact date of transcription or broadcast known. Regardless of possibly more specific classification, the compiler believes that it is of sufficient importance in the official wartime broadcasts of Bing Crosby to merit entry herein. Of course, this excuse would be superfluous if any significance can be attached to the fact that the Command Performance of the 15th August was entitled “Victory Extra”.
(b) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
…Servicemen also
heard a special V. E. Day program featuring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frances
Langford, Dinah Shore, Loretta Young, Ginny Simms, Judy Garland, “G.I. Jill,”
and Johnny Mercer. The V-E Day “Special” was a serious half-hour of familiar
music, reverential reading, and comment on the war situation, emphasizing that
now the fighting job is just half finished.
(Hollywood Citizen News,
May 8, 1945)
Produced in
Hollywood. Announced by Ken Carpenter.
With unidentified Orchestra, Ella Mae Morse, “GI Jill” (Martha
Wilkerson), Spike Jones and his City Slickers, Tommy Dorsey and Bing Crosby (m.c)
*Sentimental Journey
Stardust
Tommy
Dorsey (Trombone)
Cow Cow Boogie
Ella
Mae Morse
Chloe
Spike
Jones & his City Slickers with Red Ingle
Medley:
*Don’t Fence Me In
*Paper Doll
*I’ll Walk Alone
I’m
Getting Sentimental Over You
Spike Jones & his City Slickers, with Tommy Dorsey (Trombone)
*I’ll Be Seeing You
Command
Performance - Victory Extra 15th August
1945 (a) (120 mins) (S7)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra, with Martha Wilkerson
(‘GI Jill’), Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Lionel Barrymore, Janet Blair,
Claudette Colbert, John Conte, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Jimmy Durante,
Jinx Falkenburg, Greer Garson, Ed Gardner, Cary
Grant, Rita Hayworth, Lena Horne, Ruth Hussey, Jose Iturbi, Danny Kaye, The
King Sisters, Diana Lewis, Ida Lupino, Herbert
Marshall, Bill Mauldin, Marilyn Maxwell, Johnny Mercer, Burgess Meredith,
Carmen Miranda, George Montgomery,
Robert Montgomery, William Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Lina Romay, Ginger
Rogers, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Frank Sinatra, Risë
Stevens, Claire Trevor, Orson Welles, Ernest Whitman, Don Wilson, Loretta
Young, Harry Von Zell and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Ave Maria
(Schubert)
Risë Stevens
I’ll Walk
Alone
Dinah
Shore
Polonaise
in A Flat Op.33, No. 6 (Chopin)
Jose
Iturbi (Piano)
You’d Be
So Nice To Come Home To
Ginny Simms
*Medley:
You Are
My Sunshine (Parody)
with
Frank Sinatra
Sonny Boy
(Parody)
You’re
The Top (Parody)
The House
I Live In
Frank
Sinatra
What Is
This Thing Called Love?
Janet
Blair
*San Fernando Valley
Shoo Shoo Baby
The King Sisters
The Man I
Love
Lena
Horne
The G.I.
Jive
Johnny
Mercer
The Lobby
Song
Danny
Kaye
I’ve Got
Rhythm
Marilyn
Maxwell
Tico Tico
Carmen
Miranda
*White Christmas
Note:
(a) An edited version of the programme was issued on Radiola MR-1100 - “Command Performance - Victory Extra” - and Radiola CDMR1100 (CD) - “Command Performance - Victory Extra”. (Neither of these issues includes the rendition of ‘White Christmas’)
…Crosby, who sang three songs in
terrific voice, traded quips with Frank Sinatra and handled the introductions,
providing a necessary note of average-Joe understatement in stark contrast to
the mannered oratory of such actors as Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and
Robert Montgomery. The show begins as the announcer, Ken Carpenter, proclaims the Victory Extra to prerecorded shouts,
applause, and the strains of “Over There." Crosby introduces himself:
"What can you say at a time like this? You can't throw your skimmer in the
air. That's for a run-of-the-mill holiday. I guess all anybody can do is thank God it’s over."
…Given the radio
revolution Crosby soon initiated, this gala, transcribed on “the first day of
world peace” (in Carpenter’s phrase), surely confirmed Bing’s belief that
prerecorded shows were the wave of the future.
(Gary
Giddins, Swinging on a Star, pages 527-528)
Special
VJ Day Show 2nd September 1945 (S8)
Produced in
Hollywood.
With AFRS Orchestra, President Harry S. Truman,
Frances Langford, Dinah Shore, Orson Welles, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing
Crosby.
America, The Beautiful
Dinah
Shore
The House
I Live In
Frank
Sinatra
I’ve Been
Working On The Railroad
Dinah
Shore
Don’t Sit
Under The Apple Tree
Frances
Langford
Gee Mom I
Want To Go Home
Orchestra
& Chorus
We Gather
Together (To Ask The Lord’s Blessing) Frances Langford
*White Christmas
In equally good
taste, too, was Sunday night’s half-hour Army Forces Radio Service show beamed
to U. S. fighting men throughout the world and carried by the four networks and
independent stations. It was an eloquent expression of thanksgiving by the
people of show business, with the “Marconi handshake across the two oceans”
emceed by Bing Crosby - who pointed up the radio industry’s outstanding wartime
contribution. Other contribs were by Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra,
Frances Langford, Orson Welles and others, with a cut-in to Washington for
President Truman’s tribute to the men in uniform.
(Variety, September 5, 1945)
This was a re-broadcast of Command Performance
No. 122
Christmas
1945 Command Performance 25th December 1945 (a) (Broadcast
date) (120 mins) (S9)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra, Harry James and his
Orchestra, The Bob Mitchell Boys’ Choir, The Pied Pipers, President Harry S.
Truman, Mel Blanc, Jerry Colonna, Cass Daley, Jimmy Durante, Ed Gardner, Judy
Garland, Eddie Jackson, Kay Kyser, Frances Langford,
Johnny Mercer, Herbert Marshall, Dinah, Shore, Ginny Simms, Frank Sinatra, Bing
Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c.)
*On The Atchison, Topeka
and The Santa Fe
Along The
Navajo Trail
Dinah
Shore
Two O’Clock Jump
Harry
James Orchestra
So I Ups
To Him
Jimmy
Durante & Eddie Jackson
Till The
End Of Time
Ginny
Simms
De Camptown Races
Johnny
Mercer
Long Ago And Far Away
Judy
Garland
Embraceable You
The Pied Pipers
Baia
Frances
Langford
You Can’t
Blame A Girl For Trying
(b) Cass
Daley
If I
Loved You
Frank
Sinatra
Santa
Claus Is Coming To Town
The Bob Mitchell Boys’ Choir
Joy To
The World
Male
choir
O Come
All Ye Faithful
Frances
Langford with male choir
Hark! The
Herald Angels Sing
Ginny Simms with male choir
O Little
Town Of Bethlehem
Dinah
Shore with male choir
It Came
Upon A Midnight Clear
Judy
Garland with male choir
*Silent Night
Notes:
(a) The complete programme was issued on Jasmine JASCD607 (CD) – “A Night
With Stars hosted by Bob Hope”
(b) Includes parodied
arrangements of “It Could Happen To You”; “Swinging On A Star”; “My Ideal”;
“Going My Way”; “Together”; “Murder, He Says”; “That Old Black Magic”; “Praise
The Lord And Pass The Ammunition”; “I Couldn’t Sleep A Wink Last Night”; “I’ll
Never Smile Again”.
No. 212 21st February 1946
Produced in Hollywood. Announced by Ken Carpenter. A compilation broadcast, Bing's contributions were "Dear Old Girl" and an exchange with Dame May Whitty originating from CP 169 plus his skit with Ann Sheridan and Bob Hope assumed sourced from CP 155 in which Bing plays Bob's child visiting Ann's movie set.
Army
Day Command Performance
6th April 1946 (45 mins) (S10)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Harry Von Zell. With AFRS Orchestra & Chorus directed by
Meredith Willson, Spike Jones and his City Slickers,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Andrews Sisters, Dinah Shore, Bette Davis,
Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (m.c.)
Shoo Fly
Pie And Apple Pan Dowdy
Dinah Shore
*Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
Oh! What
It Seemed To Be
Frank
Sinatra
*You’re The Top (Parody)
with Bob Hope
& Frank Sinatra
You
Always Hurt The One You Love
Spike Jones and his City
Slickers (Carl Grayson & Red Ingle - Vocal)
Chickery Chick
The Andrews Sisters
Aura Lee
AFRS
Orchestra & Chorus
What Do
You Do In The Infantry?
Frank
Sinatra
This Is The Army, Mister Jones
Dinah
Shore
*U.S. Field Artillery March
No. 217 14th April 1946 Academy Awards
Produced in
Hollywood.
With Johnny Gray Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, George
Murphy, Ray Milland, Ingrid Bergman and Charles
Boyer.
Bing was heard in extracts from “The Bells Of St. Mary’s”
5th
Anniversary Command Performance 29th May 1947 (Broadcast date) (60 mins) (S11)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With AFRS Orchestra, Fred Allen, Secy. of War
Robert P. Anders, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Jack Benny, Lt. Gen. J. Lawton
Collins, Jimmy Durante, Nelson Eddy, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Greer Garson,
Peter Lind Hayes, Danny Kaye, Ernst Lubitsch, Paul Lukas, Lauritz
Melchior, George Murphy, Lina Romay, Dinah Shore, Ginny Simms, Frank Sinatra,
Orson Welles, Don Wilson, Bing Crosby and Lionel Barrymore (m.c.)
Brazil
Lina
Romay
The House
I Live In
Frank
Sinatra
The
Peanut Vendor (Parody)
Nelson
Eddy & George Murphy
The
Anniversary Song
Dinah
Shore
Song Of The Volga Boatmen
Clark
Gable
Durante -
The Patron Of The Arts
Jimmy
Durante
Comic
Operetta
(a) Danny Kaye, Judy Garland & Lauritz Melchior
*Dear Old Girl
(b)
with The
Charioteers
Notes:
(a) This
sketch with a ‘railroad’ background is comprised mainly of parodied versions of
familiar operatic themes.
(b)
Dubbed from Command Performance No. 169
6th
Anniversary Command Performance 29th May 1948 (Broadcast date) (a) (60 mins) (S12)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Ken Carpenter. With unidentified Orchestra, Jack Benny,
Claudette Colbert, Jerry Colonna, Ronald Colman, Dennis Day, Jimmy Durante,
Rita Hayworth, Betty Hutton, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Bob
Hope (m.c.)
It’s
Love, Love Love
Dinah
Shore
*Medley
She’ll Be
Comin’ Round The Mountain; I’m Forever (a) with
Dinah Shore
Blowing
Bubbles; Put Your Arms Around Me Honey;
I Like Mountain Music; Alone; Why Don’t You Fall
In Love With Me?; As Time Goes By; Take It Easy;
I’ll Be Home For Christmas;
In The Evening By The
Moonlight; Your Feets’
Too Big; These Foolish
Things; Let The Rest Of The World Go By
*Dancing In The Dark
(b) with Dinah Shore
Nancy
(With The Laughing Face)
Frank Sinatra
His
Rocking Horse Ran Away
Betty
Hutton
I’m Gonna Hang My Hat
Jimmy
Durante, Betty Hutton, Ronald Colman & Claudette Colbert
For The
First Time (I Saw You)
Dennis
Day
*If I Had My Way
(c) with Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra & Jerry
Colonna
Notes:
(a) Fragments
only. Titles in italics are by Dinah
Shore only.
(b) Dubbed from Command Performance No. 115
(c) Dubbed from Command
Performance No. 123
Christmas
Command Performance 25th December 1948 (120 mins) (S13)
Produced in
Hollywood.
Announced by Hy Averback.
With various orchestras, The Richard Davis Choir, Andy Russell &
Gloria De Haven (m.c’s), Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen
& ‘Charlie McCarthy’, Mel Blanc, The Bob Mitchell Boys’ Choir, Ken
Carpenter, Shirley Dinsdale & ‘Judy Splinters’,
Jimmy Durante, Walter Gross, Bob Hope, Herbert Marshall, Robert Maxwell, Lauritz Melchior, Marvin Miller, Dinah Shore, Robert Young
and Bing Crosby.
Somebody
Loves Me
Gloria
de Haven
*On The Atchison, Topeka
and The Santa Fe (a)
Along The
Navajo Trail
(a) Dinah Shore
Durante
-The Patron Of The Arts
(a) Jimmy
Durante
Just For
Now
Andy
Russell
Intermezzo (Souvenir de Vienne)/Tea For Two Walter Gross (Piano)
Santa
Claus Is Coming To Town
(a) The Bob
Mitchell Boys’ Choir
Without
You
Andy
Russell
Gershwin
Medley:
It Ain’t
Necessarily So, Oh, Lady Be Good,
Robert
Maxwell (Harp)
The Man I
Love, I Got Rhythm
O Holy
Night
Lauritz Melchior
Silent
Night
Lauritz Melchior
‘The
Other Wise Man’ (Narration)
Robert
Young & Marvin Miller
Note:
(a)
A largely,
‘assembled’ programme. These items are from the Christmas Command
Performance of 1945.
Christmas
Command Performance 1949 (120 mins) (S14)
(a)
Announced by Ken
Carpenter, Edmund Gwenn (m.c.),
The Andrews Sisters, Gene Autry, Harry Babbitt, Mel Blanc, Francis X. Bushman,
Jerry Colonna, William Conrad, Donald Crisp, Cass Daley, The Hoosier Hotshots,
Bob Hope, Harry James, Lauritz Melchior, Lum ‘N’ Abner, The Pied Pipers,
Lisa Roy & Jacques Normand, Jeffrey Silver and Bing Crosby.
Back In The Saddle
Again
Gene
Autry
*Here Comes Santa Claus
(Right Down Santa Claus Lane) with
Gene Autry & The Andrews Sisters
La Vie En Rose (You’re Too Dangerous,
Cherie) Lisa Roy
Il Faut De Tout Le Monde
Jacques
Normand
*Jingle Bells
with
The Andrews Sisters
Put On Your Old Red
Flannels
The
Hoosier Hotshots
Etiquette Blues
The Hoosier Hotshots
All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth Harry Babbitt
Somehow
The Pied Pipers
Tuxedo Junction
Harry James
(Trumpet) & Ensemble
O Holy Night
Lauritz Melchior
Cottontail
Harry
James (Trumpet) & Ensemble
Together
Cass
Daley
I Remember Momma
Harry Babbitt
‘S Wonderful
The Pied Pipers
‘This One Brief Moment’ (Playlet)
Donald Crisp,
Francis X. Bushman, William Conrad, Jeffrey Silver & Jane Webb
Medley:
Choir
Hark, The Herald
Angels Sing
O Little Town Of Bethlehem
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Joy To The World
Jingle Bells
Cast
and Audience
Note:
It has not been possible to establish a precise date for this programme but it would seem highly likely that the
broadcast date would have been 25th December. In his excellent book ‘Command
Performance USA!’, Harry Mackenzie shows a content for this show that does not
match any of the details shown above and offers the following author’s note:
‘Details of this programme were taken from AFRS
Weekly Radio Round-Up of Christmas issues for 1949. Two of the tunes featured
were written in 1946 and research into other issues on this sheet, strongly
suggest that, in all probability, this is a repeat of Christmas Command
Performance 1946’Employing a similar yardstick to the details shown above,
‘Here Comes Santa Claus’, written and performed by Gene Autry in 1947, achieved
top position in the charts in 1949 – The same year that Bing Crosby and the Andrews
Sisters recorded the song. A song entitled ‘Somehow’ was a minor hit for Billy
Eckstine in 1949. Edmund Gwenn mentions that Donald Crisp presented him with
his Academy Award for his part in ‘Miracle On 34th Street’ – This ceremony took
place in March 1948.
35th
Anniversary Command Performance May 1977 (60 mins) (S15)
With various orchestras, Ken Carpenter, Bob Hope
(m.c), Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, Jack Benny,
Edgar Bergen, Fanny Brice & Hanley Stafford (‘Baby Snooks’
& ‘Daddy’), George Burns & Gracie Allen, Eddie Cantor, Dennis Day,
Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, Dorothy Lamour, Mary Livingston, Dinah Shore,
Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton Don Wilson and Bing Crosby.
Blues In The Night
Dinah
Shore
Speak Low
Frank
Sinatra
*Stardust
*Inka Dinka Doo
with
Jimmy Durante
No Love,
No Nothing
Judy
Garland
Note:
(a) This assembled show was the final programme, probably broadcast in 1977. It would seem likely that these Crosby
contributions originate from Command Performance No. 31 & No. 81,
respectively.
There were so-called “Special” programmes considered to be items which did not belong to
the series or had a longer running time than 30
minutes. In spite of the fact that AFRS
created a matrix to cover these, they do not appear to have conformed to their
own rules and no number was allocated to them.
To simplify identification within this Directory and the index, they
have been consecutively numbered with the prefix “S”
“In
the annals of wartime radio, no brighter spot is to be found than in the
brilliant and deserved success of ‘Command Performance’, the programme faithfully and unselfishly put together by showfolk for the exclusive enjoyment of servicemen,
overseas. Week after week, the great of Hollywood and Broadway frolicked
through a constantly, superb half-hour, providing all-round good fun and
entertainment, nowhere equalled on the civilian kilocycles.Like so many magnificent contributions to the
war effort, the record of ‘Command Performance’ will have to be closed without
the general public ever knowing, fully, what they missed by being in mufti or,
what all the branches of radio did without the ballyhoo ordinarily accompanying
their ever move.
If it has not already been done, the complete file of ‘Command
Performance’ recordings would seem deserving of a niche in the Library of
Congress, for it would be difficult to unearth a more fitting and permanent
account of our sense of humour, in war and more
particularly, how the country’s performers helped us keep it”
(Jack Gould “New York Times” 21st October 1945)
INDEX 1 – Lists,
alphabetically the songs or musical items in which Bing Crosby participated
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive 155
Abraham 52
Adeste Fideles S3
After Awhile 172
Ah! Sweet Mystery Of
Life 81
Alabamy Bound 129
All The Things You Are
162
All Time Flop Parade 142
Alone 115,S12
Always In My Heart 36
As Time Goes By 60,115,S12
Barnacle Bill The Sailor
162
Battle Hymn Of The
Republic, The S6
Basin Street Blues 31, 60, 97, S1, S2
Beautiful Dreamer 52
Beyond The Blue Horizon 129
Blues In The Night 36,97
Brahms' Lullaby 155
Candlelight And Wine 104
Clementine 30,S1
Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer S6
Dancing In The Dark 115,S12
Daring Young Man On The
Flying Trapeze, The 104
Dear Old Girl 169, 212, S11
Dear Mom 60
De Camptown Races
52,129
Deep Purple 36
Dinah 104
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief S10
Don’t Fence Me In 154,182
Down By The Old Mill Stream 30,S1
Easter Parade 60
Empty Saddles 97
Falling In Love Again 104
Fifth Marines, The 169
Going My Way 142
Goodnight, Wherever You Are 129
Great Day! 60
Hand Me Down My Walking
Cane 129
Happy, Happy, Happy Wedding Day 162
Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus
Lane) S14
Honeysuckle Rose 36
If I Had My Way 104,123,S12
I’ll Be Home For Christmas 115,S12
I’ll Be Seeing You 182
I’ll Be With You In
Apple Blossom Time 60
I’ll Get By 118
I’ll Remember April 129
I’ll See You In My
Dreams 97
I’ll Walk Alone 182
I Love You 122
I Love You Truly 60
I’m Always Chasing Rainbows 81
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles 115,S12
I Never Mention Your Name 75
Inka Dinka Doo 81,S15
Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t Ma Baby 129
It Ain’t Necessarily So 54
It Can’t Be Wrong 71
It Makes No Difference Now 104
It’s A Long Way To Tipperary 54
I Want A Girl, Just Like
The Girl 97
Jim 97
Jingle Bells S14
Learn To Croon 104
Let The Rest Of The World Go By 115,S12
Little Brown Jug 97
Little On The Lonely
Side, A 172
Little Sir Echo 104
Long Ago And Far Away
118
Lover, Come Back To Me 97
Margie 60
Mexicali Rose 115
Miss You 52
Moonlight Becomes You 81
More And More 154,155
Mr. Crosby And Mr Mercer 169
Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean
97
My Blue Heaven 125
My Melancholy Baby 75
My Old Kentucky Home 36,129
Oh! What A Beautiful
Morning 97
One Alone 125
One Dozen Roses 36
On Moonlight Bay 8
On The Atchison, Topeka And
The Santa Fe S9, S13
Paper Doll 182
People Will Say We’re In
Love 81,104
Praise The Lord And Pass
The Ammunition S6
Pretty Girl Is Like A
Melody, A 118
Put It There Pal 155
Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet 36
Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey 97,115,S12
San Antonio Rose 97
San Fernando Valley S7
Say A Prayer For The
Boys Over There 118
Sentimental Journey 182
She’ll Be Comin’ Round
The Mountain 115,S12
Silent Night S3, S9
Sleepy Lagoon 36
Somebody Else Is Taking My Place 60
Something To Remember
You By 122
Sonny Boy 122,S7
Stardust 31, 36, S1,S15
Summertime 71
Sunday, Monday Or Always
81,104,162
Swinging On A Star 118,
S5
Take It Easy 115,S12
Thanks For The Memory
129
That Old Black Magic 81
These Foolish Things 86,
This Heart Of Mine 169
This Love Of Mine 81
Three O’Clock In The Morning 81
Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral 160
US Field Artillery March S10
Vaudeville Parody S1,30
Wait For Me, Mary 75
Wait Till The Sun
Shines, Nellie 36
Was That The Human Thing To Do? 104
Where The Blue Of The Night 36,81
White Christmas 97,S3,
S7, S8, S10
Whose Dream Are You? 162
World Is Waiting For The
Sunrise, The 118
Yachting 129
You Are My Sunshine 36,54,122,S7
You Made Me Love You 81
You Must Have Been A
Beautiful Baby 125
You’re The Top 122,S10,S7
Your Feet’s Too Big 115,S12
Lists,
alphabetically, the songs or musical items performed solely by guests during the programmes.
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The
Positive 172,S5
Air Mail Special S5
All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth
S14
All The Things You Are
122
Along The Navajo Trail S9,S13
Amen S5
America, The Beautiful
S6, S8
Amor S5
And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine 154
Anniversary Song, The
S11
Aura Lee S10
Ave Maria 52,S7
Back Beat Boogie 75
Back In The Saddle Again
S14
Baia S9
Battle Hymn Of The
Republic, The S6
Beer Barrel Polka, The
S6
Bless ‘Em All S6
Blues In The Night 60,104,S15
Bolero (Ravel) S1
Brahms' Lullaby 123
Brazil 52, S11
Chickery Chick S10
Chloe 182
Comic Operetta S11
Conchita, Marquita Lopez 60
Cottontail S14
Cow Cow Boogie 182
Dance With A Dolly S5
De Camptown Races S9
‘Deed I Do S5
Deep Purple 104
Dena 142
Did I Get Stinkin’ At The Club Savoy 118
Dinah S2
Dixieland Band, The 122
Does Your Spearmint Lose Its Flavour?
115
Do It Again! 36
Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree S6,S8
Down By The O-Hi-O 172
Drumboogie S5
Durante, The Patron Of The Arts S11,S13
Embraceable You 52,81,S1,S9
Etiquette Blues S14
For The First Time (I Saw You) S12
Friendship S2
Gee, I Love My G.I. Guy 123
Gee, Mom I Want To Go Home S6,S8
G.I. Jive, The S6,S7
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen S14
Going My Way S9
Good For Nothing Joe 123
Grand Central Getaway S5
Hammacher Schlemmer 129
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing S9, S14
His Rocking Horse Ran Away S12
Holiday For Strings S5
Home On The Range 97
Honeysuckle Rose 142
House I Live In, The S7,S8,S11
How Come You Do Me Like You Do? S1
How Deep Is The Ocean? 97
I Ain’t Got Nobody 81
I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby 30,97,S1
I Couldn’t Sleep A Wink
Last Night S9
I Don’t Want Anybody At All 71
If I Loved You S9
I Got Rhythm S13
I Heard You Cried Last Night 104
Il Faut De Tout Le Monde S14
I Like Mountain Music S12
I’ll Be Seeing You 123
I’ll Be With You In
Apple Blossom Time 162
I’ll Get By S5
I’ll Never Smile Again S9
I’ll Walk Alone S7
I’m An Old Cowhand 97
I’m Getting Sentimental Over
You 182
I’m Gonna Hang My Hat
S12
I’m Strong For You 162
Intermezzo S13
In The Evening By The
Moonlight S12
I Remember Momma S14
I Remember You 81
Is You Is Or Is You
Ain’t My Baby S5
It Ain’t Necessarily So S13
It Came Upon A Midnight
Clear S9, S14
It Could Happen To You S9
It’s A Great Day For The
Irish 81
It’s Love, Love, Love 115,S12
I’ve Been Working On The Railroad S6,S8
I’ve Got A Girl In
Kalamazoo 36
I’ve Got Rhythm S7
I’ve Got Sixpence S6
I Want My Mama 118
I Wonder What’s Become
Of Sally? 104
Jingle Bells S2, S14
Jingle, Jangle, Jingle 31,S1
Joy To The World S9, S14
Jumping At The Woodside
S5
Just For Now S13
K-K-K-Katie 129
Last Round-Up, The 104
La Vie En Rose S14
Let’s Get Lost 71
Life’s Full Of
Consequence 142
Lili Marlene S5
Lion And Albert, The 52
Lobby Song, The S7
Long Ago And Far Away 129,142,S9
Lydia, The Tattooed Lady
142
Ma! He’s Making Eyes At
Me 81
Man I Love, The 81,160,S7,S13
Mattinata 172
Meet Me In St. Louis 162
Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet S5
Moonlight Becomes You 54
Murder, He Says S9
Music Goes ‘Round And
‘Round, The 162
Music Stopped, The 160
My Ideal S9
Nancy (With The Laughing
Face) S12
No Love, No Nothing S15
O Come All Ye Faithful S9
Oh, Lady Be Good S13
O Holy Night S13, S14
Oh! What It Seemed To Be S10
Old Hundredth Doxology S6
O Little Town Of Bethlehem S9, S14
Only Forever 36
O Tic Tac
Do Meo Coracao 54
Over The Rainbow 81,162
Over There 97
Patty Cake Man S5
Peanut Vendor, The S11
Pennsylvania Polka S2
Pig Foot Pete 118
Pistol Packin’ Mama 86
Polonaise (Chopin) S7
Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition S2,S9
Put On Your Old Red Flannels S14
Rachel’s Dream 155
Ride, Red, Ride 36
Right Kind Of Love, The
75
Ritual Fire Dance 75
Rum And Coca Cola 154
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town S9,S13
Saturday Night (Is The
Loneliest Night Of The Week) 169
Saving Myself For Bill
S2
Shoo Fly Pie And Apple
Pan Dowdy S10
Shoo Shoo Baby 97,S7
Silent Night S13
Smiles 60
So I Ups To Him S9
Somebody Loves Me S13
Somehow S14
Song Of The Volga
Boatmen S11
Speak Low 104, S15
Stairway To The Stars 54
Stardust 104,182
Stormy Weather 125
Sunday Monday Or Always
115
Swinging On A Star S9
S Wonderful S14
Taking A Chance On Love
60
Tangerine 60
Tea For Two S13
Tess’s Torch Song 162
Thanks For The Memory
123
That Old Black Magic S9
These Foolish Thing S12
They’re Either Too Young Or
Too Old 118
This Is The Army, Mr
Jones S10,S6
This Is The Guy 104
This One Brief Moment S14
Three Little Words 36
Tico Tico 160,S7
Till The End Of Time S9
Together S14
Trolley Song, The 162
Tuxedo Junction S14
Two O’clock Jump S9
Wandering Minstrel I, A 162
We Gather Together S8
We’re Off To See The
Wizard S6
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? 60
What Do You Do In The Infantry? S10
What Is This Thing Called Love? S7
When I Grow Up 71
When The Lights Go On Again
All Over The World 118
When You Wore A Tulip 97
Without You S13
Why Don’t You Do Right? 81
Why Don’t You Fall In Love With Me? S2,S12
Yes, We Have No Bananas 129
You Always Hurt The One
You Love S10
You Can’t Blame A Girl For
Trying S9
You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To 81,S7
You’ll Never Know 86
You’re Priceless 86
You’re The Top 162
You’re Too Dangerous, Cherie S14
Details,
alphabetically, the people and places concerned in the programmes.
Abbott, Bud S1,31,S15
Adler, Larry 30
Allen, Fred S2, S11
Allen, Gracie S15
Allman, Elva 44
Ambassadors, The 36
Ameche, Don 17
Anders, Robert P. S11
Anderson, Eddie ‘Rochester’ 142,S11
Andrews Sisters, The S2,129,142,154,155,162,S10,
S14
Arnaz, Desi S7
Arnold, Edward 160
Autry, Gene S14
Averback, Hy S13
Babbitt, Harry 31, S14
‘Baby Snooks &
Daddy’ 71,S15
Bacall, Lauren 154
Baer, Max 17
Ball, Lucille S7
Barrymore, Lionel 169,S7,S11
Basie, Count 142,S5
Benny, Jack S2,125,S11,S12,S13,S15
Bergen, Edgar S2,S13,S15
Bergman, Ingrid 217
Black, Frank S1,30,31
Blair, Janet 52,S7
Blanc, Mel 71,S13, S14
Bob Mitchell Boys’ Choir S9,S13
Bombardiers, The S5
Borge, Victor 44
Boswell, Connie S1,30,31
Boyer, Charles S6, 217
‘Brenda & Cobina’
44
Brice, Fanny 71,S15
Burns, Bob 60
Burns, George S15
Bushman, Francis X. S14
Cagney, James S1,30
Cantor, Eddie S15
Carpenter, Ken
S2,44,52,60,71,75,81,86,97,104,115,118,122,
123,125,129,142,154,155,160,169,172,182,S8,S9,S11,S12, S13, S14, S15
Carroll, Georgia 81
Carson, Jack 160
Chekhov, Michael S6
Colbert, Claudette S7,S12
Collins, Lt. Gen. J.
Lawton S11
Colman, Ronald S12
Colonna, Jerry 123,162,S9,S12,
S14
Conrad, William S14
Conte, John S7
Conway, Julie 31,81
Cooper, Gary125
Cooper, Myrtle 115
Costello, Lou S1,31,S15
Crisp, Donald S14
Crooks, Richard 52
Daley, Cass 162,S9, S14
Davis, Bette S7,S10
Day, Dennis S12,S15
De Haven, Gloria 160,S13
Dietrich, Marlene S7
Dinsdale, Shirley S13
Dorsey, Jimmy S5
Dorsey, Tommy 142,S5
Douglas, Paul 17,S1,31
Dunstedter, Major Eddie 54
Durante, Jimmy 81,162,172,S7,S9,S11,S12,S13,S15
Eddy, Nelson S11
Eisenhower, General Dwight D. S10
Elman, Ziggy 142
Ennis, M/Sgt Skinnay 97
Erwin, Trudy 75
Falkenburg, Jinx S7
Freeman, Ticker 104
‘G.I. Jill’ S6,S7
Gable, Clark S11
Gardner, Ed S7,S9
Garland, Judy 81,122,129,142,162,S6,S9,S11,S15
Garson, Greer S7,S11
Gibbs, Georgia 125
Givot, George 17
Glee Club, The S2
Goodman, Benny S5,155
Grable, Betty 75
Grant, Cary S7
Gray, Johnny 217
Grayson, Carl S10
Gross, Walter S13
Gwenn, Edmund S14
Haines, Connie 123
Hampton, Lionel 142
Hayes, Peter Lind S11
Hayworth, Rita S7,S12
Herbert, Hugh 17
Herman, Woody S5
Hilliard, Harriet S2
Hoosier Hotshots, The
S14
Hope, Bob S2,54,60,86,118,122,123,
142,154,155,162,S6,S8, S9,S10,S12,S13, S14, S15
Horne, Lena 123,142,S5,S7
Hussey, Ruth S7
Hutton, Betty 118,S2
Ingle, Red S10
Iturbi, Jose 44,S7
James, Harry 75,S5,S9,
S14
Jones, Spike S2,S5,S10
Jordan, Louis S5
Kaye, Danny S7,S11
Ken Darby Singers, The
S6
Kenton, Stan 154
King Sisters, The S7
Krupa, Gene S5
Kyser, Kay S1,30,31,S2,44,81,S5,S9
Ladd, Hank S1,S30
Lamarr, Hedy S1
Lamour, Dorothy S15
Landis, Carole 17
Langford, Frances 86,123,S6,S8,S9
Laughton, Charles S2
Lee, Gypsy Rose 118
Lehmann, Lotte 123
Lewis, Diana S7
Livingston, Mary S15
Lubitsch, Ernst S11
Lukas, Paul S11
‘Lulubelle &
Scotty’ 115
Lum ‘N’ Abner S14
Lupino, Ida S7
Marshall, Henry S6,S7,S9,S13
Martin, Mary 36
Marx, Groucho 142
Marx, Harpo 125
Mason, Sully 81,S5
Mauldin, Bill S7
Maxwell, Marilyn 169,S7
Maxwell, Robert S13
McKinney, Ed 142
Melchior, Lauritz 172,S11,S13, S14
Menuhin, Yehudi 115
Mercer, Johnny S5,169,S6,S7,S9
Meredith, Burgess S7
Merry Macs, The 17,52
Milland, Ray 217
Miller, Ann 125
Miller, Marvin S13
Miranda, Carmen 54,60,160,S7
Mitchell, Shirley 115
Monroe, Vaughn 71,S5
Montgomery, George S7
Montgomery, Robert S7
Moreno, Buddy S5
Morgan, Frank 162
Morse, Ella Mae S5
Murphy, George 217,S11
Murphy Sisters, The 71
Music Maids, The 30,118,S5
Music Maid & Hal, The 17,36,44
Music Maids & Phil, The 52,54,60,S5
Newman, Alfred S2
Normand, Jacques S14
O’Driscoll, Martha 52
O’Malley, Madge 52
O’Malley, Pat 52
Paul, Les 142
Pied Pipers, The S5,S9,
S14
Plummer, Sgt Gene 129
Powell, William S7
Rich, Buddy 142
Richard Davis Choir S13
Robinson, Edward G. S7
Rogers, Ginger S7
Romano, Tony 86
Romay, Lina S7,S11
Ross, Shirley 123
Roy, Lisa S14
Rubinstein, Artur 75
Russell, Andy S13
Sentimentalists, The S5
Shaw, Artie 142
Sheridan, Ann 155
Sherin, Leo ‘Ukie’ 75,97
Sherman, James 36,60,97
Shore, Dinah
17,S1,36,54,60,71,97,104,115,142,162,S6,S7,
S8,S9,S10,S11,S12,S13,S15
Silver, Jeffrey S14
Simms, Ginny S1,S2,S5,S6,S7,S9S11
Sinatra, Frank
104,122,123,162,S7,S8,S9,S10,217,S11,S12, S15
Skelton, Red S2,S15
Stafford, Hanley 71,S15
Stevens, Risë S7
Stewart, Blanche 44
Talent, Ziggy 71
Tang, Lin Yu S6
Trevor, Claire S7
Trotter, John Scott 36,60,104
Truman, Harry S. S8,S9
Von Zell, Harry 54,162,S7,S10
Waters, Ethel S2
Webb, Jane S14
Welles, Orson S7,S8,S11
Wheeler, Bert S1,30
Whitman, Ernest S7
Whitty, Dame May 169
Wilkerson, Martha S6,S7
Willson, Meredith 54,118,123,125,129,162,S10
Wilson, Don 36,S5,S7,S11,S15
Wiseman, Scott 115
Young, Loretta S6,S7
Young, Robert S13
“MAIL CALL” (All programmes
produced in Hollywood)
No. 11 4th November 1942 (a)
Announced by Ken
Carpenter.
With AFRS Orchestra, Fred Astaire, Betty Rhodes,
Fibber McGee and Molly and Bing Crosby.
Hit The Leather
Orchestra
& Chorus
*I’ll Capture Your Heart
with Fred
Astaire
*White Christmas
with
Betty Rhodes
Easy To
Dance With
Fred
Astaire
*Abraham
with
Betty Rhodes
*Be Careful It’s My
Heart
*Easter Parade
*White Christmas (reprise)
*Hit The Leather
(Parody)
with
Fibber McGee & Molly & Chorus
Note:
(a) The
major part of the programme is a potted version of
the film “Holiday Inn” with narration by Bing
Announced by Chet
Huntley.
With AFRS Orchestra, The Music Maids and Hal, Alice Faye, Tommy Dorsey,
Andy Devine, Cesar Romero and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Further details
unknown.
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra, 370th Army Air Force Band, The Merry Macs, Nan
Wynn, Robert Benchley, Ben Lyon (m.c) and Bing Crosby
I’m
Forever Blowing Bubbles
The
Merry Macs
*Paper Doll
Saludos Amigos
370th
AAF Band
It’s
Always You
Nan
Wynn
*You’ll Never Know
Announced by Harry
Von Zell.
With AFRS Orchestra, Frank Morgan, John Conte, Nora
Lou Martin, John Brownlee and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*McNamara’s
Band
with Music Maids and Hal
Blue
Lou
370th Army Air Force Band of the San
Bernardino Air Service Command
You’ll Never Know
Nora Lou Martin
Waltzing Matilda
John Brownlee
Comedy Routine
Bing, Frank
Morgan, John Conte
There’s a Ridin’ Ropin’ Cowboy
Nora Lou Martin
*White Christmas
No. 73 12th January 1944 -
Salute To Iowa
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Meredith Willson/Skinnay Ennis, Dorothy
Lamour, Jerry Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*San Fernando Valley
with
Orchestra conducted by Skinnay Ennis
Got A Date With An Angel
Skinnay Ennis
It Could
Happen To You
Dorothy
Lamour
*Iowa
with
Orchestra conducted by Meredith Willson
I Love
Life
Jerry
Colonna
*Something To Remember You By
with Dorothy Lamour
No. 78 16th February 1944 - Dedicated To Washington State
Announced by Don Wilson. With AFRS Orchestra, The
Les Paul Trio, Richard Crooks, Connie Boswell and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*My Ideal
(a)
My Heart
Tells Me
Connie
Boswell
Stardust
Connie
Boswell
Oh! What A Beautiful Morning
Connie
Boswell
Songs My
Mother Taught Me (Dvorak)
Richard Crooks
*Timber / In The Evening
By The Moonlight/
You Are My Sunshine
(Parody)
(a)
with
Richard Crooks
Begin The Beguine
Les
Paul Trio
*Between 18th & 19th On
Chestnut Street (b) with Connie Boswell
Notes:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
(b) On The Air OTA101978 (CD) - “Great Moments With Bing Crosby And Friends From The Radio Shows”
No. 91 17th May 1944 - Tribute To Minnesota (a)
Announced by Harlow
Wilcox.
With AFRS Orchestra, The Music Maids, Stella
Friend, Arthur Treacher, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland
(m.c.) and Bing Crosby
The
Trolley Song
Judy
Garland
*It’s Love, Love, Love
Can Do,
Will Do (The Song Of The Seabees)
Judy Garland
*Amor
*The Groaner, The Canary
And The Nose (b) with Judy Garland & Jimmy Durante
Note:
(a) The
complete programme was issued on the following:
Tandem
Records LP-1903 - “Mail Call”
Laserlight 15413 (CD) - “Mail Call”
(b) Hallmark
303372 (CD) - “Bing Crosby & Friends - The Radio Years”
No. 102 26th July 1944 - Tribute To Hawaii
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With Harry Owens Orchestra, Paul
Taylor’s Douglas Aeronaders, The Merry Macs, Hilo
Hattie, Connie Haines, Betty Grable and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Hello Hawaii
*Blue Hawaii
(a)
with
Connie Haines
Hawaiian
War Chant
The Merry Macs
Ukulele
Lady
Connie
Haines
Song Of The Islands
Les
Paul Trio
I’ve Got To Learn To Speak Hawaiian
Hilo
Hattie
The
Cock-Eyed Mayor Of Kaunakakai
Hilo Hattie
Sing Me A Song Of The Islands
Betty
Grable
*Sweet Leilani
(a)
with
Paul Taylor’s Douglas Aeronaders
Aloha Oe Harry Owens Orchestra
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra, The Sportsmen, Risë Stevens, Garry Moore, Peggy Ryan, The Andrews Sisters
and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
Peggy Ryan spot
Down In The Valley
The
Andrews Sisters
*Is You Is Or Is You
Ain’t My Baby
with
The Andrews Sisters
If You
Were The Only Girl In The World
Garry Moore
Garry Moore spot
*The Day After Forever
Habanera
from ‘Carmen’ (Bizet)
Risë Stevens
Lullaby
Of Broadway
The Andrews Sisters
*The Amphibians Battle Hymn (We’re Going In)
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra, Sgt. Jerry Hauser, Tito Guizar, Jo Stafford, Humphrey Bogart, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby
and Betty Grable (m.c.)
Bing Crosby’s contribution is restricted to a
cameo appearance at the close of a comedy sketch based on “The Princess And The Pirate”
Announced by Harry
Von Zell.
With AFRS Orchestra, The Charioteers, Martha
Mears, Lauritz Melchior, Cass Daley and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
Goodnight, Wherever You Are
Martha
Mears
E Lucevan Le Stelle (Puccini)
Lauritz Melchior
Together
Cass
Daley
*More And More
*One Meat Ball
with
Lauritz Melchior
No. 138 28th March 1945 - Honouring
Oscar Winning Film ‘Going My Way” (a)
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra, Leo McCarey, Connie
Haines, William Frawley, Barry Fitzgerald, Jack
Benny, Bette Davis (m.c.)
and Bing Crosby
*Swinging On A Star
Come And Live In Lankershim
Leo McCarey
*You Belong To My Heart
*Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral
*Ida (Sweet As Apple
Cider)
with
William Frawley
Note:
(a) The
complete programme was issued on Spokane 20 - “Der Bingle - Volume 3” and Double
Gold DBG53042 - “Bing Crosby - Those Great World War II Songs”
Announced by Don
Wilson.
With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Alvino Rey,
Marilyn Maxwell, Johnny Mercer (m.c.)
and Bing Crosby
Gotta Be This Or That
Johnny
Mercer
I’m In A Jam With
Baby
Marilyn
Maxwell
*Along The Navajo Trail
Holiday For Strings (Rose)
AFRS
Orchestra
*Small Fry
with
Johnny Mercer
*Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean
with
Johnny Mercer
No.
205 12th August 1946
(a)
With Dorothy Lamour, Cass Daley, Richard Crooks,
Jerry Colonna, Connie Boswell, Marguerite Chapman (m.c.) and Bing Crosby.
I’m In The Mood For Love
Dorothy Lamour
They’re
Either Too Young Or Too Old
Cass Daley
*Timber
with
Richard Crooks
*You Are My Sunshine (Parody)
with
Richard Crooks
* Amor
I Love
Life
Jerry
Colonna
*Between 18th & 19th On
Chestnut Street
with
Connie Boswell
Note:
(a) This appears to be a largely ‘assembled’ programme. Bing’s contributions originate from Mail Calls Nos.73, 78 and 91.
“MAIL CALL” - INDEX 1
INDEX 1 – Lists,
alphabetically the songs or musical items in which Bing Crosby participated
Abraham 11
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive 120,128
Along The Navajo Trail 154
Amor 91,205
Amphibians’ Battle Hymn, The
(We’re Going In) 120
Be Careful It’s My Heart 11
Between 18th and 19th On
Chestnut Street 78,205
Blue Hawaii 102
Day After Forever, The
120
Easter Parade 11
Groaner, Canary And The
Nose, The 91
Hello, Hawaii 102
Hit The Leather 11
Ida, Sweet As Apple
Cider 138
I’ll Capture Your Heart 11
Iowa 73
Is You Is Or Is You
Ain’t My Baby 120
It’s Love, Love, Love 91
McNamara’s Band 61
More And More 128
Mr Gallagher And Mr Shean 154
My Ideal 78
One Meat Ball 128
Paper Doll 54
San Fernando Valley 73
Small Fry 154
Something To Remember
You By 73
Sweet Leilani 102
Swinging On A Star 138
Timber 78,205
Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral 138
White Christmas 11, 61
You Are My Sunshine 78,205
You Belong To My Heart 138
You’ll Never Know 54
Lists,
alphabetically, the songs or musical items performed solely by guests during the programmes.
Alohe Oe 102
Begin The Beguine 78
Blue Lou 61
Can Do, Will Do (The Song Of
The Seabees) 91
Cock-Eyed Mayor Of
Kaunakakai 102
Come And Live In Lankershim 138
Down In The Valley 120
Easy To Dance With 11
E Lucevan De Stelle (Puccini) 128
Goodnight, Wherever You Are 128
Got A Date With An Angel
73
Gotta Be This Or That 154
Habanera (Bizet) 120
Hawaiian War Chant 102
Hit The Leather 11
Holiday For Strings 154
If You Were The Only
Girl In The World 120
I Love Life 73,205
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles 54
I’m In A Jam With Baby
154
I’m In The Mood For Love
205
It Could Happen To You 73
It’s Always You 54
I’ve Got To Learn To Speak
Hawaiian 102
Lullaby Of Broadway 120
My Heart Tells Me 78
Oh! What A Beautiful
Morning 78
Saludos Amigos 54
Sing Me A Song Of The
Islands 102
Song Of The Islands 102
Songs My Mother Taught Me 78
Stardust 78
There’s a Ridin’ Ropin’ Cowboy 61
They’re Either Too Young Or
Too Old 205
Together 128
Trolley Song, The 91
Ukulele Lady 102
Waltzing Matilda 61
You'll Never Know 61
“G.I. JOURNAL” (All programmes
produced in Hollywood. There are indications that some of the songs used were
recordings of songs used in Kraft Music Hall broadcasts)
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With unknown Orchestra, Falstaff Openshaw,
Mel Blanc, Linda Darnell, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Further details
unknown.
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal, Pat
McGeehan, Falstaff Openshaw, Arthur Q. Bryan, Mel
Blanc, Linda Darnell, Jimmy Durante and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Wait For Me Mary
with
Trudy Erwin
*Ridin’ Herd On A Cloud
(a)
*It’s Always You
*Oh! What A Beautiful
Morning
with Trudy Erwin
& The Music Maids & Hal
*Mr. Gallagher And Mr. Shean (Parody)
with
Jimmy Durante
*Home On The Range with Cast & Audience (Charlie La Vere - Piano).
Note:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal, Pat
McGeehan, Mel Blanc, Falstaff Openshaw, Arthur Q.
Bryan, Linda Darnell, Trudy Erwin, Jimmy Durante and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*People Will Say We’re
In Love
with
Trudy Erwin
*Sunday Monday Or Always
*Put Your Arms Around
Me, Honey
(a)
with
The Music Maids & Hal
*Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer
with
The Music Maids & Hal
*Mr Gallagher And Mr. Shean (Parody)
with Jimmy Durante
*My Wild Irish Rose (a) with Cast & Audience (Charlie La Vere - Piano).
Note:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal, The
Charioteers, Pat McGeehan, Falstaff Openshaw, Arthur
Q. Bryan, Mel Blanc, Linda Darnell, Jerry Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*MacNamara’s Band
with
The Music Maids & Hal
*If You Please
*Cuddle Up A Little
Closer (a)
*What Do You Do In The Infantry?
with
The Music Maids & The Charioteers
*Mr. Gallagher And Mr. Shean
with
Jerry Colonna
*Let Me Call You Sweetheart with Cast & Audience
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Hal, Arthur Q.
Bryan, Mel Blanc, Georgia Carroll, Ish Kabibble, Jerry Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Thank Your Lucky Stars
*Poinciana
Do It
Again
Georgia
Carroll
*The Vict’ry Polka
You’re My
Everything
Jerry
Colonna
*Daisy Bell
with
Cast & Audience
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With unknown Orchestra, Pat McGeehan, Arthur Q. Bryan, Mel Blanc,
Georgia Carroll, Ish Kabibble,
Jerry Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
Further details
unknown.
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids, Anita, Arthur Q.
Bryan, Wally Maher, Bill Wright, Linda Darnell, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson and
Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Paper Doll
with The Music Maids
*How Sweet You Are
The
Dreamer
Anita
*Put Your Arms Around
Me, Honey
with The Music Maids
*MacNamara’s Band
with The Music Maids
*Shine On Harvest
Moon
with Cast & Audience
No. 25 circa 21st January 1944 (exact date unknown)
Announced by Harry
Mitchell. With John Scott Trotter
Orchestra, The Music Maids, Anita, Mel Blanc, Ransom
Sherman, Linda Darnell, Jerry Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.).
*San Fernando Valley
*My Heart Tells Me
Speak Low
Anita
*Paper Doll
with
The Music Maids
*When You Wore A Tulip
with
Cast & Audience
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music
Maids, Mel Blanc, Ransom Sherman, Linda Darnell, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson,
Gloria De Haven and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Iowa
with
The Music Maids
*September Song
I’ve Got A Crush On You
Gloria
de Haven
*After You’ve Gone
*I Want A Girl, Just
Like The Girl (That Married Dear Old Dad) with
Cast & Audience
No. 33 3rd March
1944
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids, The Charioteers, Mel
Blanc, Ransom Sherman, Arthur Q. Bryan, Anita Ellis, Linda Darnell, Andy
Devine, Hedda Hopper and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Shoo Shoo Baby
with
The Music Maids & The Charioteers
*It’s Only A Paper Moon
I Can’t
Get Started
Anita
Ellis
*My Ideal
*(Back Home In) Indiana
with
Cast & Audience
No. 41 28th April 1944 (a)
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, Mel Blanc, Ransom
Sherman, Jerry Colonna, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby (m.c.).
*Sunday
*The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else
*People Will Say We’re
In Love
(b)
with
Judy Garland
*I’ll Be Seeing You
*You Tell Me Your Dream
(b)
with
Judy Garland, Cast & Audience
Note:
(a) The
complete programme was issued on Tandem Records
LP-1904 - “Mail Call - Volume 2”
(b) JSP977B CD "Judy Garland - Classic Duets"
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids, The Charioteers, Mel
Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan, Ransom Sherman, Phyllis Brooks, Anita Ellis, Jerry
Colonna and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Great Day
with
The Music Maids
*Long Ago And Far Away
I’ll
Remember April
Anita
Ellis
*Swinging On A Star
with
The Music Maids & The Charioteers
*The Sweetheart Of Sigma
Chi
with
Cast & Audience
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music
Maids & Men, Ransom Sherman, Mel Blanc, Lena Horne, Henny
Youngman and Bing Crosby (m.c.).
*Bless ‘Em All
with
The Music Maids & Men
*September Song
*The Day After Forever
Honeysuckle Rose
Lena
Horne
*Girl Of My Dreams
with
Cast & Audience
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Men, Ransom
Sherman, Mel Blanc, Linda Darnell, Andy Devine, Helen Forrest and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Snoqualme Joe
with
The Music Maids & Men
*I’ll Get By
The Man I
Love
Helen
Forrest
*In My Merry Oldsmobile (a) with Cast & Audience
Note:
(a) Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service"
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With John Scott Trotter Orchestra, The Music Maids & Men, Ransom
Sherman, Mel Blanc, Jo Stafford, Lynn Bari, Peter Lorre and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*The Bombardier Song
with
The Music Maids & Men
*I’ll Remember April
Love Is
Just Around The Corner
Jo
Stafford
Pan
Americana
John
Scott Trotter Orchestra
*Down By The Old Mill
Stream
with
Cast & Audience
Announced by unknown. With John Scott Trotter
Orchestra, The Charioteers, Mel Blanc, Pat Friday,
Joan Blondell, Jimmy Durante and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Is You Is Or Is You
Ain’t My Baby
with
The Charioteers
Tojo Is Forced To Vacate
Pat Friday
*Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral
*There’s A Long, Long Trail
with
Cast & Audience
Produced in CBS Studio A in Hollywood. Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With Army Air Forces Training Command Orchestra (directed by Dick Aurandt), Mel Blanc, Leo Cleary, Marilyn
Maxwell, Allen Jenkins and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*You Belong To My Heart
*You Made Me Love You
How Come
You Do Me Like You Do? (a) Marilyn Maxwell
*Beautiful Love
*In The Good Old
Summertime
with
Marilyn Maxwell, Cast & Audience
Note:
(a) Collectors’
Choice Music WWCCM1052x - “Marilyn Maxwell - Darling Diva”
Announced by Harry
Mitchell.
With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Dick Aurandt,
Mel Blanc, Chili Williams, Elvira Allman, Andy Devine
and Bing Crosby (m.c.)
*Aren’t You Glad You’re You
(a)
*These Foolish Things
*Personality
(a)
*By The Light Of The Silvery Moon with Andy Devine, Cast & Audience
Note:
(a) Sounds of Yesteryear CD DSOY2147 "Bing Sings Burke and Van Heusen"
Announced by Ken
Niles.
With AFRS Orchestra conducted by Alvino Rey,
Gee Gee Pearson, Charles La Torre, Mel Blanc, Claudette
Colbert, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby (m.c.).
*After You’ve Gone
Good,
Good, Good
Frank
Sinatra
*Dream
*Mademoiselle From
Armentieres
with
Frank Sinatra, Claudette Colbert & Mel Blanc
INDEX 1 – Lists,
alphabetically the songs or musical items in which Bing Crosby participated
After You’ve Gone 31,86
Aren’t You Glad You’re
You 94
Beautiful Love 86
Bless ‘Em All 48
Bombardier Song, The 53
By The Light Of The
Silvery Moon 94
Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer 10
Cuddle Up A Little
Closer 11
Daisy Bell 12
Day After Forever, The
48
Down By The Old Mill
Stream 53
Dream 105
Girl Of My Dreams 48
Great Day 44
Home On The Range 9
How Sweet You Are 20
If You Please 11
I’ll Be Seeing You 41
I’ll Get By 52
Indiana (Back Home In) 33
Is You Is Or Is You
Ain’t My Baby 69
In My Merry Oldsmobile 52
In The Good Old Summertime 86
Iowa 31
It Had To Be You (Special Anniversary Show)
It’s Always You 9
It’s Only A Paper Moon
33
I Want A Girl Just Like
The Girl 31
Let Me Call You Sweetheart 11
Long Ago And Far Away 44
MacNamara’s Band 11, 20
Mademoiselle From
Armentieres 105
Mr. Gallagher And Mr Shean 9,10,11
My Heart Tells Me 25
My Ideal 33
My Wild Irish Rose 10
Oh! What A Beautiful
Morning 9
One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else, The 41
Paper Doll 20, 25
People Will Say We’re In
Love 10, 41
Personality 94
Poinciana 12
Put Your Arms Around Me,
Honey 10, 20
Ridin’ Herd On A Cloud 9
San Fernando Valley 25
September Song 31, 48
Shine On Harvest Moon 20
Shoo Shoo Baby 33
Snoqualme Joe 52
Sunday 41
Sunday, Monday Or Always
10
Swinging On A Star 44
Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral 69
Thank Your Lucky Stars 12
There’s A Long, Long Trail 69
These Foolish Things 94
Vict’ry Polka, The 12
Wait For Me Mary 9
What Do You Do In The Infantry? 11
When You Wore A Tulip 25
You Belong To My Heart 86
You Made Me Love You 86
You Tell Me Your Dream
41
Lists,
alphabetically, the songs or musical items performed solely by guests during the programmes.
'Deed I Do (Special Anniversary Show)
Do It Again 12
Dreamer, The 20
Good, Good, Good 105
Honeysuckle Rose 48
How Come You Do Me Like You Do? 86
I Can’t Get Started 33
I Leaned Across Ten Thousand Miles (Special Anniversary Show)
I’ll Remember April 44
I’ve Got A Crush On You
31
Love Is Just Around The
Corner 55
Man I Love, The 52
Pan American 53
Speak Low 25
Tojo Is Forced To Vacate 69
When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along (Special Anniversary Show)
You’re My Everything 12
SUNDRY GUEST APPEARANCES 1936-1946
A list of the
main guest appearances we know about during Bing’s time on the Kraft Music Hall
is provided below. Apart from the main
AFRS programmes of ‘Command Performance’, ‘Mail Call’
and G I Journal’, Bing also recorded other programmes
for servicemen and details of these recording sessions are given, although
actual broadcast dates are not known.
1937
February 1 (7:00–9:00 p.m.) Takes part in the Red Cross Relief Programme on the Blue Network and sings ‘One, Two, Button
Your Shoe’.
May 23 (Starting at 2:15 p.m.) Appears in a five-hour
benefit for pianist Joe Sullivan at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium and the
proceedings are carried by two different radio stations.
July 12
(5:00-6:00 p.m.) Takes part in a tribute to the late George Gershwin.
November 8 (6:00–7:00 p.m.) Stars in a CBS radio version of the film ‘She Loves Me Not’ on the Lux Radio Theatre. Bing sings ‘Love in Bloom’, ‘I’m Hummin’, I’m Whistlin’, I’m Singin’ and ‘Straight From The Shoulder’. The complete programme was issued on the LP Totem LP-1004 - ‘She Loves Me Not’. The songs were included in the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
This one represented a dangerous slackening off from the zip and snap of
last season, when Lux climbed up to the top
of the popularity pyramid. Perhaps what has happened is similar to what occurs
in long-run hit shows where it is necessary from time to time to call incentive
rehearsals and shake loose from a too comfortable sinking in a rut. Lux production technique in ‘She Loves Me Not’ reveals
fraying at the edges. Any defense of a mediocre radio performance merely based
on the smug fact of C.A.B. success must butt itself against this rock: in
super-expensive shows anything that threatens maximum audience realization
means that the money isn’t buying as much circulation as it might.
Moreover,
a dwindling in entertainment is especially dangerous at a time when Hollywood
programs are no longer a novelty, and Lux itself
has many imitators, some of them real challengers. “She Loves Me Not” as a
stage play and later as a film had, above all, pace. Cut down to radio
dimensions the contrast in tempo was deplorable. Questions of comparison,
however, might be shrugged off as captious if the result were still diverting.
Looseness of plot construction absence of the element of surprise plot twist or
excitement might be itemized and called secondary. But the crowing fault can’t
be laughed off — it was dull. It threw everything on the personalities. It demanded
everything of palpitating, uncritical, tolerant fandom. Safety probably lies in
that margin. The grooves by now are well lubricated. But —again— is it peak
circulation? Not with such listless, punchless story-telling.
Bing
Crosby sang several times within the story, so that was guaranteed pleasure for
the thousands. Yet the throwing away of the gilt-edge situations let the job,
in toto, down.
(Variety, 10 November 1937)
December 31 (5:30–6:00 p.m. & 8:30–9:00 p.m.) Guests on the premiere broadcast of Paul Whiteman’s new radio show for Chesterfield on CBS.
…Bing Crosby as the
first guest star recalled the early days with the band and otherwise held a
gabfest with P. W. in the style well known to the Kraft Music Hall audience.
(Radio Daily, January 4,
1938)
1938
July 20 (5:30–6:00 p.m.) Appears on the Tommy Dorsey radio show on NBC and plays drums as part of a musical instrument amateur talent competition with other stars. Bing sings ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and then takes part in a presentation of ‘When You and I Were Young Maggie’ with the other guests.
As it must to all shows, broadcast day arrived. July 20,
1938. Rehearsal was in progress - “Honeysuckle Rose” for Bing, “Ida” for Dick, “
Jack Benny
did not arrive for dress rehearsal. We slipped in an extra number for the band,
to be used only if he didn’t make the show. About two minutes before air time,
Jack sauntered in, smiling under his snap-brim hat, smoking a cigar, holding
violin and bow at the ready. There was only time to make sure of the key for
his number, and we were on the air.
At the top
of the show, Tommy introduced a representative of Metronome magazine who presented him with the magazine’s
award for best all-around band. Then came the “amateurs.” As each of our
“amateurs” came to the mike, he was asked the usual questions - name,
occupation, and so on. Dealing with the stars exactly as he had dealt with the
actual amateurs gave us a natural, built-in comedy situation.
Jack Benny
was asked what his name was. After a pause of just the right length, he
answered, “My name’s Jack Benny.”
“What is your line of work?”
“I work in pictures.”
“You mean
you’re a movie actor?”
(Deadpan.)
“Yeah.” (Pause - deadpan.) “I’m a lover.” (Big laugh)
There is
nothing inherently funny in that line. But Benny’s timing and delivery, aided
by the situation, made it very funny indeed.
After each
one had performed, it was time to ascertain the winner and award the
seventy-five dollar prize. We pretended that the applause meter was so
overwhelmed by the swinging performances that it ceased to function. We
declared a five-way tie. Then the five of them launched into an animated
discussion of just how they would handle the seventy-five dollars, including such
matters as Social Security and agents’ commissions.
We closed
with a jam session, all five playing “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” with
Tommy and the band. It was terrible. The audience howled with delight. Over the
applause, Bing was heard to holler, “Hey, Tommy, you better tell that man
from Metronome to
take back the award.”
One thing for sure. Tommy and I never forgot what Bing did for us.
(Herb Sanford, writing in Tommy and Jimmy—The Dorsey Years)
December 25 (8:15-8:30 a.m.). Live broadcast
from Bing’s home as he helps his children open their presents.
1939
January 22 (8:00-9:00 p.m.) Appears on the
first “The March of Dimes” radio program.
February 5 (4:30–5:00 p.m.) Stars in the Gulf Screen Guild broadcast with Jane Withers on CBS. Bing sings ‘This Can’t Be Love’,* ‘I Have Eyes’* and ‘Small Fry’. (*Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)")
Most
of the patter on the Screen Guild show was dull. The singing, however,
saved this item. And no wonder, when you consider that Bing Crosby and
the Yacht Club Boys were the warblers.
(Ben Gross, Daily News, February, 6, 1939)
June 14 (5:00-6:00 p.m.) Takes part in the ‘America Calling’ radio show and sings ‘God Bless America’.
Bing Crosby,
assisted by the Max Terr chorus, will be heard singing “God Bless America” as
the opening salute to Old Glory on the “America Calling” program to be presented
under the auspices of the American Bar association over KLO and the NBC-Blue
network Wednesday, from six to seven p.m. Presented as a tribute to Flag day, and in appreciation
of the liberty and rights enjoyed by the people of the United States, “America
Calling” will bring together one of the greatest assemblies of famous radio and
screen personalities ever to join hands on one radio program.
(The Ogden-Standard Examiner, June 13,
1939)
July 12 (5:15-5:45 p.m.) Bing is at Suffolk Downs, Boston to see his horse Ligaroti run in the Massachusetts Handicap and he is interviewed during the race meeting by Clem McCarthy on the NBC Blue Network.
December 10 (4:30-5:00 p.m.) Stars in Gulf Screen Guild radio show ‘Mr. Jinx Goes To Sea’ on CBS. Bing sings ‘Are You Having Any Fun?’, ‘South of the Border’ and ‘Make With The Kisses’.
Bing Crosby will become a dramatic-comedy actor when he joins Jean
Parker, Andy Devine, Raymond Walburn, Chick Chandler, Roger Pryor, Oscar
Bradley’s Orchestra and John Conte on the Screen Guild Theatre over WCAU, WABC
at 7:30 o’clock this evening.
Crosby’s radio appearances always have been in revues and musical
comedies. But on this occasion, away from his regular Thursday night program
over KYW, WEAF, the singing actor has decided to play straight. Bing will have
the leading role in an original story “Mr. Capricorn Goes to Sea,” and he will
sing three songs that fit into the plot of the story.
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 10, 1939)
1940
January 6 (7:00–7:30 p.m.) Bing sings ‘South Of
The Border’ on the Bob Crosby radio show "Caravan".
‘Bob Crosby Orchestra with Mildred Bailey. Production
attempted to create a homey and intimate atmosphere by explaining that Mildred
Bailey was a childhood friend of the Crosby’s.
The angle was furthered by dialogue from brother Bing piped in from the
coast. Bing socked over ‘South of the Border’’
(‘Variety’ 10th
January 1940)
January 15 (6:00–7:00 p.m.) In radio version of the film, ‘Sing You Sinners’ for Lux Radio Theatre on CBS. Bing sings ‘Small Fry’, ‘I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams’ and ‘Don’t Let That Moon Get Away’. The complete programme was issued on the LP Spokane 8 ‘Sing You Sinners’. The songs are included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Music will spread its wings over the Lux Radio Theater tonight when
Cecil B. DeMille produces and presents “Sing You Sinners” as another dramatic
triumph the like of which recently won him first place in a nation-wide radio
poll of editors to decide the best dramatic show on the air. In order to assure
its perfection as real entertainment, DeMille has engaged Bing Crosby to return
in his original starring role of Joe Beebe, which won him widespread film
acclaim.
Joining Crosby when the show goes on the air over WDAE-CBS at 9 o’clock,
will be Elizabeth Patterson, who played Crosby’s mother in the picture; Ralph
Bellamy in the role of older brother, David, and Jacqueline Wells as the girl
David wants to marry. The story by Claude Binyon is written around Joe Beebe
(Crosby) whose propensity for bartering reaps a reward similar to that of the
hero in “Jack and the Beanstalk” with a considerable dash of romance. Also,
appropriately in a vehicle starring Bing, there’s a race-horse; and songs play
a part in the fast-moving and hilarious plot - songs sung in a night club to
provide money for feeding the horse.
(The Tampa Times, January 15, 1940)
January
20. (8:00-9:00 p.m.) Appears on “The March of Dimes” radio
program. This is radio’s
contribution to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis campaign. Eddie
Cantor is again the host and others appearing are Burns & Allen, Jack
Benny, Rudy Vallee, Fanny Brice and Mickey Rooney.
February 11. (1:00-1:30 p.m.) Bing guests on a KHJ radio program called “Nobody’s Children” which is presented by the Children's Protective Society of California and broadcast over the Mutual network. He sings "That Sly Old Gentleman".
June 22. (9:00–11:00 p.m.) Takes part in a two-hour nationwide radio benefit for the American Red Cross Mercy Fund.
August 10, Saturday.
(5:15-5:30 p.m.) Bing is interviewed on the Sports Searchlight program
about his plans for the Del Mar track prior to the running of the San Diego
Handicap.
August
16 (6:00–7:00 p.m.) Hosts a live radio show from Del Mar for the premiere of the film
‘Rhythm on the River’. Sings ‘Where the Turf Meets the Surf’, ‘That’s For Me’, ‘Rhythm on the
River’, ‘When the Moon Comes over Madison Square’ and with Mary Martin, ‘Only
Forever’. Extracts from the show can be
heard on the LP Curtain Calls 100/2 - ‘Both Sides of Bing Crosby’.
1941
January 30 (8:15–9:15 p.m.) Bing is thought to joined in a nation-wide
all-network "March of Dimes" radio hook-up to celebrate President Roosevelt’s birthday.
February 23 (4:30–5:00 p.m.) Takes part in the Gulf Screen Guild radio production of ‘Altar Bound’ with Bob Hope and Betty Grable on CBS. Bing sings ‘Frenesi’. (The complete programme was issued as part of Radiospirits 40062 (6-CD set) “On The Road Again”. The song "Frenesi" is included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Mirth and Melody will be combined through the talents of Bing Crosby,
Bob Hope and Betty Grable on the Columbia network “Screen Guild Theatre”
broadcast over KWKH at 6:30 tonight, when that stellar trio stars in an
original musical-comedy, “Altar Bound.”
The adage “two’s company, three’s a crowd,” gets a thorough working-over
in this gay story of a honeymoon trip to South America on which the bride
shares her suite with two total strangers as a result of a mistake in identity
when Crosby and Hope, as two down-and-out-ers are hired to break up a wedding
and kidnap the bride.
All goes well with the scheme except for the fact that they pick on the
wrong wedding party. The groom, a wealthy South American, stalks off in high
dudgeon and promptly flies home to the peace and quiet of Buenos
Aires. Crosby and Hope accompany the bride-to-be, Betty Grable, on a
junket to South America in an effort to patch things up.
With their usual tact and aplomb, Bing and Bob manage to add even more
confusion to the proceedings.
Roger Pryor will serve as master-of-ceremonies and director for the
program, with musical backgrounds for Crosby’s songs provided by Oscar
Bradley’s “Screen Guild Theatre” orchestra.
(The Shreveport Times, February 23, 1941)
Last week Bob Hope
and Bing Crosby did a turn on radio for the Screen Guild. Their vehicle was a
farce called “Altar Bound” by M. M. Musselman and Kenneth Earle and told of two
well meaning pals aboard a boat to South America. Their plan upon landing is to
rescue a friend from marriage. The sketch proved a smash hit. So much so that
the stars are anxious to have Paramount base a picture on the plot. With Hope
scheduled for three films and Crosby down for the same, the intended movie
can’t go into action for some months.
(Harry Mines, Los Angeles Daily News, March 1, 1941)
March 18 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Guests on Bob Hope’s radio show.
Bing Crosby will mix it with Bob Hope and company
tonight in the endless search for Yehoodi when he visits at 9, through WIBA and WMAQ.
Also, in between the ad-libbing there’ll be some exploitation and
propagandizing of their new film comedy.
(The Wisconsin State Journal, March 18,
1941)
April 18 (7:30-8:00 p.m.) Bing guests on Alec Templeton’s radio programme.
Bing Crosby
dropped in on the Alec Templeton show (WEAF 7:30) last evening and contributed
two numbers—Two Hearts That Pass in the Night” and “Ida.” Alec, alone, is swell. But with Bing, he is something
super special.
(Ben
Gross, Daily News, April 19, 1941)
July 9 (6.00 – 7.00 pm) Appears in ‘Millions for
Defense’ radio show with Bob Hope.
More big names of
radio, Hollywood and Broadway came to the mike last night to boost the sale of
defense bonds (WABC-9 to 10). Walter Huston, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour,
Dorothy Maynor, Barry Wood, Ray Block’s Choir, and Al Goodman’s Orchestra, with
Lowell Thomas as the emcee, provided the entertainment. Some of the patriotic
shows are high in noble intent but low in entertainment. Not this one. In fact,
“The Treasury Hour — Millions for Defense” as this period is titled, registers
as about the best of all the Summer variety periods.
(Ben
Gross, Daily News, July 10, 1941)
July 19 (5:30 p.m.) Acts as an announcer to describe the scene as the Hollywood Gold Cup is run at Hollywood Park.
August 2 (12:45-1:00p.m.) Hosts a show from Del Mar and sings ‘It
Makes No Difference Now’.
August 9 (12:45-1:00p.m.) Hosts another show from Del Mar.
August 16 (12:45-1:00p.m.) Hosts another show from Del Mar.
August 23 (12:45-1:00p.m.) Hosts another show from Del Mar.October 2 (9:00-9:30 p.m.) Broadcasts in Argentina on Radio El Mundo. Speaks in Spanish on the
show.
Buenos
Aires Oct. 14
“One shot of Bing Crosby over radio El Mundo on the Red White and Blue network here, with singer's
fee going to the Patronato Nacional
de Infancia children's charity drew much favourable comment as goodwill builder. Crosby down to vacash
and look at horses refrained entirely from personal appearances,
refused to attend the opening of 'Road To Zanzibar' and fought all official
greeting. Sponsor was Kraft
Argentina. J. W. Thompson local office
handled arrangements for one-time broadcast.
Script cleverly handled with singer piecing out enough Spanish to play
straight man to film star, Nini Marshall and
others. Eduardo Armani orchestra gave
out jive which Crosby rated a best 'yanqui'
beat. Fee not disclosed. Agency say while high for here, like peanuts in US.”
(‘Variety’, 15th
October, 1941)
November 1 (4:30 to 6:00 p.m.) Appears in a sponsored broadcast ‘Silver Anniversary of the Blues’ with Betty Jane Rhodes and Johnny Mercer to promote his film 'Birth of The Blues’. Several of the songs are included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Bing Crosby, Rochester and other
stars gave a flying start to their latest picture, “The Birth of the Blues,”
(WOR 9). A nostalgic divertissement, with Bing’s singing of “Melancholy Baby”
and John Scott Trotter’s indigo music as the highlights.
(Daily
News, (New York), November 2, 1941)
November 15. (8:15–11:00 p.m.) NBC
celebrates its fifteenth anniversary with a long show called “NBC’s Fifteenth
Anniversary Free for All.” Bing guests from Hollywood and sings “Shepherd
Serenade” accompanied by Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra.
Many other stars contribute from various locations around the country.
NBC climaxed a
week’s celebration of its 15th anniversary with a show last Saturday night
(15) which ran four minutes short of three hours. Apparently NBC figured
that the way that it could make the anniversary occasion momentous to listeners
was to trot out practically every artist heard regularly on the Red and Blue
networks. The performance, which started at 11:15 p.m., had one edge over the
occasion of NBC’s celebration of its 10th anniversary. The marathon complexion
prevailed, but it was a marathon of entertainment instead of a marathon of
brass-hat oratory. The speeches this time were sort of slipped in between the
acts, and the added virtue was their briefness.
(Variety,
November 19, 1941)
1942
January 18. (3:00-3:30 p.m.) Appears in the Silver Theater production of "Weekend in Havana" on CBS.
Bing Crosby actor, singer and turfman, has the lead in a radio
adaptation of the recent motion picture success, “Weekend in Havana,” on the
“Silver Theatre” broadcast over CBS-KWKH at 5 o’clock this afternoon.
Crosby appears as a wage slave in the employ of a steamship firm. One of
the company’s cruise ships fails to complete a Caribbean holiday jaunt and when
the beefs of the disappointed passengers attain a mournful crescendo Crosby is
dispatched southward to adjust matters.
With a lone exception, all the passengers sign a waiver. The single
conscientious objector - how did you guess it was a pretty girl? –
insists on a trip to Havana. Crosby takes her there by plane, plans an exciting
stay for her and even arranges a tropical romance with the aid of a gigolo and
a reasonably small amount of cash,
There are repercussions when the adamant passenger and the gigolo’s girl
friend tangle,
It wouldn’t be cricket to give away the finish – but put your money on a
happy ending.
(The Shreveport Times, January 18, 1942)
January 24 (8:15-9:15 p.m.) Bing guests
with many other stars in a radio show “Hollywood March of Dimes of the Air,”
which is broadcast on all networks coast-to-coast. Bing sings ‘Song of
Freedom’. (The “March of Dimes” campaign was originated by Eddie Cantor who
told people that if they would send ten cents to the President, it would help
find a cure for polio).
March 8 (7:30–8:00
p.m.) Takes part in the Gulf Screen Guild version of Too Many Husbands with Bob Hope
and Hedy Lamarr on CBS. Bing and Bob plug their film Road to Morocco. Oscar Bradley leads
the orchestra and Roger Pryor is the mc.
Three of the most popular stars
of the screen and of the radio – Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr – were
gathered by the Screen Guild to the mike last night (WABC-7:30). They appeared
in an adaptation of the comedy film, “Too Many Husbands.” The boys and the gal
had a good time and so did many listeners. With both Bing and Bob on hand, the
gags flew thicker than rumors in wartime. Hedy, abandoning for the once her
smoldering characterizations, came forth a bit on the brittle side.
(Ben
Gross, Daily News [New York], March 9, 1942)
March 28 (6:00–6:45 p.m.) Bing appears on the Lucky Strike “Your Hit Parade” radio program following heavy demand from
servicemen. Under protest, Kraft gives him special dispensation. Joan Edwards
also appears on the show. Bing is patched into the program from Hollywood and
sings three songs: "How About You"; "Blues in the Night"
and "Rose O'Day". The show is re-broadcast at 9 p.m. Pacific.
May 30 (9:05-9:55 p.m.) Joins in an all-star radio programme on NBC to support the USO. Others appearing are Edgar Bergen, Don Ameche, Mary Martin, Fanny Brice, Bob Burns, Spike Jones, Lana Turner and Meredith Willson's Orchestra.
June 18 Takes part in the Gershwin Memorial Concert at the Shrine Auditorium. The proceedings are recorded and broadcast on WEAF-NBC on July 4. Bing sings ‘Somebody Loves Me’ and ‘I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’. Also, he duets with Dinah Shore on ‘Summertime’ and ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’.
Forgetting the
anxieties of war, 6,500 of the music-loving elite of our community, film stars,
dramatists, artists and professionals and unprofessionals of every walk of
local activity crowded into Shrine Auditorium last night . . . Bing
Crosby sang inimically “Somebody Loves Me,” and though the audience was all in
favor of an encore, the genial Bing refused to delay the program by accepting
the ovation and invitation to sing again.
(Carl Bronson, Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, June 19,
1942)
…Much interest was
evoked in the audience over the appearance of Bing Crosby, who sang “Somebody
Loves Me.” Dinah Shore displayed a sweet mezzo in “The Man I Love” and “They
Can’t Take That Away from Me”. The two vocalists, supported by the Gilbert
Allen Choir, offered selections from Gershwin’s latest and best work, “Porgy
and Bess,” including the favorite “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,” “It Ain’t
Necessarily So,” and “Summertime,” for the climatic and closing item.
(Richard D. Saunders, Hollywood Citizen News, June 19, 1942)
July 4 (12:00-1:00 p.m.) Bing and Dinah Shore sing in a tribute to Stephen Foster transmitted on the Mutual Broadcasting System. The song "My Old Kentucky Home" is included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
…Shifting
then to Hollywood, the program will present Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore in
Foster songs. The choice should be good, because Foster wrote many of his songs
in the slow, rhythmic tempo of the south so well adapted to these two voices…
(Jack Bunker, The Courier-Journal, July 4, 1942)
July 23 Bing
takes part in Treasury Star Parade, a War Bond Drive radio program. This appears to
have been a transcribed (recorded) program as various radio stations broadcast
it at different times. Bing sings “I’m Saving a Dime (Out of Every Dollar)”,
the new official song of the Treasury Department. Both Bing and Dinah Shore
have recorded the song with Al Newman’s Orchestra and chorus.
August 26 (6:30–7:00 p.m. Pacific Time) Stars in a 30-minute transcribed radio preview of "Holiday Inn" on the CBS network with Fred Astaire and Betty Jane Rhodes.
“Holiday Inn,” the Irving Berlin film,
already a click on the screen, scored in its radio “preview” last night
(WABC-9:30 to 10). And why not? Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were on hand
before the mike, as they were in the picture. The music is outstanding,
especially when warbled by Bing and Betty Jane Rhodes, a girl with a magnetic
mike personality.
(Ben Gross, Daily News, (New York), August 27, 1942)
September 10. Bing records the AFRS ‘Front Line Theater’ radio show No. 1 with Bob
Hope, Hedy Lamarr and Glenn
Miller’s Orchestra.
October 1. Records the first of the ‘Personal Album’ series of AFRS shows for servicemen.
October 19 Records ‘Song Sheet’ shows No. 14 and No. 16 for servicemen through
the AFRS. Sings ‘White
Christmas’ on one of the shows and gives the lyrics of the song at dictation
speed.
November 20 Records ‘Song Sheet’ shows No. 20 and No. 22.
December 16 (6:30-7:00
p.m.) Bing makes a guest appearance in an episode of the radio series The
Mayor of the Town, which stars Lionel
Barrymore. The episode is titled "Bing Comes to Town" and the plot of
the play is built around a bond rally at which Bing is to sing. His songs
include “White Christmas”.
December 26 (7:15-7:45 p.m.). Appears on the "Soldiers with Wings" show on CBS singing four songs. This has been recorded in advance at the West Coast Training Centre at Santa Ana, California. Bing sings four songs accompanied by the Army-Airforce Orchestra led by Major Eddie Dunstedter.The song "Winter Wonderland" is included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
1943
January 11 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Stars in a radio version of ‘Holiday Inn’ with Dinah Shore. Bing sings ‘Happy Holiday’, ‘Be Careful It’s My Heart’, ‘Abraham’ ‘Easter Parade’ and with Dinah Shore, 'White Christmas’. The complete programme was issued on the LP’s Spokane 15 ‘Bing Crosby’ and Sandy Hook SH2409 ‘The Bells Of St. Mary’s/Holiday Inn’. It was also issued as part of Radiospirits 40062 (6-CD set) “On The Road Again”. The song "Be Careful It's My Heart" is included on the Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
January 26 (8:00-8:30 p.m.) Guests on Bob Hope’s radio show on NBC.
It’ll be bank night
on the Bob Hope show tonight. Ski-nosed Hope will have Bing Crosby as guest,
and the program’s sponsor is sweeping aside all commercials and turning the
time over to the U. S. Treasury Department so that the two great NBC
collaborators in fun can devote their talents exclusively to the sale of war
bonds. Inspired to make dialers dish out for lick-the-Axis stamps will be a
Crosby-Hope-Ennis vocal version of “1875,” an unpublished number by Wally
Anderson which was aired several months ago on the Hope stanza to create a
deluge of requests for a repeat.
(Arizona Daily Star, January 26, 1943)
January 30 (8:15-9:15 p.m.) Sings ‘Home on the Range’ on radio programme ‘America Salutes the President’s Birthday’ (March of Dimes Show).
Annual
60-minute broadcast Saturday night (30) over all networks and stations under
the complete title ‘America Salutes the President’s Birthday’ climaxed the
March of Dimes campaign of the Warm Springs Foundation to combat infantile
paralysis. Although there were a few high spots on the show it was generally
inferior to previous years’ programs. That was not only because President
Roosevelt, himself was missing, having not yet returned from his trip to
Casablanca, but because the entertainment portion of the broadcast was spotty.
There
were two notable interludes and several passable ones, but the rest was
distinctly ordinary. ‘Four Freedoms’ dramatization, pungently written and
directed by Norman Corwin, with an expressive musical accompaniment composed
and conducted by Bernard Herrmann, provided six or seven eloquent minutes early
in the show, although the circuit-preacher narration of David Gothard marred
the effect. Sketch took the form of questioning United Nations war dead whether
the Four Freedoms were justification for their sacrifice.
The
other strong spot was Jim and Marian Jordan’s “Fibber McGee and Molly’ comedy
routine from Hollywood, generating mounting laughter, but still neatly
inserting the ‘March of Dimes’ idea. Bing Crosby sang ‘Home on the Range’ in characteristically
sock fashion, Dick Powell vocalled ‘Anchors Aweigh’, and Florence George
concluded the Coast origination by leading a mass singing of ‘The Star Spangled
Banner’. At the start of the show Sammy Kaye’s orchestra played ‘Happy
Birthday, Mr. President’, specially composed by Irving Berlin for the occasion.
.
. . Basil O’Conner, president of the National Foundation to Fight Infantile
Paralysis talked endlessly and with ponderous seriousness about the March of
Dimes drive, but Mrs. Roosevelt was simple and direct in reading a brief,
genial cable from the President. Clifton Fadiman was an effective m.c. at the
Waldorf-Astoria, though apparently handicapped by difficulty in being heard in
the large ballroom there.
(Variety, February 3, 1943)
February 6 Records 'Song Sheet'
show No. 40.
February 8 Records another ‘Personal Album’ show for the AFRS.
April 5 (6:00-7-00 p.m.) Stars in Lux Radio Theatre version of ‘Road to Morocco’ with Bob Hope and Ginny Simms on CBS. Bing sings ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ and ‘Road to Morocco’. (The complete programme was issued as part of Radiospirits 40062 (6-CD set) “On The Road Again”). The song "Moonlight Becomes You" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Surrounded by an
all-star Hollywood cast, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Ginny Simms are heard on the
Lux Radio Theater in “The Road to Morocco,” an adaptation of the screen musical
hit. Cecil B. DeMille’s top-ranking radio feature goes on the air at 9 o’clock
over CBS-WDAE. The land of mosques and veiled beauty is the setting in which
Crosby and Hope are in entertaining pursuit of a lovely princess, played by
Ginny Simms. The musical notes are arranged and played by Lou Silvers.
(The Tampa Times, April 5, 1943)
May 16 (6.30-7:00 pm) Acts
as guest quizmaster on ‘Quiz Kids’ programme broadcast
on the Blue network.
The Quiz Kids gave
Bing Crosby a lesson in higher mathematics and also added several new words to
the master groaner’s vocabulary last evening (WJZ 7:30). Considering that the
old Bingola is quite an adept himself in the slinging of ten dollar words, that
is really an achievement.
(Ben Gross, Daily News, May
17, 1943)
June 2 Bing plays golf at Nashville at Belle Mead Country Club and gives a
short show afterwards on the course and auctions various items to help sell War
Bonds. The event is broadcast over station WSM and
Bing sings ‘As Time Goes By’ and ‘Dinah’
June 30 (9:00 - 10:00 p.m.) Takes part in a show from the Hollywood Bowl to launch the ‘Build the Cruiser Los Angeles Campaign' which is broadcast over NBC. Bing sings ‘Old Glory’ and ‘As Time Goes By’. Both songs are included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Hollywood Bond Drive
to Build Ship
Hollywood, July 10 (AP) – Hollywood’s send-off to the treasury’s local
campaign to sell $40,000,000 worth of bonds during the current month to build
the cruiser Los Angeles was one of the biggest rallies ever staged by the film
industry. As the evening went along, the Hollywood Bowl affair assumed the
aspects of a wildly enthusiastic football rally.
Cecil B. DeMille struck the Hollywood note by saying that the giant
sized cruiser is planned as the film town’s contribution to a “super-colossal,
all-color production, the total destruction of Japan!”
An “it can’t happen here” episode of the evening was that in which
Crooner Rudy Vallee directed the band music as accompaniment for rival Groaner
Bing Crosby. Nobody ever thought to see such a combination, but the crowd loved
it.
When the naval, marine and coast guard bands, united under the baton of
Lieut. Rudy Vallee of the coast guard, swung into their finale of patriotic and
sea airs, Toastmaster Edward G. Robinson seized the baton and directed, to a
burst of applause. Vallee capitulated, and put his white service hat on
Robinson, whose direction was able as well as enthusiastic. Throngs cheered and
stayed for more. Like most visiting teams, Secretary of the Navy Knox, the
guest of honor, couldn’t get the ball away from the home team.
(The Ogden Standard-Examiner,
July 11, 1943)
July 4 (5:00-5:30 p.m.) Guests on the Paul Whiteman radio show on NBC with Harry Barris and Al Rinker. They sing 'Mississippi Mud’ together. Bing also takes part in a Gershwin medley with Dinah Shore and sings ‘Summertime’, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ and ‘I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’. The song ‘Mississippi Mud’ was issued on the LP London HA-Z 2365 - ‘Paul Whiteman’s 50th. Anniversary Record’ and on the American Masters CD - 'Bing Crosby Rediscovered: The Soundtrack'. The song "It Ain't Necessarily So" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
“Chase and Sanborn Summer series (NBC) still
has 8 weeks to go but it still seems a good bet that it reached the acme of
musical entertainment, as far as this series is concerned, on last Sunday's
(4th) broadcast. Everything meshed so
perfectly and the performance produced such rare enjoyment in the genre of
popular music, that it's hard to conceive other show's
pilots even coming within reaching distance of this event. The program was divided into two sections,
and each was a darb of showmanship and
execution. The first section offered a
revival of the original Rhythm Boys; namely Bing Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry
Barris and the ten minutes of raillery vocalising and
special business that ensued was a treat of uncommon dimensions. The trio's interpretation of 'Mississippi
Mud' would undoubtedly become a must for record collectors if it were recorded. It was in the second section that the program
took off to the heights of brilliant musical entertainment. The scripted material was amended from George
Gershwin's' 'Porgy and Bess' and what Dinah Shore and Crosby, supported by Paul
Whiteman's sterling orchestral background, did with the vocals can best be
described by borrowing a phrase from the Swing and its lexicon, namely
"out of this world."”
(‘Variety’, 7th July, 1943)
July 7 (6:30-7:00 p.m.) Appears in the ‘Soldiers with Wings’ radio show with Corporal Alan Ladd and sings ‘Sunday, Monday or Always’ and ‘You’ll Never Know’. The show comes from the Santa Ana Classification Centre and is transmitted on the Mutual network. The song "You'll Never Know" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
July 31 (1:30-2:00 p.m.) The Topics for Today show on the Blue network hosted by Tommy
Tucker celebrates the first anniversary of the WAVES and includes a message
from Bing.
August 4 (10:00-10:30
p.m.) Guests on the radio show "Wings Over the World" which is
broadcast from the AAF Recreation Hangar at Long Beach on the NBC Blue Network.
Other guests are Trudy Erwin and Ukie Sherin.
August 10 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Bing appears on ‘Johnny Mercer’s Music Shop’ on NBC.
August 17 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Again, guests on
‘Johnny Mercer’s Music Shop’ radio show on NBC.
September 8 (6:00-7:00 p.m.) Bing takes part in ‘Cavalcade for Victory’, a nationwide broadcast
on all four networks to launch the Third War Loan, which was to be on offer
from September 9 until the end of the month. Bing and Dinah Shore operating
from the NBC Studio in Hollywood introduce the song “The Road to Victory” which
has been specially written by Private First Class Frank
Loesser.
The gathering of
this clan was for the purpose of helping our Treasury Department infuse a
little glamorous oomph into the launching of the Third War Loan Drive. Show
business’ part in the event was distinguished by good organization, sound radio
procedure and all-around infectious showmanship. Unlike the usual toss-together
of this type program, the Third Loan teeoff had a continuity that tied every
item on the bill into a cohesive, logical narrative. The telling was
entertaining, informative and inspiring. The program set out to tell by way of
dramatic sketch, comedy patter and song ‘how far we have gone’ in the nigh two
years of war.
In the
looking backward there was recalled to the listener the heroic stand on Bataan
(Robert Young); the spirit that brought forth ‘Praise The Lord And Pass The
Ammunition’ (Kay Kyser’s orchestra); an amusing sidelight on the housing
shortage (Burns and Allen); a bit of lyrical longing on the home from (Dinah
Shore); how the auto driving restriction hypoed the importance of the bicycle
(Edgar Bergen); the spirit that drew the Allies together in the North African
battle (Ronald Colman, Charles Boyer, Akim Tamiroff and George Murphy); an
adventure of two men in an upper berth resulting from the transportation
shortage (Jimmy Durante), and woman’s importance in the American arsenal (Jane
Darnell and Mercedes MacCambridge). Despite the potpourri of moods and
entertainment facets, the whole thing had the aspect of an adroitly fitted
mosaic. The timing was faultless, which fact gave special emphasis to the
skillful direction of George Zachary.
Bing
Crosby had the closing spot on this Hollywood-originated bill. With the support
of a chorus, Crosby intoned the current drive’s theme song, ‘Get on the Road to
Victory’. All the comedy passages were good, but Durante’s monolog packed an
added pinch of
The final
15 minutes of the hour brought from Washington James Cagney, Secretary of the
Treasury Henry A. Morgenthau, Jr., and President Roosevelt. Cagney told about
the latest ‘Hollywood Cavalcade’ that had been put at the disposal of the
drive, and introduced Morgenthau, whose mike delivery now rates as about the
best among his Cabinet confreres, and a rich relief when compared to the
general run of Washington politicos.
(Variety, September 15, 1943)
September 13 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Stars in the Screen Guild radio production of ‘Birth Of The Blues’ with Johnny Mercer and Ginny Simms on CBS. Bing sings ‘Memphis Blues’ and a snatch of ‘Basin Street Blues’ alone, ‘Birth of the Blues’, ‘Way Down Yonder in New Orleans’, ‘The Waiter, The Porter and The Upstairs Maid’ with Johnny Mercer and Ginny Simms and duets ‘Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie’ with Ginny Simms. Several of the songs are included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Ginny Simms and Bing Crosby, two of the nation’s singing favorites, have
a made-to-measure vehicle for their guest appearances on the “Screen Guild
Players” program, when they co-star in the radio version of the musical hit,
“Birth of the Blues,” 9 p. m. WMT-WNAX-KRNT. Crosby starred in the original
movie production of “Birth of the Blues” with Mary Martin.
Many song favorites are heard in this cavalcade, including “St. Louis
Blues,” “St. James Infirmary,” “Memphis Blues, “By The Light of The Silvery
Moon” and “Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nelly.”
The story goes back to New Orleans of the 1900’s and presents Bing as a
clarinetist who has but one ambition - to organize the hottest band in the
Southland and with it popularize controversial music known as jazz and blues.
Intertwined is his romance with the band’s singer, Ginny Simms.
“Screen Guild Players” is produced and directed by Bill Lawrence and all
proceeds from the weekly broadcasts go to the Motion Picture Relief Fund.
(The Des Moines Register,
September 13, 1943)
September 21 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Bing guests on Bob Hope’s first Pepsodent
show of the season on NBC. (The
complete programme was issued as part of Radiospirits 40062 (6-CD set) “On The
Road Again”)
Back from a tour of the
fighting fronts and aglow with newsprint plaudits for a job well done, Bob Hope
slipped into his radio harness last Tuesday (21) and sprinted over the old
track like a filly that had long been kept under wraps. It was the beginning of
his sixth season on that course, and the only newcomer among his running mates
was Stan Kenton, pacemaker for the program’s instrumentalists. The added name
for the occasion was Bing Crosby. In summary the half-hour was topsy-top Bob
Hope loudspeaker entertainment.
Hope’s opening monolog crackled with wows and near-wows. The
gags, as was natural, drew their thematic sustenance from the comic’s recent
travels. The crossfire involving Jerry Colonna and Vera Vague, the dulcet
songmaking of Frances Langford and the smooth orchestral support from the
Kenton unit all fitted snugly in a production of Grade AA merit. Aside from a
song, Crosby’s contribution to the plot was a sketch in which he and Hope
enacted their conception of what the Hollywood studios would be like if the
producers were compelled out of necessity to resort to a.k.’s
for screen lovers.
Frank Sinatra’s name figured frequently in Hope’s post-monolog
railery. When one of his aides remarked that the reason that Sinatra holds on
to the mike is the fear that he might fall over if he let go, Hope cracked,
“That will be taken care of when he gets that job on the Kraft program and he can
eat all the cheese he wants.”
Hope took over the closing few minutes of the period to convey,
in a serious vein, some of the observations and conclusions he had brought back
with him from Africa and Sicily. There was plenty of bite in what he had to say
about the reactions of the stay-at-homes to the war. The message had both
eloquence and the sharp flick of an accusatory truth.
December 7 (8:30-9:00 p.m.) Appears on Ed Gardner’s ‘Duffy’s Tavern’ radio show on the Blue Network and sings ‘How Sweet You Are’.
With his right hand
extended in greeting, and a baseball bat in his left, Archie (Ed Gardner) will
greet Bing Crosby at Duffy’s with the idea of peddling half ownership in the
jernt to the distinguished crooner during the broadcast tonight over KFBK at 8:30
o’clock. Archie has gone to the laborious trouble of writing a revue as a
co-starring vehicle which should put himself and Bing Crosby in the middle of a
one watt spotlight.
(The Sacramento Bee,
December 7, 1943)
December 20 (6:00-7:00 p.m.) Stars in an hour-long Lux Radio Theatre version of ‘Dixie’ with Dorothy Lamour and Barry Sullivan on CBS. Bing sings ‘Sunday, Monday or Always’, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, ‘She’s From Missouri’, ‘A Horse That Knows The Way Back Home’, ‘If You Please’ and ‘Dixie’. Several of the songs are included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
December 22 (6:30 - 7:00 p.m.) Bing and Janet Blair are the guests on the
‘Soldiers with Wings’ radio show.
December 24 (7:00-7:45 p.m.) Bing takes part in an all network radio special ‘Christmas
Eve at the Fronts’ with Bob Hope and Lionel Barrymore.
December 25 (1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope star on the ‘Elgin Watch Show’ on CBS with Jack Benny and Judy Garland. Bing sings ‘Kentucky Babe’, ‘My Heart Tells Me’ and ‘White Christmas’.
When you open with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and two hours
later wind up with Jack Benny and Judy Garland—brother, you’ve got yourself a
radio show!
That’s
what Elgin watch did Xmas afternoon, 4-6 over CBS, with a star-studded
cavalcade dedicated to servicemen all over the world and for those reached by
shortwave, it must have meant a mighty fine Christmas present. The two-hour
program represented a duplication of a similar Thanksgiving package aired by
Elgin but the only repeater was Robert Young whose expert piloting of the
November show deserved an encore. He repaid the compliment with another smooth
and effective bit of emceeing.
Crosby, in
addition to his insult-swapping chapter with Hope to start things off, was on
with Fibber McGee and Molly for more gagging, sang “Sleep Kentucky Babe” with The
Charioteers, soloed “My Heart Tells Me” and was picked to close the show with
“White Christmas” following the Benny-Garland crop of solid laughs.
(Variety, December 29, 1943)
1944
January 10 Records a guest spot on the AFRS ‘Jubilee’ show No. 60. Ernie Whitman is M.C. Bing sings ‘Shoo, Shoo, Baby’. This track can be found on Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service".
January 17 (6:00-7:00 p.m. Pacific Time) Bing takes part in ‘Let’s Back
the Attack’, a radio show on all four networks to launch the Fourth War Loan
drive. Other guests
include Captain Ronald Reagan, John Charles Thomas, Ginny Simms and the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. The
program has a Hooper rating of 44.4 and is heard by more than 42 million
Americans.
February 13. Bing is heard in various Treasury broadcasts beginning today.
The
Treasury Star Parade presents Bing Crosby in a quarter-hour of songs to
be heard during the Fourth War Loan Drive, the week of February 13. It
is one of three special programs to be broadcast during that week.
(The Circleville Herald, January 27, 1944)
Bing Crosby has recorded a supply of Treasury Song Parade tunes for the week of February 13.
(The Pittsburgh Press, January 27, 1944)
February 15 (7:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.) In Theatre Three at the Santa Ana Classification Centre, Bing guests on Bob Hope’s radio show on NBC with regulars Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen) and the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Bing sings ‘My Ideal’.
Retreat was the most beautiful, the
most impressive, the most unforgettable moment at the Santa Ana Army Air Base
Tuesday – the second anniversary of the base and the 54th of Col. W.A.
Robertson, commanding officer. Against a backdrop of foothills, snow-capped
mountains and gray and white clouds with thousands of officers and enlisted men
standing at attention and squadron pennants raised, our flat was slowly pulled
down from its mast. A band then played the “Star Spangled Banner.” Previous to
the nightly ceremony, the enlisted men had sat on the ground; nurses, wives,
children and sweethearts in folding chairs, to see and hear a show emceed by
Bing Crosby and paid for by him from royalties from his recordings of sacred
songs. Four servicemen in wheelchairs, each boy with an attendant, were
directly in front of the open air stage. Maj. Gen. Ralph P. Cousins, Maj. Gen.
P.T. Mow, C.A.F., Col. W.A. Robertson, Capt. W.A. Robertson Jr., a few other
officers and Mrs. Bob Hope and Hedda Hopper sat in a group to one side.
A
second hour of entertainment followed Retreat. Bing Crosby introduced the acts
until Bob Hope came out after finishing the rehearsal of his evening broadcast.
Arkansas Slim, a tall, spare defense worker in a ranch outfit, his one-man band
equipment, a tire pump and a rubber glove, and Paul Gordon, a skilled performer
on bicycles of different build, were two of the most popular entertainers. They
received more applause than did the Comets, three girl acrobatic dancers, and
eight girl dancers dressed in sarongs. Johnny Marvin and a trained bulldogs
were other features. John Scott Trotter conducted the orchestra of servicemen.
The
stars of course were Bing Crosby, Hope, Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, and
Vera Vague. The Charioteers, one of the finest singing foursomes on the air,
and Bing sang several numbers. Before each the soloist would ask, “Who starts
this?” In “Moonlight Bay,” he came out with “If anyone remembers the next line,
remind me” and to one of the quartet, “Lay it in there, Will” (Wilfred
Williams). To the pianist, James Sherman, he once remarked, “You’re killing the
count.” Hope, after introducing his wife, said “I paid a hell of a lot of money
for that hat. Stand up in a chair so the fellows can see it.” It was light blue
with two large bunches of blue feathers hanging down the back.
(Zuma Palmer. Hollywood Citizen News, February 17, 1944)
March 4 Records a ‘Personal Album’ show for the AFRS with Harry Mitchell.
March 30 Records another ‘Personal Album’ show.
April 14 (starting
at 3:30 p.m.) Hosts a fifteen-minute Pan American Day radio program on the Mutual network with
Ginny Simms and Arturo de Cordova.
May 13 (1:30-2:00 p.m.) Bing takes part in a
radio program on the NBC network featuring Cadet
Nurse Corps inductions.
June 4 (5:00-6:00 p.m.) Takes part in ‘Salute to Our Armed Forces’ a Bakers
of America radio show on NBC for Fleischmann Yeast. Other guests are Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen,
Gracie Fields, Judy Garland and Burns & Allen.
…From Judy Garland’s opening “Trolley Song” (from the yet to be released
“Meet Me in St. Louis”) right through to Gracie Fields sign-off “Danny Boy,”
the entertainment was strictly top of the bureau. Miss Garland also clicked
with an arrangement by ex-spouse Sgt. Dave Rose of “Long Ago and Far Away”. In
between was Bob Hope for characteristic ack-ack chatter, an insult routine with
Bing Crosby, latter’s “Love, Love, Love” and “Amor,” plus a Crosby-Garland duet
of “Way You Look Tonight.” Burns and Allen, visitors from CBS, had a smart
script, and, as usual, got everything out of it…
(Variety, June 7, 1944)
June 13 (8:30-10:00 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope and many other stars take part in a program titled "War Bond Day" on NBC promoting the Fifth War Loan.
…The final 30-minute period will
present Bing Crosby, who will introduce “Amos and Andy,” Bob Burns, Frances
Langford again, and “The Great Gildersleeve.”
(Bob Bentley, The Cincinnati Enquirer,
June 13, 1944)
June 18 (4:00-4:30 p.m.) Appears on NBC’s ‘Your All Time Hit Parade’ with Tommy Dorsey and two of the songs he sings with the Dorsey Orchestra (‘Small Fry’ and ‘Pennies from Heaven’) are recorded for use on a V-Disc. The song "Pennies from Heaven" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
This first program
with Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra in place of Mark Warnow’s studio band will be a
hard one to top…A slick bit of writing re Crosby’s early days with Paul
Whiteman’s band served to insert his version of “Louise”…Dorsey handles the
m.c. chores on the show and did a neat job when he wasn't stumbling. His band
hit brilliant performance peaks throughout and despite his many singers and the
inclusion of Crosby, who’s still the tops, there wasn't too much vocalizing.
All in all, it was a very auspicious beginning.
(Variety, June 21, 1944)
June 22 Records ‘Personal Album’ show with Don Forbes.
July 27 (4:00-4:15 p.m.) Bing appears on ‘Johnny Mercer’s Chesterfield Music Shop’ on NBC. The song "I'll Get By" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
August 27 (6:00-6:30 p.m.) In London, Bing records the ‘Variety Bandbox’ radio show for the BBC (broadcast August 29) at Queensberry All-Services Club with Tommy Handley. Bing sings ‘San Fernando Valley’, ‘Long Ago and Far Away’ and ‘Moonlight Becomes You’. After the show, Bing sings "Easter Parade" with Anne Shelton and this track is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
…Six o’clock. The red light on the stage flickered its warning and then
glowed steadily. The BBC announcer told the world “This is Variety
Band-box” and we were off to an hour’s recording of this popular broadcast…And
then Tommy’s (Handley) voice took on an excited, serious note. He announced
the next artist, and, before the words were out of his mouth, the
audience rose - for there he was ... the one and only Bing
Crosby - the man whose voice has brought pleasure and sanity into
every corner of a mad world at war.
He bounded on to the stage and stood there, beaming while the
biggest reception ever accorded to an artist in my memory thundered
through the vast hall. The minutes ticked by but the volume of sound
didn’t diminish, even though producer Stephen Williams vainly tried
to stem the tide. Finally, after many minutes, order was restored, and Tommy
Handley welcomed Bing to England and presented him with a pipe, to which Bing
made the rejoinder: “Well, isn’t that nice. What is it?”
And so the badinage went to and fro until Bing ejaculated,
“Well, for ever more” and the stage cleared and it was song time. Accompanying
him at the piano was Private James Rusin, second pianist of the Glenn Miller
Band and a smashing ivory-tickler. Bing and Rusin had never met one another
before this show. They had not rehearsed - just talked over the
numbers for a few minutes beforehand - and neither of them had
any music. But it didn’t matter. Rusin is a first-class
pianist, able to tackle anything, and Bing is no slouch, either. Oh!
But I’m running ahead. The female fans are dying to know what Bing
looks like - and here I am talking music! Well, he looks much
younger in the flesh than he does on the films, and he’s
much slimmer. He’s baldish, but not gleamingly so, and he’s taller
than you imagine. His eyes are just about the most vivid blue I’ve
ever seen - and his tie was pretty vivid too! Then he sang and I
don’t have to tell you what that was like.
First “San Fernando Valley” - then (and what a gasp
of joy when he announced it) “Long Ago and Far Away” and
finally, in response to requests
“Moonlight Becomes You”. He said he
wasn’t sure of the words of that one so, in the middle, he
suddenly sang “Does anyone know the words to this
song?” - and this ad lib fitted the music, and it was
terrific. And so, with a nice little speech from Bing to
the boys fighting overseas, the broadcast ended, amidst tumultuous applause,
and we all sat back well satisfied.
(Ray Sonin, Editor, Melody
Maker & Rhythm, September 2, 1944)
August 28 Takes part in a live broadcast ‘Mark Up the Map’ with Broderick Crawford on
the BBC’s AEF programme. The programme tells
the Forces what territory has been captured that week and Bing takes the
opportunity to introduce himself to those at the front saying he would be
touring there shortly.
One
of the big events that shook the AEFP was the arrival of Bing Crosby in August
1944. Long before he arrived all the factions were warring over him; it became
a matter of endless intrigue whether he should appear first at the Queensberry
Club or the Stage Door Canteen.
Bing
himself was the calm spot in the centre of the whirlwind. I have never met
anybody so natural and relaxed. The factions raged around the door and in the
corridor, but the object of their strife seemed not to have a care in the world.
He must have acquired this poise in sheer self-defence against the strain of
being the biggest one-man entertainment business in the world, but it made him
very easy to deal with and very nice to know.
He
did everything he was asked to do, including some things that I should have
thought anybody would have known better than to ask him: for instance, singing
in French and German for ABSIE, and taking part in our AEFP item ‘Mark Up Your
Map’. This was a daily broadcast in which we told the troops where the front
line was, according to the latest communiqués which had often not reached them
yet. Ed Kirby thought it would be a good idea to have Bing go in there one
morning and sing ‘Going My Way’, and Bing did. It was after this broadcast that
I got him up to my office to get away from the crowds, for naturally when Bing
appeared work virtually stopped in Broadcasting House. Before he left I asked
him just to walk through our AEFP offices and say Hello to the girls, and he
did. On the way out he was attacked by other
(Maurice Gorham, writing in his book Sound & Fury -
Twenty-One Years in the
August 30 Records the programme ‘A Soldier And a Song’ with Glenn Miller at Bedford which is broadcast on September 3. Bing sings ‘Amor’, Long Ago and Far Away’, ‘White Christmas’ and ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’. Goes on to London where Bing broadcasts live from the BBC’s Paris Cinema between 8:30 - 9:00 p.m. with George Melachrino and the British Band of the AEF, singing three songs, ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’*, ‘Swinging on a Star’ and ‘With a Song in My Heart’. (*included on “So Rare: Treasures From The Crosby Archive” – Collectors’ Choice Music CD WWCCM21092). The song "With a Song in My Heart" is included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
A week later the
British Band played host to their biggest star yet — The ‘Old Groaner’ himself,
Bing Crosby. The day was Wednesday, 30 August 1944, and his first song
was I’ll Be Seeing You. Captain
Franklin Engelmann introduced the show, which included two other songs by
Crosby — Swinging on a Star and
Bert Thompson’s arrangement of the Rodgers and Hart title With a Song in My Heart. It was
a wonder the broadcast ever took place at all because the orchestra’s leader,
RSM George Melachrino, had lost both his wife and young son when a V-l
‘Doodle-bug’ made a direct hit on their house in London. George, who was away
at the time, was heart-broken and no one in the orchestra knew how he had the
nerve to continue, but continue he did. Thanks to ORBS the entire broadcast
still exists and is an example of the orchestra at its finest. Included is the
Selby piano backed up by the strings in a really beautiful arrangement of Sweet and Lovely. It was a fine
orchestra indeed and with Crosby it showed itself off to the full.
(The Big Bands Go To War, page 23)
August 31 (8:30 - 9:00 p.m.) Does a live broadcast with Glenn Miller and his American Band of the AEF from the Paris Cinema and sings four songs, ‘Long Ago and Far Away’, ‘Amor’, Swinging on a Star’ and ‘Poinciana’. The songs are included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
…and then it was
back to the Paris for the band’s regular Thursday evening broadcast with a
surprise guest star – none other than Bing (he wasn’t billed in “The Radio
Times”) surprisingly without an audience. He sang all the songs on the
programme, replacing Johnny Desmond, and in one, “Swinging on a Star” was
accompanied by Mel Powell and the Swing Sextet. The finale of the programme was
Jerry Gray’s classic arrangement of “Poinciana”, and earlier at rehearsal, the
free and easy Bing had come up against the perfectionist bandleader who was
wont to rehearse everything repeatedly to get it exactly right. The two men had
been great friends since the early 30s, but after running through it again,
Bing refused, saying “What, make all these boys
tired? Glenn, dear boy, just wave your baton and I’ll promise I’ll come in.”
Needless
to say, with Crosby, the complete professional it was “all right on the night.”
(Geoffrey Butcher, Next to a Letter from Home: Major Glenn Miller’s Wartime Band)
November 14 (7:00 - 7:30 p.m.) Bing appears on Bob Hope’s radio show on NBC with
Frances Langford and Jerry Colonna.
November 20 (5:30-5:55 p.m.) Bing takes part in Frank Sinatra’s Vimms
Vitamins radio show and sings parodies in comedy duets with him and a solo
version of ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ The comedy duet is included on Sepia
CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Frank Sinatra had
a lot of nerve, getting into the same ring with an ad-lib artist as deadly as
Bing Crosby but he got away with it with a whole skin, last Thursday (16th) on
Crosby’s show and again Monday (20th) with the initial broadcast of his own Vim
show at its new
time.
Crosby
started out, last week, as though he was going to take Sinatra’s hide off with
gag-gloved barbs that left the Voice almost unable to cope with the barrage. It
all was capped by a parting crack by Crosby about “a lovely orchestra” after
Sinatra did a fine job on “These Foolish Things.” The Groaner’s comment on the
sixty-piece band under Alex Stordahl’s baton was deserving, however. It was
brilliant.
On his
own show, Sinatra at least came out even with Crosby which isn’t a pun on the
fact that they finished in a duet. Crosby wasn’t quite so sharp, Sinatra taking
most of the play, almost immediately, with a crack about the grand old man of
all crooners and doing a right good job of parrying and tossing them back from
thereon. Crosby contributed “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” as his guest
contribution, later going into a duet with Sinatra in which they, laughingly,
derided each other’s ability. It was good stuff and so was the idea of pairing them
in such a way. Exchange shots might have been better had the two been in the
same studio, at that, technicians did a crack job on the pick-up. Sinatra being
in the East and Crosby, in the West for each broadcast.
(Variety, November 22, 1944)
November 23 (8:30 - 10:00 p.m.) Bing, Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor act as emcees on
the NBC 6th War Loan Drive programme.
One of the most successful war loan programs was broadcast on
Thanksgiving evening, November 23, 1944, from 8:30 until 10:00 P.M. Pacific War
Time. Carried on the NBC network and titled “Let’s Talk Turkey to Japan,” the
Sixth War Loan Drive aimed to raise $5 billion for the war effort. The program
featured show business personalities, such as Robert Young, Jack Haley, Bob
Hope, Joan Davis, Jack Benny, Amos ‘n’ Andy, and Kay Kyser and his orchestra,
performing skits and scenes to encourage war bond purchases. Others with
prominent parts in the show were Bing Crosby singing ‘Accentuate the Positive’
and ‘White Christmas’; the Ken Darby Singers performing ‘Let’s Talk Turkey To
Japan’ and ‘The Time Is Now’ (‘The time is now/The time is now/It’s time to
read the writing on the wall’); Dinah Shore singing ‘Always’ and ‘Together’;
Ginny Simms performing ‘The Man I Love’; Dick Powell singing ‘You Always Hurt
the One You Love’; and Eddie Cantor performing a medley of George M. Cohan
songs: ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, ‘Harrigan’, ‘Mary’s A Grand Old Name’, ‘Give My
Regards to Broadway’, ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’ and ‘Over There’. The program
concluded with the NBC orchestra and the Ken Darby Chorus performing ‘The Star
Spangled Banner’, while Eddie Cantor made one more plea for Americans to give
‘everything we have. We don’t dare make it easy on ourselves…when by doing so,
we make it harder on the men who are fighting for us!’
. . . Introducing ‘White Christmas’ during his performance on NBC’s
Sixth War Loan Program, ‘Let’s Talk Turkey To Japan’, Bing Crosby said, ‘On a
holiday like this,….is when our men fighting overseas….have to swallow the
biggest lumps….think (ing) of the cozy, quiet warmth of home on a holiday…They
asked to hear, ‘White Christmas’….I hesitated…it…made them sad. Heaven knows
making them sad wasn’t my job…but every time I tried to slack it they’d holler
for it. Sometimes we all got a little dewy-eyed. You can’t know….and yet you
must know how… (sings) ‘They’re dreaming of a White Christmas…’
(God Bless America – Tin Pan Alley Goes To War)
December 6 (10:00 - 11:00 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope emcee ‘The Show Goes On’ (on NBC) to raise money for the Sixth War Loan. Fred Astaire, James Cagney, Frances Langford, Dinah Shore and Edgar Bergen are featured on the hour-long show.
Every once in so
often one of those dream shows pops up in radio—the kind that would provoke
sponsor somersaulting if they could reasonably approximate it. “The Show Goes
On,” put on last Wednesday night (6) cooperatively by the War Activities
Committee of the motion picture industry and NBC as a feature of the Sixth War
Loan, to tie in with the free pix admission for each bond purchase on the third
anni of Pearl Harbor, was that kind of a program.
Take a look at that
Sl.000.000 parlay: Bing Crosby and Bob Hope to wrap up emcee jobs (and what a
wham routine!): Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Jerry Colonna, Paulette
Goddard, Dinah Shore, Frances Langford, Adolphe Menjou, Merle Oberon, Fred
Astaire, Larry Adler, James Cagney, Maj. Meredith Willson batoning the orch!
(Jack Benny was skedded for a cut-in from Palm Springs but was killed off by
line trouble.) Not just an on-again, off-again succession of star-acts to
project the overseas “soldiers in greasepaint” campaigners into the limelight,
this was an hour of boff entertainment from intro to signoff. And all wrapped
together with a sock production job sparked by Mann Holiner and a top-drawer
scripting contrib paced by Carroll Carroll.
Here’s a show that
merited a four-network hookup in the “heart” of the evening. This was the hypo
that those snail-paced E bond sales needed. For that multiple-millioned
audience would have paid off with an addition dividend. But what happens! One
of the top radio shows of the year is tucked away in the quiet 11:30-12:30
(EWT) nighttime spot. After all, it wasn’t much trouble yanking out the Arthur
Hopkins dramatic sustainer which occupies that niche. Yet here was a gold-mine
package of solid showmanship virtually wasted. It would be interesting to get a
Hooper on the number of people who heard the show to match it against a
four-web potential audience draw and translate into terms of actual bond sales
lost.
(Variety, December 13, 1944)
December 18 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Bing, in
Hollywood, is cut in to a radio program called “Vox Pop” on CBS, which features
the WAVES. The show comes from Hunter College in New York where background
scenes for the Crosby film Here Come the Waves were filmed.
December 19 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Guests on Bob Hope’s Christmas show on NBC with Frances Langford, Vera
Vague and Jerry Colonna. The show comes from San Diego in front of an audience
of WAVES. Bing sings ‘White Christmas’
and ‘Silent Night’ alone and ‘Let’s Take the Long Way Home’ with Frances
Langford.
December 24 (3:00-4:00 p.m.) Stars in the Philco Radio Hall Of Fame show on the Blue
Network with Paul Whiteman and Orson Welles. He is also reunited with some of
the troupe who had accompanied him to Europe, namely Jeannie Darrell, Joe De
Rita and Darlene Garner. The show comes from the Earl Carroll Theatre / Restaurant
in Hollywood. Bing is the M. C. and also takes part in a reading of ‘The Happy
Prince’ with Orson Welles. Bing sings
‘Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive’ with Jeannie Darrell
and Darlene Garner and he also sings ‘Jingle Bells’ ‘Adeste
Fideles’ and ‘White Christmas’, accompanied by the
Paul Whiteman Orchestra.
December 25 (1:00-3:00 p.m. Pacific Time) Bing, Bob Hope and Jack Benny star in
the two hour Elgin Christmas Party radio show on CBS. Don Ameche acts as
M.C. Bing mentions another make of watch (Bulova)
much to the annoyance of Elgin.
One of the finest
comedy sequences of 1944 was that between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on the
Christmas day two hour all-star variety show over CBS. This team rarely lets
its following down, but Monday it hit an all-time high, making even mistakes
count for big laughs from the serviceman canteen audience. At one time Crosby
forgot a line of the ballad he was singing, so Hope interrupted him from
somewhere in the gallery with an insulting offer of help. They made much fun
with Bing’s horses which soon will get a rest when the racing industry folds in
January. Hope said he thought that would be a break for the glue industry,
although it might put a hole in Crosby’s radio material. Crosby countered,
“Yes, and it’ll set you back six or seven programs, too.” But Hope had the last
line, as usual, with “Yes, and I see you’re wearing one of your horse’s
blankets today,” obviously a reference to a colorful Crosby shirt.
(Richard K. Bellamy, Riding the Airwaves, The Milwaukee Journal, December 26, 1944)
December 27 (starting at 7:30 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope
headline the National Sports Award dinner broadcast by station KMPC.
December 31 (1:30-2:00 p.m. Pacific Time) Appears on the Andrews Sisters radio show with Gabby Hayes plus Vic Schoen and his Orchestra on the Blue Network. Bing sings ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ and ‘Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive’, both with the Andrews Sisters.
The
first Andrews Sisters’ show was heard at home. I am not a devotee of the girls’
type of singing but it was refreshing after the amount of “romantic” warbling
to which we are asked to listen. Bing Crosby is a welcome guest on almost any
program but when are his horses going to be forgotten? Gags about the nags were
run into the ground a long time ago. It is too soon to judge the work of
“Gabby” Hayes, there being a perennial problem of suitable lines, on the
program as a whole.
(Zuma Palmer, Hollywood Citizen News, January 2, 1945)
1945
Introduces many ‘Personal Album’ shows for the AFRS,
which include some of Bing’s recordings and the occasional extract from KMH
shows. The shows are broadcast at
weekly intervals.
January 8 (7:00-7:30 p.m.) Stars in a radio version of ‘Going My Way’ with Barry Fitzgerald on CBS with the Screen Guild Players. (Included in the Blu-ray "Going My Way - 75th Anniversary Edition" issued by Shout Select in 2019 (No. SF 20107 2117732). The songs "Going My Way" and "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral" are included on Sepia CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
January 30 (8:15-9:15 p.m.) On ‘March of Dimes’ radio show
with Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland to salute the President’s birthday and to
raise funds for the fight against polio. The programme
is broadcast on all radio networks. Bing
and Frank sing a comedy duet together and also Bing sings ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral’.
February 5 (8:30 - 9:00 p.m.) Takes part in the Dupont
Cavalcade of America broadcast ‘The Road to Berlin’ on NBC which tells the
story of Bing’s trip to Europe in 1944.
Bing sings an introductory ‘Where the Blue of the Night’ and follows it
with a solo version of ‘White Christmas’, ‘Easter Parade’ (with Jeannie
Darrell), choruses of ‘Pagan Love Song’, ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’ and ‘You Are My
Sunshine’, a solo of ‘San Fernando Valley’, ‘If I Had My Way’ (with Jeannie
Darrell and Darlene Garner) and finishes with a chorus of ‘Home Sweet
Home’. The entire programme
was issued on the LP ‘Der Bingle,
Volume Four’ Spokane 30.
February 10 (4:30-4:45 p.m.) Thought to have appeared in the NBC programme
‘On the Scouting Trail’.
March 7 (7:30-8:00 p.m.) On ‘Five Will Get You Ten’ radio programme
broadcast on the Blue Network for the Catholic Bishops’ War Emergency and
Relief Committee. Bing sings ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral’.
March 15 After completing his KMH show earlier in the evening, Bing escorts Dixie to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for an 8:00 p.m. start to the Academy Awards presentation. He receives his Oscar for best actor from Gary Cooper for ‘Going My Way’, the event emceed by Bob Hope. The proceedings are broadcast on the Blue Network.
April 15 (4:00-6:00 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope
take part in a two-hour radio tribute on NBC to the late President Roosevelt
and Bing sings ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ and ‘Brahms' Lullaby’.
May 2 (6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.) Bing guests on the ‘Frank Sinatra Show’ on
CBS for Max Factor and sings "This Heart of Mine" and a medley of parodies with Frank.
EXTRA! Will wonders
never cease? Last night, Frank Sinatra celebrated Bing Crosby’s birthday. The
Voice played host to the Groaner on the former’s program, and the result was a
fast set-to of banter and a mellifluous merger of song.
(Daily News (New York), 3rd May, 1945)
May 7 (6:00-7:00 p.m.) Stars in the Lux Radio Theatre version of
‘Sing You Sinners’ with Joan Caulfield and sings ‘I’ve Got a Pocketful of
Dreams’, ‘Don’t Let That Moon Get Away’ and ‘Small Fry’.
Bing Crosby will head
the cast of “Sing You Sinners,” playing happy-go-lucky Joe Beebe in an adaptation
of the musical film on the CBS-WRVA Radio Theater at 9 p.m. James Dunn, in the
role brother David Beebe, and Joan Caulfield, as Martha, will support Bing.
Crosby’s songs are “Small Fry” and “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams.”
(The Richmond Times-Dispatch,
May 7, 1945)
May 9 (6:00-6:30 p.m.) Bing, who is
in Hollywood, takes part in a radio show on the Blue Network called The Road Ahead with Grace Moore. Most of the show comes from Bethesda
Naval Hospital in Maryland and the MC is Clifton
Fadiman. The program is presented in behalf of
wounded service men in an effort to help them plan their futures.
May 13 VE Day. (9:30-10:00 a.m.) Bing appears on ‘The Chapel of the Air’ hour
on the Mutual Network talking about finding time for prayer. This is the first of Father Peyton’s Rosary
broadcasts and it achieves nation-wide coverage, as it is a national day of
thanksgiving following the end of hostilities in Europe.
“Bing Crosby from Hollywood,
Sunday (13th) on Mutual’s ‘Chapel of the Air’.
Crosby said that the Family Rosary was recited at his home every day,
that he wanted his four boys to love their country, God and their home, that he
wanted to believe in the efficacy and practice of prayer both at home and in
church. Through daily family prayer,
continued Crosby, all children and all adults will come closer to God. Crosby had a simple but perfectly phrased
script which he read superbly.”
(‘Variety’, 16th May, 1945)
May 13 (5:30-6:00 p.m.) Bing and Bob Hope star in the Seventh War Loan programme which is broadcast on all networks.
Heralding the opening
of the Seventh War Loan tomorrow, each of the four major networks today will
present their own special War Bond programs, all of which are to be broadcast
during the same half-hour period, from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. PWT. What you will
hear will depend of course, on the network station your receiving set is tuned
to. If you are on the KFO wavelength, you’ll hear Bing Crosby and John Scott
Trotter’s orchestra, in Hollywood, joining Bob Hope, Frances Langford, Jerry
Colonna, Vera Vaga (sic) and Skinnay Ennis’s orchestra on an NBC hookup with
New York where the Hope crew is currently stationed.
(Pasadena Independent, May 13, 1945)
May 26 Bing and Bob Hope take part in an exhibition golf match at Tam O’Shanter Country Club, Chicago. During the round, they give a radio interview
on NBC and sing a brief snatch of ‘Road to Morocco’.
May 29 (9:00–9:30 p.m.) Bing makes an unscheduled guest
appearance on Bob Hope’s radio show on NBC with Herbert Marshall and Frances
Langford. The show comes from Washington Hall at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. Bing surprises Hope with a
birthday cake as it was Bob’s birthday and leads the audience of servicemen in
singing “Happy Birthday”. (The programme was issued
on Radiospirits 43462 “Bob Hope Show – 12 CD longbox”)
June 20 Bing stars in the ‘The Walgreen Birthday Party’, which had been recorded on May 16 as part of the Seventh War Loan Drive show at Warners’ Wiltern Theatre in Hollywood with Paulette Goddard, the Andrews Sisters and Rise Stevens. Bing sings ‘All of My Life’, ‘You Belong to My Heart’ and a duet with the Andrews Sisters, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’.
With a star-spangled bill of fare, the
Examiner-Theater Seventh War Loan “In Person” show played to an enthusiastic
capacity crowd at Warner’s Wiltern Theater last night. Staged with the
cooperation of broadcast networks, film studios, Music Corporation of America
and top flight artists of stage, screen and radio, the mammoth amusement
extravaganza helped toward the $100,000,000 goal of Examiner-Theaters Southern
California bond sales drive.
Highlighted by
personal appearances of such personalities as Bing Crosby, 1945 winner of the
Academy Award for the finest acting performance of the year in Going My Way, the spectacular, thrill
packed show was coordinated by Sherrill Corwin, vice chairman of the
Examiner-Theaters drive.
Lou Abbott, of the
hilarious comedy duo of Abbott and Costello contributed his bit to make the
performance outstanding. Others participating included Paulette Goddard,
Paramount star who appeared in a dramatic skit; Rise Stevens, operatic
mezzo-soprano, and the Andrews Sisters, with their own inimitable
interpretations of current song hits. Don Wilson, genial master of ceremonies;
Eddie (Rochester) Anderson, colored comic of the Jack Benny air show; Carl Hoff
and his 30 men of melody—these and many others helped to make the show a
memorable one for the spectators.
It was a gala affair
from start to finish, real hit entertainment. But through it all was the
realization that it was part of an effort that is spelling victory over
oppression. For every person in the audience had earned his free ticket by
purchasing war bonds at motion picture theaters throughout the metropolitan
area.
(Los Angeles
Examiner, May 17, 1945)
July 2 (9:00-10:00 p.m.) On ‘The Telephone Hour’ on NBC radio and plugs the
film ‘The Great John L’, which has just been released by United Artists. Bing’s
fee for the show is $7,500. He sings
‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’, ‘Darling Nellie Gray’, ‘De Camptown
Races’, ‘Home on the Range’, ‘A Friend of Yours’, ‘When You Were Sweet
Sixteen’, ‘The Band Played On’ and ‘God Bless America’. Extracts from the programme
were issued on the LP Spokane 30 - ‘Der Bingle, Volume Four’. Several of the songs are included in Sepia
CD 1369 "Guest Star Time (1935-1953)".
Apparently bowing to
the fetish that summertime cues audience demand, for lighter material, NBC’s
“Telephone Hour” this week (2) let down its long hair and, instead of a Heifetz
or Iturbi, brought Bing Crosby to the air. Der Bingle was in good form, groaning
his way through a long list of faves that ranged from Stephen Foster and George
M. Cohan to Irving Berlin and Jimmy Van Heusen. He sang with chorus and solo,
with gusto or nostalgia as occasion demanded, and was a boff asset being just
himself instead of trying to gear himself to the highbrow stanza. “Telephone
Hour’s” excursion into pop fare can be registered as a solid click.
(Variety, July 4, 1945)
What the guesting
of Bing Crosby means to a show is exemplified in the 11.8 rating
for “The Telephone Hour,” which tops the last figure by 5.9.
(Daily Variety, July 13, 1945)
July 6 (7:00-7:30 p.m. Pacific Time) Guests on ‘The Ray Bolger Show’ on CBS
for the Rexall Drug Company and sings ‘Sentimental
Journey’ and ‘A Friend of Yours’. Again receives $7,500 for his services.
…What Friday night’s
opening show would have sounded like without Der Bingle’s contribution isn't
hard to conjecture. For the most part it would have fallen flat on its face.
And basically it's because Bolger remains an unknown quantity for radio. On the
stage the guy’s a natural. Come television and that Bolger buffoonery can’t
miss. True, he succeeds in conveying a feeling of ease and naturalness before a
mike. That's because he’s a born trouper. But radio's another story. To project
those comedic talents over the air requires definite characteristics, a
particular stock-in-trade, a line of comedy, individual idiosyncrasies that
stand apart from others. But thus far there’s nothing evidenced to stamp him as
Bolger. He sounds like just another comedian. What laughs there were on the
show stemmed chiefly from Crosby’s smooth, boff patter. If anything, it was via
this contrast presented by the Master of the Glib Tongue that Bolger
suffered…On the vocal side. Crosby wrapped up the whole show with his “Sentimental
Journey” and “A Friend of Yours” from his “Great John L.” pic.
(Variety, July 11, 1945)
August 6 Takes part in ‘Music For Millions’, a
transcribed 15 minutes radio show.
August 8 Records AFRS ‘Christmas Jubilee Show’ with Count Basie (broadcast December 1945) and sings ‘Gotta Be This or That’. This track can be found on the Sepia CD "Bing Crosby Sings for the Armed Forces Radio Service".
August 14 (10:30-10:45 a.m.) Bing guests on a radio show from station KHJ with Paula
Stone and Phil Brito to plug the film ‘The Great John
L’.
August 20 (8:15-8:30 p.m.) Bing deputises for Hedda
(who is on holiday) on ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood’
radio show and promotes ‘The Great John L’.
Bing sings ‘A Friend of Yours’.
September 14 Again appears in ‘Music For Millions’ War Bond radio show and sings three songs with
John Scott Trotter and the Orchestra, including ‘We’ve Got Another Bond to
Buy’. The show has been recorded.
December 5 (8:00-8:30 p.m.) Emcees a half hour radio show ‘That They Might Walk’ on
the Mutual Network for the Sister Kenny Foundation in New York. Jimmy Dorsey, Dee Parker and Patrice Munsel are in support.
“Bing Crosby, missing from Kraft Music Hall this season,
came back to the mike, last week (5th) when he sang and emceed a
special show on Mutual in support of the Sister Kenny Foundation.
The Groaner is Chairman of a fund campaign to help infantile paralysis victims
through the Kenny method. So, he put his
heart, as well as his best showmanship into a well-paced half-hour that made
good listening. To back him up, he had
Jimmy Dorsey’s band. To complement his
style he brought Dee Parker. To garnish
the stanza with something classical, he put on Patrice Munsel,
in an aria from ‘La Traviata’, assisted by Sylvan
Levin’s longhairs. Der
Bingle kept his Polio Fund plugs, brief and pointed,
though with that kind of line-up, how could the show, ‘That They Might Walk’,
be bad.
(“Variety” 12th December 1945)
December 6 (11:35 p.m. to midnight) Bing stars in a special Victory Loan radio broadcast over ABC. He is accompanied by Paul Whiteman and his Band.
December 9 (4:30-5:30 p.m.) Sings ‘I’ve Told
Every Little Star’ and ‘More and More’ in a radio tribute to the late Jerome
Kern on CBS with Judy Garland, Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra. The show is hosted in New York by Patrice Munsel and in Hollywood by Nelson Eddy.
December 10 (9:00-9:30
p.m.) Bing is the MC on a radio program called “We Helped” on ABC which
dramatizes the experiences of those who went abroad to entertain the troops.
The show is a celebration of the fourth anniversary of the USO Camp Shows.
December 22 (12:30–1:00 p.m.) Bing emcees another New York radio show, the BBC - NBC ‘Atlantic
Spotlight’. Roland Young guests with Richard Greene, Arthur Askey
and Leslie Mitchell contributing from London.
Bing sings ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’.
“Bing
Crosby sparked the NBC/BBC ‘Atlantic Spotlight’ on Saturday (22nd)
with some light banter and emceeing and some choice crooning of, ‘It’s Been A
Long, Long Time’ and ‘White Christmas’.
The quintet of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’ with Der
Bingle, Roland Young, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Ben Grauer and Leslie Mitchell, the last named, chiming in from
London was something else again - a musical melange,
only mildly entertaining. Miss Skinner
and Young offered an amusing ‘nitwit’ bit from their ‘Johnny Presents....’ programme.
Contributions from London with Richard Greene plugging his forthcoming
film and Leni Lyn singing “One Love’ was just so-so
stuff”
(“Variety” 26th December 1945)
December 23 (6:00 – 6:30
p.m.) Bing guests on the Philco Radio Hall of Fame show on the ABC
network. Maurice Evans and Martha Tilton also appear and Paul Whiteman and his
Orchestra provide the music.
December 25 (10:00 – 10:30 p.m.) Thought to have made a guest
appearance on Bob Hope’s radio show on NBC.
1946
Appears on The Hedda Hopper Show and, with
Leo McCarey and Hedda,
enacts scenes from ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’.
April 19 Takes part in radio show ‘Cancer Drive Program’ with Bob Hope, Ginny
Simms, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como.
April 21 (12 noon to 1:00 p.m.) On ‘Can You Tie That’, a radio programme over station KALC, which is compered
by Al Jarvis and comes from Earl Carroll’s Theatre / Restaurant in
Hollywood. This is a record grading
contest. Bob Hope grades ‘Who’s Sorry
Now’ by Bing whilst Bing grades Hope’s record of ‘Two Sleepy People’ amongst
several other records by other artistes. The other members of the panel are
Ella Logan and Dave Dexter.
The occasion was a
clothing drive for Catholic Charities, and the seven tons collected just about
measure up to the amount of hilarity served up on the discs. Hope and Crosby
jitterbugged their way through the first record played, Les Brown's "Good
Blues Tonight," and each gave it 95. Ella Logan judged it at 67, and Dave
Dexter granted it a tepid 59. At this announcement, Hope and Crosby got up to
leave. "You can tell we're from the country," commented Bob sadly.
Second record played was "Who's Sorry Now?" by a singer named Bing
Crosby. Crosby leaned back and listened in rapt attention with occasional
murmurings of "Beautiful—beautiful. Turn it up." Hope's first comment
was, "Well, I don't follow the singers much!" But he thought it was
nice that Eddie Heywood let his father sing with the band. "After careful
consideration, I give it six and one half points!" he decided. From singer
Shirley Ross, Jarvis borrowed an old record on which she and Hope shared the
vocal, "Two Sleepy People" (now scheduled for release). A stunned
Hope recovered to find that on nostalgia value alone even hard-to-get Dexter
had given him a satisfactory score. One of the highlights of the show was the
presentation to Crosby of a gigantic picture of Frank Sinatra. Bing countered
by giving Bob an even greater enlargement of Red Skelton. Jarvis admits that
throughout the program, the boys kept him laughing so hard that he forgot about
emceeing. "It should have been television," he sighed. "I've
never had so much fun in all my life!"
(Joan Buchanan, Radio Life, June 23, 1946, pages 7-8)
August 26 (6:00-6:30 p.m.) Bing stars in the Screen Guild
Players radio version of ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’ on CBS with Ingrid
Bergman. Bing sings ‘Aren’t You Glad You’re You’ and ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’. (Included in the Arrow Academy Blu-ray "The Bells of St. Mary's" issued in 2019)
September 1 (5:15-5:30 p.m.) Guests on Louella Parsons' radio show on ABC.
Miss Parsons’ initial
broadcast for the new season had more than usual interest; with Bing Crosby, on
hand to receive her special award for his Paramount “Blue Skies” contrib,
making what will be one of his few live appearances on the air this season. (He
also owes his ex-employer, Kraft Music Hall, a couple of guest shots). For a
briefie insert, it was crammed, with some revelatory comment. Challenging a
crack anent rumors that he was getting lazy, the Groaner gave the first
off-the-cuff explanation of his desire to transcribe his air show in the
future; (1) it’ll permit for editing similar to pix studio retakes: (2) you can
pattern your shows to the availability of guest talent: (3) you can spot the
show in the best time slots for public reception. Too, his announcement that
he’s planning an album of hymns of various religions, with proceeds to go to
the National Federation of Churches, also gave the Parsons stanza a news
“exclusive.”
(Variety, September 4,
1946)
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