Bill Kenny Still Fly Ing on High
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MUSC* DRAMA DOWN beat January 12. 1955 Bill Kenny Still Fly ing On High; However, Now It s A Solo Stint Broken Tubes Can Be sci Difficult To Stomach gr By JACK MABLEY stu tru Chicago—Reflections on a broken television tube: La If I didn’t know the fellow so well, I’d think the TV repair 411 man loosens a new screw every time he fixes the set. He To Jet comes around oftener than rent. Neither the Reds nor the am atom scientists hold the balance of power. The repairmen hold it. In poi a period of 10 days we lost the TV set, the toaster, the furnace, the car heater, the vacuum cleaner, and the record player. al« I think the record player blew up when we put joi on it a phonograph record (that’s what they call it) 27, that comes on the side of a box of Wheaties. And Ne in case you are not a Wheaties fancier, I kid you sig not. 191 Really, a plastic-like record that revolves at 78 tio revolutions a minute and produces a sound about Co the same as that from an old orthophonic. I think rec the repairmen are behind this. Ey You can see the possibilities of this gimmick. What Co will it do to The Hit Parade for instance? Will they have two parades, one for the 10 best-sellers in record shops and one for the most popular records on cereal boxes? St« 8 Well, that’s enough about cereal», except that as a MaMey general rule, in buying breakfaM food*, you can fat figure the bigger the premium, the worse the cereal. wr This has nothing to do with television, except that practically every titl body who watches television also eats breakfast, and things iike this of ub A photo of the original Ink Spot*—Bill Kennt. Charlie Fuqua, and Hoppy Jone*. just come to us when the TV set is busted and we don’t have a thing to do but sit around and play cereal records. New York When Bill? The last thing we saw on the TV before the set went kaput was bet baritone with the group, broke censed the name out and was get Nanette Fabray in her underwear, and again, as in the case of the the Kenny decided finally to dis away to form a unit of his own. ting a share of the profits where breakfast food records, this is not an exaggeration. St< sociate himself from the Ink Kenny, meanwhile, continued work as actually I’d had no connection She’» a very cute girl, but it ■* not becoming for her to romp around on Spots (Down Beat. Nov. 3) ing occasional dates with his Ink with any of those groups and in the nation’» living rooms singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning in poi after 18 years of singing his unique Spots and kept recording for Dec- some were even using my name her »lip, which »he did on Sid Caesar’» hour. There are custom» and tra high-altitude tenor, it was as if or picture in their advertising dition» which still are observe«! in some of the homes in this country, George Burns had split with Gracie (Actually, for the last five years without authorization.” and «me of them among the more conservative gentry is that guests Bill Kenny’s Decca records have Allen or Dagwood had divorced A New Career shall wear clothing. Or am 1 being stuffy? Blondie. been made with such groups as We’ve picked on Sid too much lately. It’s a good show, just half-an- In a sense, Kenny’s new solo Bill’s piercing flights with the the Ray Charles Singers, the Song hour too long, but you never could have a program called Caesar’s role means a new career for him. Ink Spots had become part of spinners, and Gordon Jenkins even Half-Hour. Bill and the Ink Spots are credit American popular music lore. But though the Ink Spots name was We ought to pick on The Hit Parade. The only kicker there is that ed with having paced the way a even a tradition occasionally used.) The Hit Parade in the past was so awful I haven’t had the nerve to long time ago for the current breaks apart, and so did the Ink Other* Pop Up watch it yet this season. na large-scale vogue for pop singing Spots. Bill is now working clubs The spectaculars ought to come in for some comment, too, but I ori But suddenly, in addition to groups. as a single and there are now two haven’t seen one of them yet, either. We got about 20 minutes into one o ti Kenny’s and Fuqua’s units, other A record company executive re separate groups calling themselves with Betty Grable when the set broke down—that was the breakdown teams calling themselves the Ink cently said that in many of the the Ink Spots with a third being before the current breakdown, when the fellow loosened the screw that Spots began to multiply about the groups that have come up through al< formed. went out just after Nanette Fabray. countryside. “All in all,” says the years, you could detect a aid ini Until two years ago, there had These spectaculars are in color unyway, and I’m afraid they’d be lost Kenny, “it became a very confus trying to sound like Kenny. th< only been one Ink Spots. Then ing situation, and one of the rea on my crummy old black and white set. I haven’t laid in my color ma Charlie Fuqua, the guitarist and Comedians also have much to sons I decided to go out as a single thank him for. Imitating Kenny set yet. evi In spite of the supplying of free color sets to the nation’s TV critics, was to make it clear that Bill has given comics more material jaa and their glowing reviews of how gorgeous the spectaculars are in Kenny is now with no Ink Spots than have most other subjects for po¡ color, the merchandising of color TV seems to be laying an egg. group; that I’m on my own. What parody over a comparable period mo Personally, even if I had a spare $895, I’d be afraid to buy one. With nas happened in the past year or of time. ma so, for example, is that when a old monochrome konking out about once a month, how long would a Great tritai* Registered Iradeuart Na 719.4t7 Bill himself is proudest of the club bills a group called the Ink color set, with three times the number of tubes and circuits, go between ret VOL. 22. NO. I JANUARY 12, 1955 fact that he often has been given Spots and the people find that Bill much credit for having broken the visits from the repairmen? Not from Betty Grable to Nanette Fabray, int Kenny isn't with that group, busi rolor line in popular ballad sing you can be sure. om Lecutive and Publication OHi« ness often falls down. ing, for thereby having helped Next issue, Arthur Godfrey, if the set is fixed. If not, reviews of the ine 2001 Calumet A»». “Furthermore during the past open the field for singers like Nat newest releases from Shredded Wheat. Chicago 16. III. couple of years when I was taking Cole and Billy Eckstine. wh it easy and playing a lot of golf ari Norman Weiter, Feblitbe/ ballroom, who suggested I join a around home, people would write No Ballad Vocaliit* group called the Ink Spots that Clara Powan. Anociofe Edito/ me from various places . saying “When I broke in with the Ink coi I had a nerve sending all those Spots in 1936,” Billy recalls, “there had been formed in 1934 and was Moondog Wins Lao Zabelin. Etecutire Ast. close to breaking up in 1936. cot Charle* Subor, Director, Adrertiung Ink Spots units on the road and were almost no colored vocalists cia collecting money from their work wio were singing ballads, so I was “Up to then, they’d done almost Sole* no vocalizing except for a little otl while I stayed home in leisure. an oddity. It was Charlie Bu In Court Fight C. Edward*. Advertiiieg scat singing and harmony, but “You see, they thought I’d li- chanan, the manager of the Savoy Carl Burlingam«, Circelotior 6 mostly, it was u rhythm-instru New York — Moondog (Louis Rromofioa Mgr. mental group. I suggested we try Hardin) the exotically garbed street musician who has recorded for Epic mu NEW YORK OFFICE ballads to inject variety, and we more or less broke in what was and Decca, among other labels, has tic 122 Ead 42nd St. won his court fight to prevent tin New York 17. N.Y. New Yorkers Now Hear to be our style at a hotel in Bing- hampton, N. Y., for several weeks rhythm and blues disc jockey Alan ha Orford 7-2160 at $50 a week for each of us. Freed (WINS) from using the bu’ Nat Hantoff, Anociote Edito/ “A shoi-t time later, we record “Moondog” title. Freed, complying coi Mol Mandel. Adrertiung Big Band Music In A.M ed If 1 Didn’t Care for Decca, and with the injunction, now calls his lai Hannah Altbu*h Editorial that did it. We got $25 a piece for program the Rock and Roll Show. naj New York—Starting at 7 a.m.,^ ani WEST COAST OFFICE these weekday mornings, New the recorded introductions too long that record—no royalties—but we Freed meanwhile has achieved drawn out, he chops them off and did get a contract on the basis of major audience impact in the New up 4124 Santa Monica Blvd.