BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
IN THIS ISSUE: ir An interview with KAY STARR, Pt. 2 ir Reviews of BOOKS AND RECORDS to consider BIG ☆ A new KEY RECORDINGS BAND SINGER BIG BAND TRIVIA QUIZ JUMP ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about HARRY JAMES, ANITA O’DAY, MICHEL NEWSLETTER LEGRAND, PBS STATIONS and others BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID A£hnta,GA 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP N EWSLETTER VOLUME 94 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2004 INTERVIEW WITH KAY STARR (Part Two) The Background In the last issue, we had Kay Starr’s comments about her early start in the singing business; her penchant for singing at age nine for the neighbors and her family. At first, Kay’s mother was hesitant, but her aunt had a business sense and saw that there was a future for Kay, insisting that she enter a number of amateur contests, leading to her performances at radio stations in Dallas and Memphis and finally being hired by famous violin ist and bandleader Joe Venuti whose guidance helped her achieve fame. She told us about her work with the Bob Crosby Band, her one week stint subbing for Marion Hutton with Glenn Miller at Glen Island Casino and her years with the Charlie Barnet Band, where she recalled pressing Kay Starr Capitol CD cover the band ’ s uniforms as well as being a featured vocalist. Jimmy Dorsey’s band. That why they didn’t have her. The Scene But they had every other girl singer. A girl singer they did not need. The interview was conducted by the late veteran Big Band producer and announcer Fred Hall at Kay Starr’s So I went from the jazz to the purple label, and the home in Los Angeles. He commented at the time about purple label was like royalty. That was where all the her down-to-earth personality and her willingness to top girl singers were. I think it was during the time talk freely about her life, her frustrations and her when they were gonna have a musician’s strike. So continuing connection with her audience. We pick up they decided they would do a number of records with the interview as we discover her most successful re me just to cover things, you know. They asked me to cording affiliation with Capitol Records. The first make a list of songs that I might like to record. Well, question addresses that association. I didn’t do anything but standards. I didn’t do any of the new songs; nobody ever asked me to do any of those so BBJ: How did you get with Capitol Records? I didn’t have any call for them. I kept handing these lists in and I kept getting these lists back with lines KAY: Well, I did a volume of jazz for Gene Norman going through all the songs. Well, I couldn’t under and Dave Dexter and all of those people and stand it. And they didn’t offer me any - they just said, they were on the Capitol label if you remember. And “Well, we got a lot of singers and a lot of people they became conscious of me. I guess I did so many recording and we’re trying to get them all double and volumes of it and so many jazz concerts and so many triple and quaduple dates so we can be covered.” things like that, but I did it step by step. I didn’t go in (Before the musician’s recording strike.) And that because with Capitol, you know, they had every big girl made sense to me. I sure didn’t want to make any singer there was. I guess Helen O’Connell is the only waves. I was so glad they wanted me to record at all. big girl singer they didn ’ t have and she was singing with So I said, “Well, okay, I got some more songs.” So I VOLUME 94 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2004 went bad and, boy, it was getting closer and closer and BBJ: Did any one of those hit? they were getting panicky, but what was happening was, they were having to hand these lists to Peggy Lee, KAY: Yes. LONESOMEST GAL IN TOWN hit, but Jo Stafford, Margaret Whiting, Ella Mae Morse....did it just hit locally and then....I still get requests I miss anybody? for MAMA GOES WHERE POPPA GOES and things like that. It’s rare, but I get those requests from time to BBJ: Martha Tilton. time. KAY: Well, all of them. And if they saw a song they BBJ: Capitol put out dozens of great albums during said, “Hey, that looks like a good song.” that time. They’d mark it. I was getting their songs for them and KAY: Well, even when I got on the Capitol purple I didn’t know it, see? So I was just heartbroken because label, I still was fighting for my life because I they said, “You gotta get it and you gotta get it right was still in in there with all those girls. I didn’t have any now.” Well, I didn’t know what I was gonna do because problems when they wanted somebody to sing with I knew if I handed in another list of songs I was probably Ernie Ford because Peggy Lee wouldn’t sing and Ella gonna get another list with all the names crossed off Mae Morse didn’t sing that way and Margaret Whiting again. I’m by nature a very happy sort of person, but wasn’t gonna sing that way, so who was left? Katherine I’m telling you, you’d have thought my whole family Laveme Starks. So they asked me if I’d sing with him. had been wiped out the way I felt inside. It showed on Well, I started out singing hillbilly and country and my face. I went down....do you remember that little stuff so it appealed to me. And thank God it did. We hangover club they had down there? Red Nichols had a very good song there with Ernie and me with I’LL worked there. I used to go down there a lot because I NEVER BE FREE. But always I was fighting for every knew I could go in there by myself and nobody would step of the way. And we had A&R people who were bother me because the guys in the band would see to it. always looking for songs for us, but some of the best songs that I had they didn’t find for me. I found I went early and the band just came in and they’re BONAPARTE’S RETREAT myself. setting up and Red came over and said, “My God,” he says, “Who died?” I said, “Well, I guess you could say BBJ: That’s a country song. I died, because my record career’s going down the drain.” I told him what had happened and he says, KAY: Yeah, it belongs to Roy Acuff and I found it in “Well, you wait. I’m gonna come over at intermission; Dougherty, Oklahoma where I was bom. The we’re gonna talk.” biggest building there is the depot. But I heard this song and it was a fiddle song and I just loved it. I asked the If it were not for Red Nichols I guess I would not have man when the night was over if I could take it out of the a career with Capitol Records. He says, “You always machine and see who the publishers were. I figured that hear about those piano benches that’s got music in way I could find out about the song. And sure enough them? Well, I got one that’s got music in it, and we’re it was Roy Acuff and I called him from Mrs. Sibley’s gonna get those songs out.” He got out all these songs Grain Store... .that was the only phone we had in town... .1 I started with: MAMA GOES WHERE POPPA GOES, told him I wanted to record the song and he said, “Why POOR POPPA, YOU GOTTA SEE YOUR MAMA that’s wonderful, go ahead. What do you play?” I said, EVERY NIGHT, all those songs where the sheet music “I don’t play anything, I’m a singer. Are there any had ladies with the spit curls, you know. If it had not lyrics to it?” “Oh,” he says, “Wait a minute.” And he been for him....and I tell you, I made out that list and came back and said, “I just asked them and they said we when I got it back it didn’t have a mark on it....they don’t have no words to that song.” didn’t know any of those songs. So if it had not been for Red 1 guess I would not have had any career at all with And I guess he could feel my disappointment over the recordings and certainly not with Capitol. phone and he says, “ You a singer, huh? Now you just 2 VOLUME 94 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2004 wait a minute. Lis BBJ: Tell us about your album with Count Basie. ten, you sound like you want to sing that KAY: Oh, that was a dream come true. I went in with song. Ifyouwantto this new recording contract and they said to sing it and you like me, “What do you want to do?” I said, “You mean to it that much....you tell me if I tell you what I want to do, that you’re gonna called me long dis let me do it?” They said, “If it’s possible.” And don’t tance.