news M E L T O R M E 95 CAPITOL NEWS CAPITOL N EW S PACE 3 DAVE DEXTER'S n e w s 3 Fem Singers Eye Published Monthly by CAPITOL PUBLICATIONS, IN< Sunset and Vine, Hollywood 28, Calif. Printed in U. S. A. » SURFACE NOISE J ’ H’wood To East Jump EDITED BY DAVE DEXTER, JR. Three of the nation’s most 18,000 Feet Above The Grand Canyon popular fem singers are pre­ paring to “ flee” Hollywood for SlN C ER S AND musicians often endorse strange customs. the greener pastures of the They’re not superstitious, they’ll tell you, but just the same east. they all too frequently behave as incongruously as Stan Margaret W hiting will join her Í Musial would appear in “ Macbeth.” husband, Hubbell Robinson of CBS, and will play an occasional thea­ Maybe you’ll recall Clyde McCoy, who insisted on kissing ter. The grapevine insists she also his cornet arfter every solo. Or Harry James, who allegedly will soon be starred in a Broadway lets a band clinker go through on every record his crew stage musical. Peggy Lee is booked to leave makes. Or Nappy Lamare— and numerous others— who Hollywood in late June and Jo wear the same shirt every time they go into a studio to Stafford will leave in July, both to cut wax. fill theater dates. Dave Barbour will accompany Peg on her tour There’s Cuy Lombardo, who still carries a fiddle in his but Paul Weston, who handles all fist even though he hasn’t sawed on it since the 1920’s. of Jo’s music on radio and records, And the bigshot New York conductor who keeps a quart of definitely will not take the road MARGARET WHITING says Southern Comfort in his instrument case— but only when with Stafford. goodbye to Hollywood this month Both Jo and Peggy are heard he has a radio broadcast scheduled. and will spend the summer in New one night a week on the NBC York with her husband, Hub Robi­ Margaret W hiting tosses her shoes aside when she makes “ Supper Club” program. The series son of CBS. And it is AI Jolson ends soon, for the summer. records, another name sparrow removes her wedding ring who poses here in a farewell snap all the time she’s at the mike, and still another . well, —and what big hands Joley has! that’s going far enough for a mag with family circulation. Evelyn Knight replaced Maggie on Collision Kills the “ Club 15” program. MEET TRUDY Richards, whom Jo Stafford had a bug last month after hearing several Charlie Barnet is featuring as his sides waxed by Dave Lambert’s bop “ choir” of 12 voices. Herbie Haymer vocalist. Her chanting was one of T h e d e a th o f 33-year-old the highlights of the show which It made no difference to her that Lambert was in New Herbie Haymer in a motor car Barnet’s mob presented in April York, 3500 miles to the east. Her yen to sing in front of at the N. Y. Paramount. She will crash shocked Los Angeles the group fast amounted to a phobia. She started badgering Vido Leading also be heard soon on the Mab’s music circles April 1 1. Mike Nidorf by long-distance phone (he’s her manager) Capitol biscuits. and persuading Paul Weston, her conductor, to do-oo-oo Originally from New Jersey, something. And so Nidorf got to Lambert, shelled out a A Band Again Haymer was one of the most plane ticket and hustled him off to Hollywood. Weston “ in demand” musicians in the Two former Stan Kentonites United States, working his fuN Soxers Gone, started arranging orchestral backgrounds. And Jo got sent, have just joined Vido Musso, union quota of radio broadcasts but good, chirping in front of a vocal combo that most of also an ex-Kenton star, to form with Paul Weston and others. He us didn’t even know existed. a new Los Angeles dance band also averaged four record sessions Mac Rae Says a week. His tenor sax had been which underwent its breaking-in “ Bobby-soxers are passe. featured since 1935 with the bands period last month on the Avodon o f R e d N o rv o , Jimmy Dorsey, They’ve disappeared, grown up. Newspapermen are unorthodox, too. Most of them be­ Ballroom stand Fridays and Satur­ days. W oody Herman, Kay Kyser, Axel I want to sing for everybody, W IN N E R of the prize fem role lieve that death comes in threes. Fats W aller, Bob Zurke Stordahl, Dave Barbour and Red old folks, too.” in “Young Man With a Horn” is and J immie Noone all passed within a few days of each Musso is working with Earle Nichols. Cordon MacRae said that last Doris Day, who will star in the other, for one example, and just a few weeks ago it hap­ Spencer, trombonist. Most of the Haymer died as a result of in­ month in Hollywood in a radio in­ movie with Kirk Douglas and members of the band (it has six pened again. Jack Kapp, Irving Fazola and Herb Haymer-— juries in a collision at a Hollywood terview over KFMV with Bill Lauren Bacall. The cameras start reeds, including Vido; seven brass intersection. Alone in his own car, Tusher. The singer, who’s doing this summer with the former Les all top men in their respective lines— are suddenly gone. and three rhythm) are holdovers returning to his Valley home from well in films and in radio, as well from the old Spencer crew. Trum­ Brown singer featured. Jerry Wald W e re not superstitious. But it always seems to happen a Sinatra record date, he had as on platters, said he believes the peters Buddy Childers and Johnny ducked an invitation to a party is set as producer under the W ar­ that way. swooning era is over, and he de­ ner Brothers’ banner. nderson are the other Kenton and was on his way home to his clared he was “ glad of it.” No sidemen blowing with Musso. wife and son. riots were reported at the studio. PACE 4 CAPITOL NEWS CAPITOL NEWS PACE 5 Mew Mab Music Best Since ’39? That’s What JU N E CHRISTY, knocked out of a west coast nitery job when They’re Saying the Hollywood Empire went dark in early April, has hustled The Mad Mab is off to the east and will do a singing single at New York’s new Bop City races again — and we don’t beginning May 5 for two weeks. Her husband, Bob Cooper, mean Havre de Grace. remains on the coast in an attempt to land bookings with a One of the few guys around “ Stan Kenton All-Star’’ combo which has been rehearsing, and who has never had a poor band, which CAC will book. Cooper Hoagy Carmichael will be the Cholly Barnet has bobbed up, this and his tenor sax, Chico Alva­ offstage “narrator” in the film trip east, with what “ Down Beat” rez, trumpet, and Milton Barn­ version of “ Young Man W ith a and many a music fan agree is his hart, trombone (who just left Horn.” best yet. Benny Goodman), will be the Barnet’s 1949 edition wound up Lawrence W elk begins a spon­ three weeks at the New York bulwarks of the group. sored airshow June 1 from Chi­ Paramount on April 27 and then cago, bankrolled by a brewery. they hit the road. It’s a long, hot, And if the Hollywood nitery biz And W e lk ’s is supposed to be dusty trail in May and June, but is sad, consider what has hap­ “ champagne” music! many thousands will be able to pened to New York’s once-leaping gander the crew for the first time 52nd street. Guy Lombardo’s broth­ Tex Beneke takes his band into before Barnet and company sit er Joe now operates an antique Meadowbrook, Cedar Grove, N. J., down at Virginia Beach’s Surf Club shop there, right on the spot where May 2 through May 1 5. on June 10 for a week. A week at hundreds of musicians became in­ the Steel Pier in Atlantic City fol­ ternationally famous. lows. Cuy Lombardo gets a summer radio sponsor, too, taking over in Two Kenton Stars Heard Vic Dickenson left Los Angeles the Phil Harris-Alice Faye spot "We’re fairly well set on per­ to join Edmond Hall’s combo at for Rexall July 3 for 13 weeks. sonnel,” Charlie said last month as the Boston Savoy. ABC KA Y STARR’S Monday eve he outlined his one-nighter trail Bob Chester reorganizing a band airshow has faded for the summer, for May. “ There’ll be one or two HERE IS the new Mab, a bit heavier, a bit more intense, since he Count Basie band and Scat Man after a year of jockeying records but she’ll be busy doing guest changes, but the band is shaping reorganized with a new New York band recently. Many assert that Crothers worked a shortie in April in Detroit. shots, including several with Bing up fine the way it is.” it’s the finest he’s conducted since his 1939 “ Famous Door” days. at the Casbah Club, Los Angeles. Crosby before he concludes his Here is the lineup: Story at left tells why. Philco series June 1. This shot of Ink Spots play the L.