IN THIS ISSUE: k An interview with FRAN WARREN k Reviews of BIG BOOKS AND RECORDS to consider BAND ☆ A '50S BIG BAND JUMP TRIVIA QUIZ NEWSLETTER ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about BLUE SKIES PARODY, JA-DA, JOHNNY MERCER, THE EBERLY/EBERLE BROTHERS & OTHERS BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, GA 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JIMP N EWS LETTER VOLUME LXVII1 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE 2000 FRAN WARREN INTERVIEW The Background We were given Fran Warren’s number by the Society Of Singers, a group dedicated to the well-being of vocalists who are, for whatever reason, down on their luck. It turns out she has been active in the Society for some years, keeping it moving in the east, while its main offices are in Los Angeles. Most of us became familiar with the name Fran Warren when Claude Thornhill’s recording of SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE (1947) came out, but she was on the road with Charlie Barnet and with Art Mooney’s original orchestra before that, and had been singing profession- ally with local bands since her early teenage years. She was born Frances Wolfe in the Bronx on March 4, 1928, but was given the name Warren by her friend Billy Eckstine early in her career, the name having been taken from a brand of wine popular in Harlem at Fran sings the time. “Why don’t you sing with the group?” because I was We’re always curious about the reasons anyone fol­ always singing. When 1 was a kid there were the lows a musical career, or any career for that matter. blackouts from the war, and as soon as we heard the What is it that interests a person in going down a certain sirens 1 would run into a hallway and I’d sing. I’d path? In Fran Warren’s case, it was love of singing, but imitate Billie Holiday, Judy Garland.... I used to do that. also a need to earn a living. Our first question had to Anyway, when one of the kids asked me to come and do with her background. hang out with them, that’s how it started. I started singing with this little group which wound up a Big BBJ: Was there music in your family? Band in our neighborhood and around our area. I got paid, which was astonishing for me at that time. FW: There was always singing around me. My sister sang, my mother hummed, I had an BBJ: Did you sing in clubs, beer joints? uncle and cousins that sang. FW: We used to hang out in a bowling alley.... we BBJ: How did you get into professional singing? used to meet there.... and then there was a ballroom in that area and that’s where this group of FW: In our neighborhood which consisted of three musicians used to play every Saturday night. blocks, there were a couple of young musi­ cians who had a little group. This friend of mine said, BB: Were you heard by somebody? VOLUME LXVIII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE 2000 FW: With me, it was a guy who’s gone now. His BBJ: Were you on the road with Art Mooney? name was Solly Kucik. He was my neighbor’s son and Solly and I were the same age and we used to FW: I didn’t get on the road until I joined Charlie hang out all the time. He wanted to be a trumpet Barnet. player, but he said didn’t have the “chops” for it, but he loved being around musicians. He was the one who BBJ: Charlie Barnet said you were his favorite vo­ said, “Franny, you sing so good, let’s get started; sing calist. with the band.” That’s where it started. FW : With me he was so marvelous. I was not quite He came to me six or seven months after I was with the eighteen, and he knew 1 was too young to be group to tell me that Johnny Richards, who was I traveling, so I told him my grandfather was home and believe at that time with Columbia Pictures.... he used he’ll OK it, which was exactly what happened. I came to do all the arrangements.... he was coining to the east home and told them I was going on the road with Charlie coast and he was looking for a girl singer. I was about, Barnet, and they never heard of Charlie Barnet, and they not even sixteen yet, and i went up to the studio and I didn’t know the singing was that important to me.... but sang for him and he said OK and I wound up singing for my grandpa, he knew. He said, “Keep an eye on her, Johnny Richards for about three weeks, then he had to take care of her,” and off I went. go back to California and by that time I already had the “bug.” I had to sing with a Big Band. What knocked me out was he (Charlie Barnet) said, “You will start with the band at the Apollo Theater; the BBJ: How did you handle school all this time? Apollo Theater is not that far from where I used to live in the Bronx. As kids we were always uptown because FW: I left high school. You must understand my the Big Bands, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, were all background a little. We had had my brothers there. That’s what happened; I wound up singing with in the war, my sister in the war and my dad was an Charlie’s band and we went out on the road, and I was invalid. Bringing in some money was more important with him about a year and a half. I learned how to sing, to me at that time than going to school. 1 was not quite really learned how to sing, because that was a very sixteen.... no seventeen... when I said, “That’s it!” I put musical band, ft was a loud, swingin’ Big Band. my books down one day and just left, and they didn’t Marvelous. even miss me. (Laughs) BBJ: Most of us became acutely aware of you with BBJ: After Johnny Richards where did you go? SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE. FW: I wound up auditioning for Art Mooney who FW: Claude Thornhill. After being on the road was forming a Big Band, and again my friend almost a whole year, I was disenchanted with Solly said, “Go to him.” The auditions were being held the traveling because I was tired all the time. I had the at the Nola Studios in New York. I asked Solly what energy of twenty people, but it was a very tiring expe­ kind of band it was, and he said it was something like rience and I did want to come home. I had a contract the Glenn Miller band, and that’s what it was.... a with Charlie, and he said, “No, you’re not going any­ Glenn Miller style band. The advantage of singing for where, you’re staying with me.” But I came back to Art Mooney for me at the time was 1 was going to be on New York and I told him, “I gotta’ go. I’m not gonna’ the radio. In other words, we had these radio hookups. sing with Big Bands anymore, I’m not gonna’ go on the The Edison Hotel was the place Art Mooney had the road anymore.” Big Band; everybody danced, you know, and we had a radio hookup. I got to be known within the industry And then a man called Lou Levy who was the head of because of this. A lot of DJs came by; songpluggers, Leeds Music... he was very instrumental in my life. and that’s how I got to be known within the industry When I was a kid I went to his office and I used to make more than anywhere else. demos as they called them, for songwriters. I’d get five 2 VOLUME LXVIII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE 2000 dollars, which was a lot DAY KIND OF LOVE? ofmoneytome. He called me one day and said, “I FW: FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, of course.... great want to take you some­ record. (Musing) What was the other one? I where. We’re going to REMEMBER MOMMA; an old song. Peggy Lee did the Pennsylvania Hotel it. That was a lovely recording, but FOR HEAVEN’S and hear Claude SAKE was probably my favorite, outside of SUNDAY. Thornhill.” I’d never heard of Claude, but he BBJ: After the Big Band Era? said, “Franny, I think that'd be a great band for FW: When 1 left Claude, it was because he was you.” 1 told him I didn’t going to break the band up. He had some want to sing with any problems from the Second World War, and he’d for­ more Big Bands. get.... he’d just forget everybody. I remember one night we were at a theater in Detroit and he introduced me as We got to the hotel, and the music was so gorgeous. Lillian.... Lillian was it?.... some other singer that was Everything about it was so right, and I auditioned for on the band before the war. That’s what happened. His Claude, and that was it. I started working with him and memory would go and come and he decided to take a 1 was waiting on the bus in front of a recording studio long vacation because it was too much pressure for him.