IN THIS ISSUE: ♦ An in-person interview with ♦ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MARTHA TILTON about the Glenn Miller movie vocalist(s), Miss Otis Regrets, ♦ A mini-bio of pianoman program ideas and more JOE SULLIVAN ♦ The history of the VALENCIA BALLROOM in York, PA BIG ♦ A lyric TRIVIA QUIZ BAND ♦ Sidelights from FLIP PHILLIPS' 80th birthday party. JIJBP NEWSLETTER BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, GA 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND NEWSLETTER JUMP VOLUME LX BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY1999 attach Martha Tilton’s career to the Goodman orchestra MARTHA TILTON INTERVIEW alone, but of course there was much more than that.... the very reason for this interview with the lady dubbed Liltin’ Martha Tilton. The Scene Martha Tilton is a busy lady, and we made two or three phone appointments before we were able to connect, with much confusion between the time on the east and west coasts and interfering activities on both sides of the interview. She is a most gracious and young-sounding lady, with the verve and energy of someone thirty or more years her junior. She is one of those down-to-earth people who’s easy to talk to, and talk to her we did, first discovering if music had been a part of her life from the start. The Interview Liltin’ Tilton & Blowin’ Benny rehearse The Background BBJ: Have you been singing all your life? The second of the permanent Benny Goodman vocal­ MT: Well, practically. I really started working when ists, Martha Tilton was hired after a series of singers I was about seventeen. We always had music in were either considered or actually sang for a very short my family. My mother played the piano and I come from time with the band. After the extremely popular Helen a musical family and I can always remember singing and Ward left, there were three songs recorded by Ella playing the piano since I was a little girl. Fitzgerald singing with the Goodman orchestra, but legal entanglements with Chick Webb made that a short BBJ: Where was that family? association. Benny Goodman considered Bea Wain (then Beatrice Wayne) but lost her to the Larry Clinton MT: This is when we were living in Kansas. We band; Margaret McCrae sang with Goodman for a moved to Los Angeles when I was seven years while, then Frances Hunt, followed by Peg LaCentra old. From then on we lived here in L.A., so I really grew who moved over from Artie Shaw’s group. After that, up in this town. a girl named Betty Van was on the bandstand for a short time, but in mid 1937 Martha Tilton came on the scene. BBJ: You replacedHelenWard withBenny Goodman. The interview tells the story of how Martha was Did you ever listen to her records? “discovered.” MT: Yes. She and I have remained friends until she Martha Tilton left Benny Goodman’s employment in passed away last year. We’ve known each other 193 9, at a time when several of the Goodman musicians since those early days with Benny Goodman, and she was were leaving for one reason or another. She was a wonderful girl and a marvelous singer. Loved her replaced by Harry James’ wife at the time, Louise singing; in fact when she first started with Benny I used Tobin. From out here away from the details, we tend to to listen to him all the time and she was the singer then and VOLUME LX BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1999 I just.....she was a wonderful singer and a wonderful the time. In the girl! meantime, Ziggy was having to play BBJ: How did you get on the Goodman band? his solo every time and his poor lip was M T : Well, I auditioned. He was doing the Camel giving out. Finally Caravan show here in Los Angeles, and I was Johnny had the lyr­ singing with a chorus at the time, and this chorus was ics as he wanted hired to be on his show... on the Camel Caravan. Itwas them and that was a swing chorus. Every week I had a four bar solo in this the way it was actu­ chorus number that we sang, and at the time Benny was ally recorded, but I looking for a singer. He’d had two or three since Helen remember on the and he was dissatisfied and still looking for a singer, way out.... I was so which I didn’t know. His manager heard me sing those sick of this song.... I four bars (laughs) and he said to Benny, “Why don’t you said to Harry James, audition this girl? She sounds like she has a really good “All that time we voice.” So I did. After the rehearsal was over I spent on this, and it’ll auditioned and sang three or four numbers. I was hired never be a hit.” right then and there. Martha at work (Laughs) Which is the dumbest thing I BBJ: Most people remember you from the recording ever said. of AND THE ANGELS SING. At Ziggy Elman’s funeral, which was so sad. .. it was M T : Yes. That was the big recording I had with here in Los Angeles ... and everybody in the music Benny. It’s kind of ironic. The only thing that business was there, and during the service they played Benny didn’t try to solo on. You know, Ziggy Elman did AND THE ANGELS SING on the organ. I’m telling the trumpet part which was so great. He did such a good you, there wasn’t a dry eye in the whole place; it was job on that. (Editors note: There was at least one other touching. recording sans a Goodman solo. It was Richard Maltby’s SIX FLATS UNFURNISHED.) BBJ: Any remembrances of particular people during your time with Benny Goodman? BBJ: Didn’t Ziggy Elman record the melody of what became AND THE ANGELS SING earlier? MT: It’s been sixty years since I was with Benny and I’ve remained friends for years with all of the MT : It’s kinda’ funny. Ziggy Elman made his own musicians in the band. They’re nearly all gone now. The recording of AND THE ANGELS SING for only one left is Chris Griffin, who played trumpet with another record company, and it was called FROELICH Benny. I remember it was a very pleasant time for me. IN SWING, which is actually an old Jewish folk song, We worked terribly hard. He was at the peak of his sort of. Benny liked it and thought it was great, so he popularity and we worked constantly; in fact we went said we’ll make a regular recording of it. I forget who two years without a day off, as I recall. We would play made the arrangement, itwas either Glen Osser (Martha maybe a hotel, say the Pennsylvania or the Waldorf muses for a moment) I’m not sure, but Johnny Mercer where we would play Monday through Saturday night wrote the lyrics. We’d been on the road for a long time. and Sunday was supposed to be our day off, but then we We got into New York and went right to Victor studios would go someplace else, either the theater in Newark or to make this record, and Johnny hadn’t finished writing Philadelphia at a place. Wejustneverhadadayoff. But the lyrics yet, so he scratched out the lyrics on top of the we were all young and we took it in stride. piano there and we made the first take and he said, “I don’t like those lyrics, I want to change them.” We BBJ: Tell us about Martha Tilton as a single sincethe made three or four takes with Johnny changing lyrics all Goodman days. 2 VOLUME LX BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1999 M T: I came back to Los Angeles and I immediately BBJ: Are your grandchildren nearby? went on staff at NBC. You know, those were the days of radio and I did quite a few radio shows. I had MT: Yes. I’m lucky in that respect. They live very my own show for a while and then I started just being on close to me so I see them a great deal. shows. I was on the Dick Haymes show for a long time, and Fibber McGee & Molly. I worked steadily doing BBJ: When you hear your records, do you think it’s radio shows and theaters from then on. Then I got on the someone else... another you? Alka-Seltzer show with Curt Massey, which was a fifteen minute musical show that was on for eight years, MT: No, I don’t. When I hear my own records I at one time or another on all three networks, ABC, CBS think, they’re playing my record. Isn’t that great! and NBC. After that, I retired for two years because I had a little girl and I wanted to stay home with her. Then And it IS great! Martha Tilton remains one of the most the Massey show went back on television here in Los active of the girl singers of the Big Band Era, appearing Angeles, and believe it or not it was a fifteen minute often at functions celebrating the era and its music. show just like the Alka-Seltzer show was, and that went on for seven years.