Your Hit Parade (Thread Three) - Songs From The Heart

Songs From The Heart
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Jesse Coffey #1 · Oct 10th, 2016 · 2 · ·

I apologize for my lack of group activity lately. I've been a busy man in most other groups (as you could tell) and doing a lot of things with a particular user: Thunderbolt Sentinel. Well, I thought I would revive this series. It shall be dormant no more.

During the 1940s and 1950s, there was a survey that would the best sellers on sheet music and phonograph records, the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines, an accurate, authentic tabulation of America's taste in popular music. We called it by one name, and one name alone. And that one name was the HIT PARADE.

In this thread: 1947.

In terms of world events, the early part of the year was loaded with two tragedies: England encountered its worst snowfall of the 20th century, with extensive disruption of travel. Given the low ratio of private vehicle ownership at the time this is mainly remembered in terms of the effects on the railway networks. Meanwhile, a KLM Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft crashed soon after taking off from Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, killing all on board, including Prince Gustaf Adolf, second in line to the Swedish throne, and the American singer Grace Moore.

Things looked a bit better during the middle of the year. Jackie Robinson, the first African American in Major League Baseball since the 1880s, signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers; Tom and Jerry participated in MGM's Academy Award-winning Cat Concerto; May saw the release of another Christmas classic: Miracle on 34th Street, from 20th Century-Fox; it also saw David Lean's Great Expectations, hailed as the finest film ever based based on a novel by Charles Dickens.

The summer, except for moments such as one when Princess Elizabeth announced her engagement to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, were mostly quiet.

In the fall, the 1947 Fort Lauderdale hurricane struck in southeastern Florida, and also in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, causing widespread damage and killing 51 people. In Long Beach, California, the designer and airplane pilot Howard Hughes carried out the one and only flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built and flown. This flight only lasted eight minutes. The program Meet the Press makes its television debut on the NBC-TV network in the United States; it's still on the air today. And, finally, Princess Elizabeth married The Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey.

On November 24, another tragedy struck as The United States House of Representatives voted 346–17 to approve citations of Contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten" after the screenwriters and directors refuse to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of communist influences in the movie business. The ten men were blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios on the following day. This began that more tragic side of a great era which we would all like to call ''The McCarthy Years.''

We, as usual, used music to get away from all these events. These are the songs we heard back in 1947, from the finest quality available masters...sounding as wonderful as ever!

Our plow-through of this wonderful year starts with a little talk Count Basie is having with a guy named Richard:

(Courtesy of RCA Records)

(Courtesy of Columbia Special Products, a Service of CBS, Inc.)

Fran Warren is seeking a brand new kind of love, with Claude Thornhill and her orchestra (yes, women had big bands too!):

(Courtesy of Columbia Special Products, a Service of CBS, Inc.)

Al Jolson, in his later years, brought us a new lyrical adaptation of the 1880 composition ''Waves Of The Danube'' by Ivanovici and was the #1 tune on ''Your Hit Parade'' for six consecutive weeks. It was popularized through its appearance in his biopic "The Jolson Story", which was a huge success story for Columbia. We're proud to bring it to you here:

(Courtesy of MCA Records, Inc.)

Paul Weston and The Pied Pipers crafted this sparkling arrangement of the Oscar-winning tune from Disney's ''Song Of The South'':

(Courtesy of Capitol Records, Inc.)

Here's a popular hit from a woman named Dorothy Shay (1921-78). She was a popular comedic recording artist in the late 1940s and early 1950s, who later became a character actress, known as Thelma, first owner of the Dew Drop Inn, on The Waltons. They called her the "Park Avenue Hillbilly".

(Courtesy of Columbia Special Products, a Service of CBS, Inc.)

After struggling in semi-obscurity for well over a decade, stylish jazz & blues vocalist Frankie Laine struck gold and gained instant fame in 1947 with the release of this early-thirties ballad:

(Courtesy of PolyGram Special Products, a Division of PolyGram Records, Inc.)

(Courtesy of RCA Records)

Among the year's premiere ballads (five different versions reached the best-sellers top-10) was the tune "Mam'selle," which was featured in the popular 20th Century-Fox film "The Razor's Edge." The singer below, who had previously recorded with the Benny Goodman band as "Art London," handed the brand new M-G-M record label its first major success....a #1 best-seller. He would follow up "Mam'selle" with the hits "Peg O' My Heart" and "__And Mimi."

(Courtesy of PolyGram Special Products, a Division of PolyGram Records, Inc.)

The biggest surprise hit of 1947 was this revival of Weems' up-tempo arrangement of the early '30s ballad "Heartaches"....and in two different reissued Weems versions. It was this 1938 Decca recording (not the earlier 1933 version as incorrectly documented elsewhere) that initially exploded due to its exposure on a Charlotte NC radio station, resulting in Decca hurriedly re-distributing the track and RCA Victor following with their own newly-labeled Bluebird release from 1933. Both were combined into a single ranked listing on the Billboard charts, spending 13 weeks atop the juke box listings and 12 weeks at #1 in sales....each selling over a million copies.

(Courtesy of MCA Records, Inc.)
The 1933 version of the song, made on August 4, 1933, tore through five choruses of the tune with a frantically strumming guitar setting the rhythmic pace. For the more refined Decca remake, made on August 23, 1938, conga drums accented the rhythm, the piano chorus was dropped, and the more relaxed tempo allowed whistler Elmo Tanner to perform a much more technically accomplished solo.

"Bongo-Bongo-Bongo I don't wanna leave the Congo"...you seemed to hear that novel phrase just about everywhere during the 1947 holiday season as the tune stood at #1 on Your Hit Parade. Danny Kaye & the Andrews Sisters led the way among five different charted recordings; and this turned out to be the most popular disc of Kaye's career, reaching #3 on both the sales and juke box rankings (see also Louis Prima, Woody Herman, Ray McKinley and Jack Smith).

(Courtesy of MCA Records, Inc.)
"Civilization" was written by Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman for the Broadway musical revue "Angel In The Wings." The show ran 308 performances from December 11, 1947 to September 4, 1948 and earned Tony awards for Paul & Grace Hartman as Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical.

For another country, we hear a tune about it from Freddy Martin & his Orchestra:

(Courtesy of RCA Records)

Though not a major best-seller, this leisurely Sam Donahue band arrangement of the 1926 tune was a big favorite with radio disc jockeys in 1947, spending 23 weeks on Billboard's airplay chart and peaking at #2.

(Courtesy of Capitol Records, Inc.)

Another record that peaked at #2 on the airplay charts was this one, from one of the most famous quartets of all time:

(Courtesy of MCA Records, Inc.)

This next tune was featured in the 1913 musical Ziegfeld Follies. It was first performed publicly by Irving Kaufman in 1912 at The College Inn in New York City after he had stumbled across a draft of sheet music on a shelf at the Leo Feist offices. Fast-forward to 1947; when recording engineer Bill Putnam recorded The Harmonicats version of the song, he became the first person to use artificial reverberation creatively on a pop recording, with the use of the first reverb chamber, which had been set up in the studio's bathroom. Five additional releases of the 1913 hit followed the Harmonicats chart-topper into the Billboard top-10 charts. Buddy Clark's version was the most popular vocal treatment, reaching #4 sales and #1 for several weeks on the radio airplay rankings.

(Courtesy of Columbia Special Products, a Service of CBS, Inc.)

A #6 charted best-seller, "Guilty" had been a popular 1931 ballad hit, co-written by Maggie's songwriting dad Richard Whiting:

(Courtesy of Capitol Records, Inc.)

Based upon its record-setting run atop the Billboard charts (17 weeks #1 radio airplay, 13 weeks juke box, 12 weeks sales), this next, small-label, release ranked as the most popular recording of 1947. Craig's Nashville-based band would recycle this catchy arrangement for its also-popular follow-up hit "Beg Your Pardon".

(Courtesy of RCA Records)

(Courtesy of Columbia Special Products, a Service of CBS, Inc.)

Among Eddy's most popular recordings, this one charted at #2 juke box and #3 sales in midyear 1947:

Hoagy Carmichael had the big version of this novelty (yes these were starting to pop up around this time)...a #1 juke box hit during the early weeks of 1947: