They're Still Playing That Song
by Bruce S. Hapanowicz and Arthur Bailey
The Song of the Century was not an overnight sensation. It
started out as a piano piece, presented in later-day ragtime style by its
composer, a jazz band groupie recently graduated from the University of Indiana
law school. This young man had put his legal career on hold while he trailed
after the jazzmen he idolized, and offered them songs like 'Riverboat Shuffle,'
'Washboard Blues,' and 'Star Dust.' This last was a little ditty that gave no
hint it would later evolve into the most enduring of popular love ballads.
Three generations have enjoyed that "memory of love's
refrain.... " so much so that one enthusiastic expert claimed that it appeared
on a thousand commercial recordings in the U.S. alone. (1) This was a bit of an
exaggeration, but our catalogue does reveal (it) had been recorded world wide by
1990. There is now a fourth generation waiting in the wings. Kids, get ready for
a peek into a different world. You think you know some hit songs? -- Well, this
is what being a HIT is all about!
To start we might remark that the melody did not conform to any
popular song conventions. Quoting Oscar Hammerstein II, it "rambles and roams
like a truant schoolboy in a meadow.... it's structure is loose, it's pattern
complex." Another commentator cited its "alternation of broken chords in bright
major modes, but half in minors." Perfect you might say for a piano romp, and
some singers kept the fast tempo when performing with a dance band. By 1929,
however, it had been discovered that the song was more effective when slowed to
the pace of a sentimental ballad. When a lyric was added that year, the package
was on its way to immortality.... but let's not get ahead of our story.
THE COMPOSER
Hoagland Howard Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana on
November 22, 1899. The home was full of music, particularly the new ragtime that
was sweeping the country. His mother played piano for silent films and at the
nearby college, and she once told Hoagy that his lullabies were mostly in
ragtime. (4) He taught himself to play it, also, with only a few hints on
technique from Mom and local performers.
In his mid-teens, the family moved to Indianapolis, where he
struck up a friendship with a nightclub pianist named Duval. War came to America
in 1917, but the slightly-built lad could not meet the military minimum weight
requirement. He graduated from high school, worked in the cement trade, and
built himself up just enough to be accepted into the army a few days before he
celebrated his nineteenth birthday on the original Armistice Day. Quickly
discharged, he decided to continue his education.
For most of the next six years Hoagy lived with his grandmother
back in Bloomington, where he attended the State University. He played piano
with school and semi-pro bands, and organized prom dates. One of his bookings
introduced him to Bix Bederbecke, and initiated a friendship that was to endure
to the very day of the great cornetist's death in 1931 (Hoagy discovered the
body). The Wolverines recorded a Carmichael tune in Richmond on 6 May, 1924. It
has been reported that Bix himself suggested the title: 'Riverboat Shuffle.'
Jazz activities no doubt competed with studies, but Hoagy managed to graduate in
1926, and for a short time joined a friend starting a law practice in the
booming state of Florida.
Passing thru New York, Hoagy brought the manuscript of a queer
thimble folk opera he called 'Washboard Blues' to the attention of publisher
Irving Mills. This
strange amalgamation of styles, tempos and racial traits so impressed the
impresario that he offered the composer a job on the spot to write more of his
pseudo-ethnic stuff for Mills Music. Not a big city boy, Hoagy declined, but
hearing a Red Nichols recording of the song a few months later, he decided to
return to Bloomington and see if he could support himself pursuing the musical
career he really loved.
THE MELODY
The composer has reported that the inspiration for 'Star Dust'
came at a secluded spot on the campus of his Alma Mater. He had relaxed at the
"spooning wall" (the story does not say he was actually spooning!), but when the
melody came to him, he ran to the nearby Book Nook to try it on the piano and
jot down a few phrases. Then he took it home and put in a lot more work devising
its magnificent sixteen bar verse and thirty-two bar chorus. We know from the
historic Emil Seidel recording that in October, 1927, the melody was just as we
hear it today.
Hoagy himself played piano on that Gennett session,
appearing as guest artist in the untidy Starr studio in Richmond, Indiana. Could
he have meant to call it Starr Dust? This version is still available in LP
reissue (Hindsight-33). The Seidel discography includes several other
dates for Gennett, in one of which Carmichael played cornet. There is
another trivia sidelight here in the possible interchange of personnel between
the Midwest journeymen bands of Emil Seidel and Jack Crawford: Rust notes all
Seidel's Gennett's were reissued on Champion under Crawford's
name. Neither appears to have survived the twenties.
Earl Hines reminisced about after-hours visitors to the Sunset
Cafe in Chicago's stomping South Side. He mentioned Dorseys, Jess Stacy, Bix,
"....I remember a fellow who came in with the guys...he was constantly playing
his new composition and trying to make everybody listen to it...." That's our
hero! In later years Hines became a great admirer of Hoagy's songs and
remembered Herb Jeffries with that tune nobody really wanted to hear -- of
course it was 'Star Dust.'
Any bandleader passing thru Hoagy country would be coaxed to
add this lilting ragtime melody to their repertory. One of the first to respond
was Don Redman, director of McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and himself a pioneer in
hot jazz orchestration. Redman liked 'Star Dust' well enough to record it in
1928 with a unit he called the Chocolate Dandies.
There is a persistent rumor that Redman wrote the verse (7, 8), but there is no
hard evidence. We can speculate that the two friends got together for a session
of chord evaluation until they had shaped it just right to compliment the main
strain. Hoagy would have pitched in the same way to polish one of Don's
compositions, and the warm affection between the two men would never have
permitted either to exploit the other financially. Redman never claimed in
public life that he had a hand in the song, but he must have mentioned it to
associates who saw an opportunity to enhance his stature after his death.
We know for sure that the verse was complete before its first
recording, and Hoagy had his penciled manuscript at the Library of Congress in
January, 1928. (9) Musicians may be interested to know that his piano version
was in the key of D Major. Publisher Irving Mills submitted a printed copy a
year later, energetically pushed the tune, and was responsible for another 1928
version by hot studio musicians known variously as the Whoopee Makers, the
Good-Timers, or the Detroiters.
One of the first arrangers to see the advantages of slowing the
pace was Jimmy Dale of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. This was Paul Whiteman's
major competition in the heyday of the semi-symphonic but jazz-flavored big
white band. Goldkette did not record the Carmichael tune before he disbanded in
1929, but a performance had favorably impressed Victor Young, at that time
violinist and arranger for Isham Jones. The latter led another successful but generally less
pretentious white band (which had recorded Hoagy's jazz tune 'Riverboat Shuffle'
back in 1925). Soon after receiving the music, Jones played 'Star Dust' in
uncharacteristic concert style on a nationwide radio broadcast. His
schmaltzy1930 recording was clearly intended for graceful dancing, but the tempo
had not quite slowed down to the leisurely format familiar to us today.
THE WORDS
By this time Carmichael had written other successful songs and
had moved to New York to facilitate contracts with Irving Mills. In the Fall and
Winter of 1929 the composer performed on piano (and celeste) with a
Mills-organized studio group called the Hotsy Totsy Gang. Their
version of our feature was issued as Brunswick 4587. Fletcher Henderson's
great career was in a slight slump when he took Hoagy's tune into the studio in
February 1931 (issued on Crown 3093 and other minor labels). Thus we see that
the pre-lyric Star Dust was itself a viable commodity.
Mills thought words were needed, tried it himself without much
luck, and finally asked another of his staff writers, Mitchell Parish, to
see what he could come up with. A bit reluctant at first, Parish eventually
crafted a superb lyric that linked verse and chorus in one unshakeable mood. The
publisher and his collaborators did not realize at first that their collective
efforts had created an art song in a superior class by itself. It was sung,
perhaps tentatively, over the air, but two years would pass before they ventured
to record the lyric. It was not until 1933 that Mills sent the published song to
the Library of Congress to secure his copyright.
The new complete format was first performed publicly at the
Cotton Club by (brother Sydney's) Mills' Blues Rhythm Band, directed by Edgar
Hayes. The outfit alternated at the famous Harlem night spot with
Duke Ellington and Cab
Calloway, both also managed by Mills Music. The Blue Rhythm Band made the first
vocal record in May 1931, featuring the popular white singer Chick Bullock.
Bing Crosby lost no
time getting into the act (Brunswick 6169, August 1931) and there were at least
a score of different versions available over the counter in the deep depression
year of 1932.
An early booster was the columnist Walter Winchell, who held it
up as the standard to which every popular song had necessarily to be compared.
Many years later Mitchell Parish was with Winchell at New York's Copacabanna
night club listening to Nat Cole crooning That Song to a band arrangement of his favorite line
"...When our love was new, and each kiss an inspirartion..."
THE BANDS RECORD IT
Sweet Bands picked it up in a big way. Gus Amheim,
Jimmy Grier,
Eddie Duchin, and a
host of others added it to their "book" and had to play it every night -- if not
every set. Duchin's long engagement at the Central Park Casino and his affection
for Star Dust were recalled in his filmed life story, which starred Tyrone
Power. As it happened, the greatest jazzman (if not of all entertainers) had
recently discovered the commercial possibilities of popular or so-called Tin Pan
Alley music. Louis
Armstrong's three historic takes of 4 November, 1931, revealed this great
song's emotional power. For years these were the definitive "hot" performances,
but in later decades the complex melody with the poignant changes has become a
favorite of improvisers throughout the world.
The mid-thirties were bleak for millions of households, but
American Popular Song enjoyed one boom year after another. Riding the top of the
crest was Star Dust. It received the unparalleled distinction of being issued on
BOTH sides of a 78 RPM single, played by VICTOR's two most illustrious
properties: Benny Goodman
and Tommy Dorsey. B.G.
provided an instrumental version and T.D. offered his usual trombone work and a
vocal by Edythe Wright. Neither performance strikes us as particularly
distinguished today, but VICTOR listed this disk as its best seller in both 1936
and 1938. So many Goodman air checks were released later for the nostalgia market
that we find this artist (and usually the original Fletcher Henderson
arrangement) appearing on our list over twenty times. This does not include the
1960 RCA album that assembled fourteen (count 'em) versions of our song.
Glenn
Miller was another devoted admirer. When he initiated his famous medley
feature "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" in
December 1939, his lead-off song was Star Dust. In 1943 his first V-Disc had
this title. It might also be mentioned that Glenn picked Mitchell Parish to
write words for Moonlight Serenade.
In 1940 VICTOR had ideas of a follow-up coupling. They had the
magnificent Artie Shaw
/ Billy Butterfield / Jack Jenney tour de force in the files and a sparkling
vocal package by Tommy Dorsey's new stars Frank Sinatra and the
Pied Pipers. It certainly would have made a memorable pairing, but Tommy begged
off. That lush Lennie Hayton arrangement with strings and all-time great solos
was just too much competition. Tommy's recording was successful enough, but
nobody came close to matching Shaw's sheer rapture of sound.
It is a matter of record that the original Artie Shaw Star Dust
appeared year after year in the annual juke box polls, capturing more nickels,
dimes, and quarters than any other disk, besides selling two million copies over
the counter. Mitchell Parish once called it his personal favorite. Indeed we
must consider this recording, and its many re-issues into every commercial
format, as the definitive version.
A BIT OF ANALYSIS
What makes Star Dust so durable? The lyrics are a balanced
mixture of imagination, sentimentality, and corn, with that bland detachment
from real life that was in vogue at the time. One can truly say, however, that
Parish brought out the best in that powerful and complex melody.
Guy Lombardo preferred
cheerfully upbeat tempos, and admitted that he had trouble finding the right
setting for this vocal refrain, "...The problem is that there are so many words
jammed into each musical measure. We had to take some liberties...." Lombardo's
bouncy rendition with Kenny Garner featured, found very little favor outside his
own circle of fans.
You must realize by now that our feature is difficult to sing
well, and not just by amateurs. It's considered a real challenge in the music
trade. It has long melodic phrases, with main refrain repeated only once -- not
your typical "vocal" line. However, it boasts a unique and characteristic
singleness of purpose that gives plenty of scope to jazz improvisors, and we
shall find that many of the of the later recordings are hot improvisations after
the famous Coleman Hawkins
Body and Soul blueprint. It is certainly not unreasonable that only a complex
and "different" song could continue to interest both artists and public over
such a long span of years.
The late Bud Freeman recalled that Hoagy tried to get one of
his pick-up studio groups of 1930 (possibly the Bix-BG-Venuti session that
produced Barnacle Bill) to play Star Dust, but the guys couldn't find a
comfortable groove and it was thrown out. In later years Freeman came to respect
Carmichael as a prototype jazz composer, and pointed out that the descending tag
line "dreaming of a song..." is just what a jazzman would play between phrases
to prepare a chord change. Hoagy's best tunes sound a little like jazz
improvisations -- in fact, Bud Freeman could hear a Beiderbecke influence in his
style.
It may be a jazz item to Bud Freeman -- and to many European
instrumentalists who have recorded it since 1950 -- but it is a fact that this
song can shine in almost any interpretation. Our list includes big swing bands
and choral chamber groups, strings, choirs, Dixieland, bop, boogie, samba,
mambo, cha-cha, what have you. It is the only song that is standard fare in
every conceivable form of jazz and popular music.
EVER POPULAR
Here is a bit of Radio Trivia. You've heard of the famous War
of the Worlds broadcast on Halloween night in 1938? You may recall it was
presented by Orson Welles as a series of news flashes interrupting regular
programming. There were actually several fairly entertaining interludes of hotel
band music, among which we heard "Ramon Raquello's Orchestra" perform a
Latin-tinged version of Star Dust. It may be noted that Mitch Miller was in that
studio combo. The script of that broadcast has been published and a recording of
the show is available on MURRAY HILL 44217.
During World War II the song followed GI's around the world. In
the Philippines, a native combo cheered the crew of an LST with a proud
performance. In Burma our troops heard Tokyo Rose play it at midnight. A
Japanese journalist later reported that he huddled with friends in a closet
during a B-29 raid, listening to Star Dust on a portable phonograph.
This is one melody that is never "revived" -- it is always
current. High School graduating classes often pick a Favorite Song and Star Dust
still gets its share of yearbook votes. Various versions have been making the
best seller charts since 1930 (at least in each of its first five decades, see
below). The head of BBC radio in the 1970's declared it was one of the
most-played songs of his era, just a half century after Hoagy had that bit of
inspiration on the Indiana campus.
Not only the English-speaking world either. In Italy it is
called Poivere di Stella, said TIME in 1955, and "...ranks with O Sole Mio as an
all time favorite. In Japan it is called Suta Adasuto, and is one number the
record stores are not afraid to reorder...." The French love it as Etoile
d'Amour, the Spanish as Povo de Estrelles, and popular translations are enjoyed
in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Austria, and at least thirty other languages.
In 1955, George Marek, then music director of Good
Housekeeping, pointed out that canned-music entrepreneurs were finding it good
business to keep one version of Star Dust in every juke box at all times. Only
the biggest transient hits earned more plays in any given interval. Marek also
counted forty-six published arrangements of the tune. Sheet music was readily
available for piano, two pianos, organ, xylophone, Hawaiian guitar, mandolin,
brass band, string sextet, woodwind sextet, "choral group with symphonic
setting", and just about everything from accordion to zither. The reader can
find a bewildering array of formats in 1959 alone.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS
The first live radio broadcast was from the Cotton Club. The
fact that Irving Mills published the song AND managed
Duke Ellington can hardly
be considered a coincidence. The first appearance on the silver screen was
probably in "Swing, Hutton, Swing," a 1927 short featuring Ina Ray Hutton and
her "Melo-Dears." In 1940 a full-length movie entitled Star Dust starred Linda
Darnell and John Payne. The tune was sung by Mary Healy.
Honors started coming as early as 1937 when Variety picked the
best Tin Pan Alley songs of the decade. By 1950 -- when it was rated no higher
than tenth among the most-recorded titles -- readers of Metronome had already
voted it their favorite of all time. Forty years later the National Enquirer
found Star Dust was still on top: picked by one out of every five responders to
an "enquiry" by the notorious scandal sheet.
1953: Disk Jockeys polled by Billboard magazine named Star Dust
their all-time favorite song.
1956: Another Disk Jockey poll by Billboard -- this time they
were requested to list favorite recordings. Among the thirty top vote-getters
were THREE versions of our song: (1) Artie Shaw, (4)
Glenn Miller, and (22)
Tommy Dorsey.
1957: A rhythm and blues version by Billy Ward and the Dominoes
hung on the best seller charts for sixteen weeks.
1963: Mills Music filed IRS documents that indicated gross
royalties for this one song had averaged $50,000 in each of the previous five
years. These were in a sense the peak years (more below).
1964: April
Stevens, backed by Nino
Tempo, saw her pop vocal reach the best seller list for six weeks in both
England and the U.S.
1978: Willie Nelson's Star Dust album was a best seller for twelve weeks, going
"Gold" in July. It was still on country charts in early 1981 after 137 weeks.
Willie recalled the enthusiastic audience response at a concert in the Austin
(Texas) Opera House: "There was a kind of stunned silence in the crowd for a
moment, and then they exploded with cheering and whistling and applauding. The
kids thought Star Dust was a new song that I'd just written..."
1980: Studs Terkel introduced Mitchell Parish at a session of
the Kool (formerly Newport) Jazz Festival in Manhattan's Lincoln Center. There
was hardly a dry eye in the audience as the old timer sang his immortal lyric
"one more time" with the hushed accompaniment of sax legends Bud Freeman and
Eddie Miller.
Perhaps the impact of this song is best summarized by a
pathetic little incident that occurred in Indiana in 1933, when a twenty year
old girl, mortally wounded in a shooting, asked to have Star Dust played at her
funeral. She was no doubt one of the millions that had danced and dreamed to its
tumbling, translucent strains. How many Prom Nights, parties, and first dates
does this American Classic recall? Comfortable as an old shoe, but rare as a
golden slipper (a little like Hoagy Carmichael himself), Star Dust is a song for
lovers, for all time.
It is interesting to note that the song title, usually
compacted to one word, has a celebrity life of its own. It has been appropriated
by innumerable bars, diners, and night clubs. Record labels, bands, and vocal
groups over the years have embraced its magic, and we have seen it applied to
non-musical items as well: jewelry, luggage, airline flights, a gift shop, the
masthead of a newsletter. A recent private eye novel by one Robert T. Parker
(Spenser, 1990) has the STARDUST title, and there are at least four Hollywood
movies that have used it, the latest by Woody Allen. We can reflect that very
little of this would have happened if titles were subject to copyright
protection.
There has been at least one Star Dust recording to represent
every year from 1927 to the present. The song leaped to prominence in 1931 when
the lyrics appeared on record and soon became a staple commodity in the
English-speaking world. It maintained popularity throughout the big band craze
(fifty releases from 1938 to 1941), although it could be argued that there has
never been a definitive vocal version. A challenge to all styles and formats,
That Song soon became a necessity to every artist, and no recording company
could overlook this sure-fire title. They have been processing new versions
regularly ever since, some ten to twenty a year, with one phenomenal burst that
peaked in 1958-59. Just when one might have expected the fever to be dying out,
our list shows this unbelievable bulge:
YEAR RECORDINGS
1956 -------------- 19
1957 -------------- 31
1958 -------------- 50
1959 -------------- 48
1960 -------------- 33
1961 -------------- 32
1962 -------------- 22
The surge carried through the entire industry. RCA Victor put
out their famous "Stardust Road" collection in 1969 with fourteen versions,
mostly from their files (only three were originals). It was the era of the "Easy
Listening" 33-rpm disk and That Song was in its magnificent prime.
The number of new Star Dusts on wax may be slowly declining --
only 100 in the eighties! -- but interest in this phenomenally popular song is
as strong as ever. A commuter radio station on Long Island and another in
Pennsylvania each played a different version every morning for over two years,
no doubt supplied by collectors.. There were 142 currently available recordings
listed in the June 1990 Phonolog. Just as a passing thought, do you suppose any
of today's hits will ever be recorded by fourteen (let alone 142) different
groups or artists?
Here's a chilling note. In the sixties, Mills Music became a
subsidiary of MCA. More recently, MCA joined an oversea conglomerate. It would
appear that our song now belongs to Japan!
Let us salute once more the unusually talented men that brought
Star Dust to the world, each a giant in the field of popular music: first that
Jazz Legend (and probable contributor to the verse) Don Redman; then bandleader
Isham Jones and his arranger Victor Young;
Mitchell Parish wrote the lyrics and
a thousand more, many of them touching and memorable -- there was a Broadway
revue in 1987 exclusively devoted to his work -- and he published a book of
poetry "For Those In Love"; Irving Mills impressario, publisher, talent scout,
who really brought the whole thing together; and most of all that underemployed
attorney called by Alec Wilder the most "inventive, sophisticated and jazz
oriented of all the great craftsmen."
AN ADDITIONAL NOTE: the
following excerpt from "Bix, Man and Legend" by Richard M. Sudhalter &
Philip R. Evans (p. 82-83):provides further insight into how "Stardust"
was composed:
"But this November night in 1922,
a slightly tipsy Bix was indeed sitting by the bandstand as his idol counted off
"Tiger Rag." Contrary to LaRocca's assertion that he was quick to
welcome Bix and respond to his playing, Hostetter said it took an exhaustive
sales pitch to even arouse the older man's curiosity. Finally, late in
the evening, he agreed to hear what the kid could do. Motioning Bix to the
stand, he called the band's new medley of "Margie" and pianist J. Russell
Robinson's composition "Singin' the Blues."
"While I played the melody of "Singin the Blues" said
LaRocca, "he used this countermelody which had parts in that Mr. Hoagy
Carmichael later incorporated into his song, "Stardust". Now when I say
this countermelody was similar I mean this man derived his idea or drew on Bix
ideas as I had heard this boy playing similar. Please, do not construe that I
try to take this credit away from Mr. Carmichael, as he is the composer, but
there are many other people, who get ideas from others."
In later years, Hoagy acknowledged Bix as chief inspiration
for "Stardust", especially the verse, which when played at about the
same tempo as Beiderbecke's 1927 recording of "Singin' the Blues",
takes on the melodic shape of a characteristic Bix solo. Also, "Singin'
the Blues" and the refrain of "Stardust" begin in the same chordal
position; this coupled with Bix's affinity for both songs, makes more than
likely a countermelody to "Singin' the Blues" incorporating elements of
either Hoagy's verse or chorus - or both.
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