Man with the Horn

We have a centenary to celebrate today - and for a change, the birthday boy is still with us!

Ray Anthony - for it is he - is a rare survivor from a long-distant era. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

With his matinee-idol good looks and his consummate musical talent, he survived the end of the Big Band era (even landing his own prime time TV show Stateside) and, by incorporating some of the newer rock'n'roll styles into his repertoire, remained popular well into the 1970s on the cabaret circuit.

Along the way, he attracted the attention of a bevy of blondes - including Marilyn - and even married one of them, Mamie Van Doren!

Let us celebrate this remarkable milestone - with some of the great man's music:

Ray Anthony - Mr. Anthony's Boogie

Ray Anthony's "Club Anthony" show - tribute to the Glenn Miller Orchestra

He could have been Cary Grant's brother!

Happy birthday, Ray Anthony (born Raymond Antonini, 20th January 1922)!

Explosive!

A weekend of Tatchell, Trindy (whose glam-rock show at Halfway to Heaven rounded off Friday rather nicely) and fireworks - followed by a well-deserved day of rest yesterday - is over too soon. It's back to getting up in the dark and the general gloom of work again...

Never mind, we have Eve Ferret (again) and Hazel O'Connor (!) to look forward to tonight, and I have found something rather fab to cheer us up on this Tacky Music Monday - as another of Saturday's birthday girls, the sublimely talented Miss Dorothy Dandridge joins forces with the Nicholas Brothers and the Glenn Miller Orchestra!

Nicholas Brothers, Dorothy Dandridge and Glenn Miller - Chattanooga Choo Choo

Too faboo!

Have a good week, dear reader.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge (9th November 1922 – 9th September 1965)

The band singer

Last week we said a sad farewell to one of the last survivors of the Big Band era, Plymouth-born Miss Beryl Davis, who sang with Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Ted Heath, George Shearing and even Frank Sinatra during the 1940s (and up until recently was still singing).

I have saved my little tribute to this fine-voiced lady till the proper home of "light music", Sunday.

Here's Beryl singing one of those typically innuendo-filled wartime numbers Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet with the Squadronnaires:

The Squadronnaires with Beryl Davis - Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet

Here she is in 1939 singing with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli:

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli with Beryl Davis - Undecided

Bizarrely, Beryl joined the already established screen stars Rhonda Fleming [the only one now still with us] and Jane Russell and fellow Big Band vocalist Connie Haines to form "The Four Girls" in the 1950s to sing close-harmony gospel songs. An odd career move for all concerned, but it just goes to show that the Fifties was indeed a schizophrenic decade in America - on one hand, the liberated, consumerist "anything goes" decade of teen beach movies and rock'n'roll, and on the other it was the most prudish decade since the Hays Code was introduced in the 30s. Here are the girls, looking stunning yet singing religious nonsense:

Connie Haines - Beryl Davis - Rhonda Fleming - Jane Russell

I prefer to leave religion out of Sundays, thank you very much! So let's end with the lady herself at the ripe old age of 85, doing what she did best...

Beryl Davis at the Glenn Miller Festival, 2003

RIP, Beryl Davis (16th March 1924 – 28th October 2011)

"The melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you..."

Here at Dolores Delargo Towers we adore and avidly collect a category of entertainment that comes under the heading of "Sunday Music". And today, on the 110th anniversary of his birth it is time to celebrate one of the great masters of that genre Mr Hoagy Carmichael!

In his eight-decade career as a songwriter Mr Carmichael collaborated with just about everyone who was anyone in the music industry, including his best friend Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, George Gershwin, Fred Astaire, Yip Harburg, Frank Loesser and long-term musical partner Johnny Mercer.

Hoagy the actor appeared in a number of top Hollywood films, including Topper (with Cary Grant), To Have and Have Not (with Bogart and Bacall) and Young Man With A Horn, the bio-pic of his friend Bix.

By the time of his death in 1981, he was lauded by generations of fans as one of the greatest composers in American history. An incredible career indeed!

Facts about Hoagy Carmichael:

• He was christened with that peculiar first name because his mother was friendly with a circus troupe called "The Hoaglands".
• His 1943 song I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the song with the longest title.
• He composed a song for the original Flintstones cartoon - Yabba-Dabba-Dabba-Dabba-Doo.
• John Lennon cited Hoagy Carmichael as his favourite songwriter.

Here's the beautifully-crafted tonsils of Nat King Cole crooning Hoagy's classic Stardust:

Nat King Cole - Stardust

With another take on the tune, Glenn Miller adds his own inimitable panache with his big band version:

Glenn Miller - Stardust

Next we turn to another Carmichael standard Georgia On My Mind, and this lovely version by the incomparable Ray Charles, who made the song his own:

Ray Charles - Georgia on my Mind

And here Aretha Franklin gives us a brilliant version of Hoagy's torch song Skylark:

Aretha Franklin - Skylark

Back in 1991, Bette Midler paid tribute to his song Billy-a-Dick in the wonderful film For the Boys (here being used as a soundtrack for some amateur tap-dancers - the only video out there!):

Bette Midler - Billy-a-Dick

Most remarkably of all, in addition to his jazz/swing/blues standards Hoagy Carmichael also wrote this camp classic for the Marilyn Monroe movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Take it away, Miss Jane Russell!

Jane Russell - Ain't There Anyone Here For Love?

Hoagy Carmichael biography