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Swooner Crooner
''Swooner Crooner'' is a 1944 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin. The short was released on May 6, 1944, and stars Porky Pig. The cartoon was nominated for the 1944 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), but lost to the ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon ''Mouse Trouble''. Plot Porky Pig is the supervisor of the Flockheed Eggcraft Factory, where dozens of hens lay eggs for the war effort (in this case, World War II). The hens suddenly get distracted from their egg laying when a handsome rooster (who resembles and sings like Frank Sinatra) is heard singing outside. Frankie's renditions of "It Can't Be Wrong" by Dick Haymes and " As Time Goes By" (from '' Casablanca'', 1942) causes all the hens to refuse to lay eggs because they are too busy swooning. When egg production comes to a halt, Porky rushes to investigate and finds all the roosts empty; all the hens have gone to listen to Frankie. Soon, he is auditioning for a crooner of his own to start pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Tashlin
Frank Tashlin (born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, February 19, 1913 – May 5, 1972), also known as Tish Tash and Frank Tash, was an American animator, cartoonist, children's writer, illustrator, screenwriter, and film director. He was best known for his work on the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of animated shorts for Warner Bros., as well as his work as a director of live-action comedy films. Animator and brief career as cartoonist Born in Weehawken, New Jersey, Tashlin drifted from job to job after dropping out of high school in New Jersey at age 13. In 1930, he began working for John Foster as a cartoonist on the ''Aesop's Fables'' cartoon series, then worked briefly for Amadee J. Van Beuren, but he was just as much a drifter in his animation career as he had been as a teenager. Tashlin joined Leon Schlesinger's cartoon studio at Warner Bros. as an animator in 1933, where he was known as a fast animator. He used his free time to start his own comic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the " Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He is among the world's best-selling music artists with an estimated 150 million record sales. Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. He found success as a solo artist after signing with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the " bobby soxers". Sinatra released his debut album, '' The Voice of Frank Sinatra'', in 1946. When his film career stalled in the early 1950s, Sinatra turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best-known residency performers and part of the famous Rat Pack. His acting career was revived by the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby
"You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" is a popular song with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, written in 1938 for the Warner Brothers movie '' Hard to Get,'' released November 1938, in which it was sung by Dick Powell. The biggest-selling hit version was recorded by Bing Crosby, with Bob Crosby and his orchestra while other contemporaneous hit versions included recordings by Tommy Dorsey (with vocal by Edythe Wright) and Russ Morgan. It was also revived by Bobby Darin in 1961, reaching the charts again that year. The song has been recorded by many other artists (see below for a partial list) and is considered a popular standard. It was used frequently in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, also produced by Warner Brothers, under the musical direction of Carl W. Stalling. Recorded versions *Russ Morgan and his orchestra (recorded August 26, 1938, released by Decca Records as catalog number 2125A, with the flip side "This Is Madness") *Tommy Dorsey an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. ''Yank'' magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, ''Music Digest'' estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cab Calloway
Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole. Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, " Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the ''Billboard'' charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lullaby Of Broadway (song)
"Lullaby of Broadway" is a popular song with music written by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin, published in 1935. The lyrics salute the nightlife of Broadway and its denizens, who "don't sleep tight until the dawn." The song was introduced by Wini Shaw in the musical film ''Gold Diggers of 1935'', and, in an unusual move, it was used as background music in a sequence in the Bette Davis film '' Special Agent'' that same year. Furthermore, again that year, it was sung by Jeane Cowan in a night club scene in the James Cagney film G Men. In three Warner Bros. films, it won the 1935 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Lyrics Unlike the song "Manhattan" and many others, "Lullaby of Broadway" does not name-check any Broadway locations. The line, "The daffydils who entertain / At Angelo's and Maxie's" references a fictitious place (or places), presumably within the context of the film. "Daffydils" — often sung as "daffodils" — was a slang term for chorus girls (or indeed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as ''the schnozzola'' (Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word ''schnoz'', meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname. Early life Childhood Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa (Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber. Young Jimmy served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel. Early career Durante dropped out of school in seventh grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
September In The Rain
"September in the Rain" is a popular song about nostalgia by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, published in 1937. The song was introduced by James Melton in the film ''Melody for Two''. It has become a standard, having been recorded by many artists since. There were three charted versions in 1937 by Guy Lombardo, James Melton and Rhythm Wreckers (vocal by Pauline Byrns). Recorded versions *The song became popular again in 1948 and 1949 when versions by Sam Donahue and the George Shearing Quintet briefly reached the charts. *In 1962, the Beatles recorded a rock and roll interpretation during their Decca audition. Other recordings * Dorothy Ashby - '' Django/Misty'' (1984) *Cilla Black * Claude Bolling/ Guy Marchand * Teresa Brewer * Chad & Jeremy *June Christy - ''A Friendly Session, Vol. 3'' (2000) with the Johnny Guarnieri Quintet, '' Cool Christy'' (2002) *Eddie Condon (1944) *Bing Crosby - '' Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings'' (1956) *Doris Day - ''The Complete Standard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer." Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers." Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with '' The Jolson Story'' (1946), in which Larry Parks played Jolson, with the singer dubbing for Parks. The formula was repeated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shortnin' Bread
"Shortnin' Bread" (also spelled "Shortenin' Bread", "Short'nin' Bread", or "Sho'tnin' Bread") is an African-American folk song dating back at least to the 1890s. James Whitcomb Riley published it as a poem in 1900, building on older lyrics. A "collected" version of the song was published by E. C. Perrow in 1915. It is song number 4209 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Shortening bread refers to a bread made of corn meal and/or flour and lard shortening. Origins "Shortnin' Bread" is a plantation song. Its first written version was captured by poet James Whitcomb Riley in 1900. He titled the song "A Short'nin' Bread Song—Pieced Out", and wrote the first verse as: The dialect rendered into common English would be: The verse includes: Another pair of verses may be later, and exist in several versions: (In some versions there are two children instead of three - and the "other" either "bump'd his head" or "was dead". Neither of these quite scan. The children (or "chillun") ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaughn Monroe
Vaughn Wilton Monroe (October 7, 1911 – May 21, 1973) was an American baritone singer, trumpeter, big band leader, actor, and businessman, who was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for recording and another for radio performance. Early life Monroe was born in Akron, Ohio, United States. He graduated from Jeannette High School in Pennsylvania in 1929, where he was senior class president and voted "Most Likely to Succeed". After graduation, he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he was an active member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. Monroe attended New England Conservatory for one semester in 1935, studying voice with Clarence B. Shirley. Career Monroe formed his first orchestra in Boston in 1940 and became its principal vocalist. He began recording for RCA Victor's subsidiary Bluebird label. That same year, Monroe built ''The Meadows'', a restaurant and nightclub to the west of Boston on Massachusetts Route 9 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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