The Brox Sisters were an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
trio of singing sisters, enjoying their greatest popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Early life
The sisters were Lorayne (born Eunice, November 11, 1901 – June 14, 1993), Bobbe (born Josephine, November 28, 1902 – May 2, 1999), and Patricia (born Kathleen, June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1988). They were born in Iowa and Indiana, grew up in Alberta and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, and retained
Southern
Southern may refer to:
Businesses
* China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China
* Southern Airways, defunct US airline
* Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US
* Southern Airways Express, M ...
accents during their performing careers. They began a singing career as a trio in Canada, first appearing as child performers in Mother Lang's Children's Show.
The family name "Brock" was changed to "Brox" for theater marquees.
They began touring the
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
circuit in the 1910s in the United States and Canada. At the start of the 1920s they achieved success in New York on the
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
stage. Near the end of the decade they relocated to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. The act broke up in the early 1930s after the sisters got married. They made their final professional reunion appearance on radio in 1939.
Broadway
The trio performed in
Irving Berlin's ''
Music Box Revue
''Music Box Revue'' was a series of four musical theatre revues by Irving Berlin, presented from 1921 to 1925 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. The first show was staged by Hassard Short with music by Irving Berlin, and featured contrib ...
'' from 1921 to 1924, at the
New York Theatre. Berlin's hit song "Everybody Step" was written for and debuted by the sisters. They recorded a number of Berlin compositions, including "Bring on the Pepper," "How Many Times," "
Lazy," "School House Blues," "Some Sunny Day," and "Tokio Blues."
In 1925 and 1926, they performed on Broadway in the musical comedy ''
The Cocoanuts
''The Cocoanuts'' is a 1929 pre-Code Musical film, musical comedy film starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, and Zeppo Marx in his first starring role). Produced for Paramount Pictures by Walter Wanger, who is not cre ...
'', with the
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
. In 1927, they appeared in the ''
Ziegfeld Follies of 1927'' at the
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater on 214 West 42nd Street, at the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. One of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, the New Amsterdam was built from ...
with
comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, ...
.
Film history
The Brox Sisters were among the earliest artists to appear on Warner Bros.'
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one th ...
sound shorts in the late 1920s. They were featured in three productions: "Glorifying the American Song," "Down South" (both in 1928), and the 6:00 short, "Down South" (1929). None of the features currently exist in full audio and visual format, with research underway to locate missing visual or audio components.
The Vitaphone Project
/ref>"Down South" exists in camera negative at the Library of Congress and a scruffy Vitaphone disc was located by Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project, who raised funding for a restoration at UCLA Film & Television Archive circa 2018.
In 1929, they appeared in the film ''The Hollywood Revue of 1929
''The Hollywood Revue of 1929'', or simply ''The Hollywood Revue'', is a 1929 American Pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was the studio's second feature-length musical, and one of their earliest ...
'', performing the songs "Singin' in the Rain
''Singin' in the Rain'' is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charis ...
" with Cliff Edwards
Clifton Avon "Cliff" Edwards (June 14, 1895 – July 17, 1971), nicknamed "Ukulele Ike", was an American singer, musician and actor. He enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standar ...
and " Strike Up the Band" in the finale of the first act.
In 1930, the sisters appeared in the film ''King of Jazz
'' King of Jazz'' is a 1930 American pre-Code color musical film starring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. The film title refers to Whiteman's popular cultural appellation. At the time the film was made, "jazz", to the general public, meant jazz ...
''. They performed the song "A Bench in the Park", with Joe Venuti
Giuseppe "Joe" Venuti (September 16, 1903 – August 14, 1978) was an American jazz musician and pioneer jazz violinist.
Considered the father of jazz violin, he pioneered the use of string instruments in jazz along with the guitarist Eddie La ...
and Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro, October 25, 1902 – March 26, 1933) was an American musician who is credited as the father of jazz guitar. During the 1920s, he gave the guitar a prominence it previously lacked as a solo instrument, as p ...
, and with The Rhythm Boys
The Rhythm Boys were an American male singing trio consisting of Bing Crosby, Harry Barris and Al Rinker. Crosby and Rinker began performing together in 1925 and were recruited by Paul Whiteman in late 1926. Pianist/singer/songwriter Barris joined ...
(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 ...
, Harry Barris
Harry Barris (November 24, 1905 – December 13, 1962) was an American popular singer and songwriter. He was one of the earliest singers to use "scat singing" in recordings. Barris, one of Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys, along with Bing Crosby and ...
and Al Rinker
Al Rinker (December 20, 1907 – June 11, 1982) was an American musician who began his career as a teen performing with Bing Crosby in the early 1920s in Spokane, Washington. In 1925 the pair moved to Los Angeles, eventually forming the Rhythm ...
). In that year they also appeared in the film ''Spring Is Here
"Spring is Here" is a 1938 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the musical ''I Married an Angel'' (1938), where it was introduced by Dennis King and Vivienne Segal.
Rodgers and Hart had previously written a s ...
'' in which they performed the song "Crying for the Carolines".
They performed " Falling in Love Again" in the movie ''Hollywood on Parade
''Hollywood on Parade'' (1932–1934) is a series of short subjects released by Paramount Pictures.
Production background
One short (# B-9) is frequently misidentified as future Stooge Curly Howard's first appearance on film, as cited by histor ...
'' (1932).
Radio and recordings
The sisters also made radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
broadcasts in the 1920s. They recorded a series of phonograph records
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...
for Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916.
History
From 1916
Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing produ ...
and Victor Records
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...
, as well as appearing on sides for Columbia.
References
External links
The Brox Sisters at IMDB
Bobbe Brox at IMDB
Kathlyn Brox at IMDB
Lorraine Brox at IMDB
Brox Sisters pages at JazzAge 1920s site
Brock Sisters from UC to Hollywood
Cameo performance in ''King of Jazz''
* (buried in Desert Memorial Park
Desert Memorial Park is a cemetery in Cathedral City, California, United States, near Palm Springs. Opening in 1956 and receiving its first interment in 1957,The Palm Springs Cemetery District itself was covers 504 square miles, including Palm Spr ...
)
* (buried in Desert Memorial Park
Desert Memorial Park is a cemetery in Cathedral City, California, United States, near Palm Springs. Opening in 1956 and receiving its first interment in 1957,The Palm Springs Cemetery District itself was covers 504 square miles, including Palm Spr ...
)
{{Authority control
American pop music groups
Singers from Tennessee
American girl groups
Vaudeville performers
Burials at Desert Memorial Park