Make Believe Ballroom - 2/13/26 Edition

0:14 It's make believe ballroom time. Put all your cares away. All the bands are here to bring good cheer your way. It's make believe ballroom time and free to everyone. It's no time to friend your Dalis said, boys, close your eyes. And vis you lie in your solitude. Your favorite bands are on the stands and mister Miller, but you're in the wood. Its make believe ballroom time.

0:58 We are a sweet man. As you make it bottom. Come on, Jole the last dass last. Hello world, I'm Jeff Presler, turning on the lights of the Make Belief Ballroom and welcoming you into my Crystal studio for another program of classic big band hits from the nineteen thirties and forties. Please get ready as I play for you some amazing jazz, swing, blues and boogie woogie favorites. Folks, you're listening to the Make Believe Ballroom, broadcasting almost continuously since nineteen thirty five. And welcome one in all into the Crystal studio, and thanks so much for joining me today. A lot of music and a lot of great stories playing for today's program, and that planning gets underway with this record.

2:08 Wow Wow, Wow, way on men, were men of men, and where men are.

2:58 Very sweet, that's where I want to be. That's where I'm gonna be way up when just once. Again we're having ourselves complete. There's just one thing I mean, and it is there all. Give me a hot craty hawk, give me about. Room and let's be wo wow wow. Wow. Give me a ranch, sir, give me a step two and let's see. Wow wow wow. Give me the way of space.

3:39 While I'm just like pray. Rolling wild raby roll. Give me a prairy, give. Me a gatt watch and let's see wow wow wow. He also. U on Perfect Records Wowhoo by Joe Haymes and his orchestra,

5:15 Nice Vocal by Cliff Weston and the Headliners, recorded in New York City, January the twenty fifth, nineteen thirty six. And you know I don't play many Perfect Records on the show. I can't remember the last one I spun from that label, but from its start back in nineteen twenty two in Brooklyn, Perfect Records was for many years top selling record label. The American Record Corporation AARC purchased them in nineteen twenty nine, and Perfect continued to be a successful label. A successful budget label through the thirties, but then the ARC dropped their entire group of cheaper labels in late nineteen thirty eight, and with that went then to be defunct Perfect Records. Let me play one more from the Perfect Record Company.

7:36 Just follow me and you will see what folks in hormone contriguration don't mean a thing this crazy swing ladies swinging hormone drigaration. Revo, look what you want and done revo. You won't give me one another pray is just another grade. Everyone in harmon don's rage. It did if not good, didn't but did not go if Martin skipping. More fine and stringer rag but nothing but not you laughing numble lands incluation really.

8:22 A word, he lucky one, but it did not love me, did not don't keep but that nothing me.

9:08 On Perfect Records. We just heard Tricker ration by Cab Callaway and his orchestra Vocal by Cab, recorded in New York City, October the twenty first, nineteen thirty one. I'm Jeff Presler, and you're listening to the weekly edition of the Make Believe Ballroom, coming to you from the Crystal Studio. I'm going to play another record. Then two songs that came out of movies. One of those movies and not so great, and the other history making for both the filmmaking and the vocalist.

10:02 He and. He I.

11:22 Do the. Way the Digger.

12:47 Recorded on British Decca August the twenty sixth, nineteen thirty five. Coleman Hawkins and the Ramblers Dance Orchestra with meditation certainly one of my favorite Hawkins sides with the Ramblers. Coleman Hawkins, of course, was the father of the Tenor Sacks, and we just heard a very expressive peace. I also enjoyed the restrained backup by the Ramblers meditation, beautiful song. Coleman Hawkins and his Ramblers Dance Orchestra. I am not the father of the Tenor Sacks, but I am indeed a father.

13:33 And you're listening to Jeff Bresler and the weekly edition of the Make Believe Ballroom. So back in nineteen thirty six, March fourth of that year, to be precise, Republic Pictures released a film titled Laughing Irish Eyes. It was released with the Republic just being founded about a year before that. In nineteen thirty five. The studio didn't make big budget films. Their bread and butter was to churn out Western's cliffhangers, serials and b films Laughing. Irish Eyes was about. It was about an Irish boxing promoter and he goes back to Ireland and he finds this big, burly blacksmith who he thinks he can make into the next heavyweight champ.

14:29 And that film, as many of Republic's films were, was under an hour long. It was cheaply promoted, to mixed reviews from the critics, and for the most part, it appeared on the screen as fast as it left now. One song that came out of that film was recorded just a month after the film came out, and unlike the lackluster film, this song ranked number two on your Hit Parade.

15:48 Oh my Life, I'm waiting for you, my wonderful one. I've begun living all my life. Oh my I love has been waiting for you. My life is sublime now that I am giving. Oh my Lord, you seem so lovely so far of me. I'm almost afraid of the girl. But I tell you I praised be all you are hard. That's an open book. All my life. Day O me close the yard. But all else above, Oh my. Lost Darling on my name Dad.

17:14 Lovely about me? I'm Almo played a loo, but I know you I've played before you had that not book. Yeah, Oh my Life. From Victor Records, All My Life by Fats Waller and his rhythm vocal by Fats, recorded in New York City, April the eighth, nineteen thirty six. So Laughing Irish Eyes was basically a short lived, cheap budget film that didn't get much traction in the theaters. But on the reverse, the song I'm about to play came from an early film that was historic in its making, and equally as historic for this song and this artist.

18:37 I'm just a woman, an only woman waiting all the weary short. I'm just a woman that's. Only human one. You should be sor more. Welcome this morning. I known about dawn without a warning, our bounding. How could he do it? Why should he do it? He never done it before? And my blue and my blue. Ain't these tears? And his eyes telling you.

19:24 And my blue. Why you'd be too. If each plan when your man's done fell through. There was a time. When I was his only was, But now the sad and lonely one, Lord was a game. I tell you that. Now he's gone.

20:04 And with you, my Blue? I know it's he is in Chicago and I'm. Down here in Burmanham trying to get the money to go and find my money. I am, Yes, indeed I am. I've got the blue in my heart and my shoes wanta dark, and I'm in a jail, a terrible jail. I don't ask me. I'm a blue? Why do you ask me? I'm my blue?

20:45 Ain't he telling you? How can you ask me my blue? Why would you be you? Your man had done so me? Don't I remember the time. When I was his only one. One? Look at me? Now done that? And no, I did not used to be game.

21:26 Jill you nay. And with you am up dream. On Columbia Records, Am I Blue by Ethel Waters with Studio Orchestra, recorded in New York City, May the fourteenth, way back in nineteen twenty nine. Now, Am I Blue came from an early talkie film named On with the Show, which was released on Made the eighth, nineteen twenty nine. It was a musical film that was produced by Warner Brothers, and even though it was nineteen twenty nine, it was filmed in two color Technicolor. Yes, they had a process for color motion pictures as far back as a nineteen twenty nine and the film On with the Show became the first all talking, all color feature length film ever.

22:32 Ethel Waters sang am I Blue in the film, and she, as a result of that, became the first female vocalist to ever sing and an all Technicolor film. Of course, the first to sing on a film was Al Jolson a couple of years earlier. I think it was nineteen twenty seven in The Jazz Singer. That was basically a black and white silent film with some talking sections that included singing by Jolson. So you may be asking if there was color back in nineteen twenty nine in a mass produced film. In all films in the nineteen thirties, for example, appear in technicolor, and it's a good question.

23:18 There are some answers. The Technicolor process was well, it was extremely time consuming and it also needed some very expensive equipment to process the film. The cost to produce Technicolor films was pretty much cost prohibitive and considered a novelty, and only a studio as big as Warner Brothers was able to produce a film like that, and also another reason is the quality was not good, which many producers felt created distraction to the story on the screen. So two records that I played, both evolving from motion pictures.

24:06 I'm Jeff Bresler and you're listening to the one the only, the original Make Believe Ballroom broadcasting almost continuously since nineteen thirty five. Another record, then a listener's request. I'm an old gitle. I feel like cutting up a run. No, I'm over sixty five. I've got to jump on the joke by the time. Don't you move, I've got both feet in the group on me. Don't see blow your home. I know you never booke home.

24:46 MM. When a listening to Glenn Miller, I could listen to m When I'm doing that, Can Filler shoots the John on the floor. I'm no flowed. I'm a killer ron the cow. I'm not again, I'm no month. I'm the hold of the bus, stop.

25:56 A bus. I'm a no holding a bus drinking for her hummed. You hit a jug wh I love jumping jiving band because I'm reviving my glass and the tones of Rombo give me plenty of hormone. Wha am strictly swing the room, baham about her little session with you when a lady is too Fox Travish put her down as a hit kick hick and whenever she wants to shot his shoot the Mickey dor Quick Silver Tressmung the Gold. Here's the song that leaves me cold? Why take dancing as a drug?

26:39 I'm gonna holding a bun buz bug bug whoah bud bug bug bug. Woh bu buzz buzz buzz bou buz buz buz. I'm just that you hit a bot. We just heard comedic movie actress, radio personality and vocalists the Deadpan Virginia O'Brien with im and hold Jitterbug, recorded on Columbia Records back in nineteen forty. Friends, you know on the Ballroom, I try to pack so much into an hour that I quite frequently forget to promote our own website, where past shows, or at least many past shows in the series are housed in podcast form. Make believe Ballroom is first and foremost the radio program, but when it clears all of our dozens of stations around the US as well as in the United Kingdom, I convert the shows to podcast form. So I guess there's about I haven't checked, but there's probably about two hundred and fifty or so past shows in the archives, and you can hear them at MakeBelieve Ballroom dot com, MakeBelieve Ballroom dot com, or you could just tune into your favorite podcast provider and put make Believe Ballroom in the search.

28:07 Now on Makebelie Ballroom dot com, if you go to the right lower corner of the homepage on your computer screen, you could press a little microphone icon and request the song. And I received one of those verbal requests just a few short days ago, and let me play for you the request than the song. Hey Jeff, this is Jerry clanbil Out of White Plains, New York, and I would like to hear Nat King Cole's version of Stardust.

29:00 And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky, the little stars climb, always reminding me. That we're apart. You wandered down the lane, and following. Leaving me a song that will not die.

29:42 Love is now the star dust of yesterday. The music of the years come b sometimes I wonder. I spend. The lonely eye dreaming of a song. The melodee haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you when our love was new, and each kiss and inspiration.

30:40 But that was long ago. Now My consolation. Is in the starness of a song beside a garden wall, when stars our bride. You are in Maud. The nightingale. Tells his fairy tale, A paradise square roses green. Though I dream infl in my heart, it will remain my stardust melody the memory.

31:39 Of love. Reframe The impeccable Nat king Cole would star Dust, the classic nineteen twenty seven jazz standard composed by Hogi Carmichael. Lyrics were later added by Mitchell Parrish twelve years later in nineteen thirty nine, and it was most popularly recorded by Nat king Cole, although Frank Sinatra also had a pretty memorable version that gave Nana run for his money.

32:27 So thank you. Jerry Glanville Out of White Plains, New York, the home of the late great wrestler, the Golden Boy himself, Arnold Scoland, who remembers Arnold Scoland, Step up to the microphone with your own request, as I mentioned the little mike in the lower right hand corner of the homepage of MakeBelieve Ballroom dot Com to record a request. Of course, most of our requests and comments come via Jeff at make Believe Ballroom Radio dot com. That's Jeff at Makebelie Ballroom Radio dot com. Let's now go back to. World War Two. Then, a famous crooner who, for leisure and profit, helped perfect the technological wonder with roots dating back to the nineteen forties.

33:25 Oh well, time to turning lovely soft army blankets on mticu Jdas. Oh he lived a sheltered life, adored his little wife. It seemed that nothing ever could go wrong.

34:24 His lot was so serene. Each day the same routine until his call up notice came along. Oh how he misses his missus since he became a military man. Oh how he misses her kisses and all the little things she used to plant. He rushes home on leave whenever there's a chance he misses more than anything. Is rational or romance. Oh how he. Misses his missus since he became a military man.

35:07 Now, what's the matter with you? Breeze Homesick Colstone, The closed Sword and I don't know miss my missus holds in miss sock. No, where is he not water bottling me by blome up? What are you grasping about you again? I'll leave Tomorranger, Yes I am, and once more I ain't coming back again. Ah, you ain't fair and might diehardsquire of course I'd been given in me. Notice I can't go without me a little bit of ou comfort? Will I mutually leave? You? Got fourteen days? Yes? Right when I might range for you have fourteen days? He be instead.

36:19 From British Rex Records back in nineteen forty one, Billy Cotton and his band, Oh how he misses his misses? And I told you before Billy Cotton that a famous skrooner for leisure and profit, helped perfect the technological wonder with roots dating back to the forties. Let me play one of his songs first, then the story.

37:00 Dina, Is there anyone far. In the state of Caroline? If there is an you know her, showre to me. Dina got those Dixie eyes, Blazer, How I love to sit and gaze. To the eyes of Dynahe every eye. Why do I shake with brides cause my dynamit change your mind? About me, o, Dina, would.

37:50 You wander to Charin? I would hop an ocean liner just to be with Dine. Is there anyone final in stead of Carolinas. The s and you know, you know showed me died where the next year's plays? And I'm when I'm saying, gazing. My Dna every night? Why should I shake a bright because my dynamite change your mind about me? Dina? If you want to do China Hamnamos miner just Dia later every night? Why do I shake with frid?

38:50 How's my dynamo change your mind about me? The name of this song is dynast If the name of this song is dynastagging, the name of this. Song is died Henny. The name of this song is Donna, Dona, Honor. Du China Nate of Camelana, Then you. Know we're I have got those X eyes blaze. I went up to. Engageing to the eyes of DYNAMU. Should you honor? Would give me a.

39:35 From Brunswick Records, the classic Dina Bing Crosby with the Mills Brothers and the Brunswick Studio Orchestra, conducted by Benny Krueger, recorded in New York City, December the sixteenth, nineteen thirty one. There's two things that are synonymous with Ben Crosby, and that he liked investing in real estate and businesses, as well as his leisure time, which was usually spent on the golf course or at the racetrack. But probably his greatest time spent was with his family, which he found to be precious. His first foray with technical innovations stemmed from his growing dislike for doing live radio shows. If we go back to nineteen thirty six, it was the year that Bing became the host of the Craft Music Hall, which was a musical variety show was on the radio for many years. If I'm not mistaken, it was also on a resurgence on television, maybe back in the seventies or eighties, but for over a decade the Craft Music Hall, which aired on the NBC Radio network, remained a very popular feature on listeners radios, and those shows were always

41:10 as was the case with almost every radio show back in the thirties, they were almost always broadcast live. Now by nineteen forty five, Bing felt that the time commitment of a weekly live radio show would become a burden on the time he could spend at home with his family and pursuing his leisurely loves, which I mentioned a couple of moments ago. So Bing went to NBC executives to discuss different alternatives, and even though Bing was a huge star, they refused to consider any option other than a live broadcast. So Being actually and it was a top rated show, refused to do the show and NBC sued him, which forced him to finish the nineteen forty five forty six season of The Craft Music Hall. Looking to increase its ratings and paying attention to what was going on at NBC, ABC approached Being with an offer.

42:17 They said he could pre record his own show, but with one provision, and that was that the quality had to be as good as a live broadcast. So Crosby accepted, and he immediately threw himself into using the recording technology of the day, unfortunately electrical transcriptions, which we discussed just by coincidence on last week's show, which was, as I'd mentioned, the phonographic disc format, which had been developed for radio in the late nineteen twenties. Crosby's new show at ABC was called a Filco Radio Hour, and two of those big discs were needed to record the show, and very quickly as the Philco Radio Hour unfolded from week to week, being discovered the weakness of electrical transcription technology because the sound technology was inferior to a live broadcast, and transcription discs were also very difficult to edit. The inferiority of the technology hurt the show's ratings, and with his shows struggling a lot, Bing was well, he was receptive to any new recording technology that would improve the show's audio quality.

43:42 There was a gentleman named John T. Mullen. He was an electrical engineer who was working with the wartime German technology and that work would provide the answer to Bing. Overseas during World War Two, Mullen was introduced to German technology and their high quality of pre recorded music. So he was exposed to and found eventually captured German electronic equipment which used magnetic tape recording reel to reels, so he was able to get this equipment out of Germany.

44:25 After the war, he met BEng and he showed the equipment to him and De Crosby asked Mullen to do a test recording of the Filkal Radio Hours, first show of the nineteen forty seven forty eight season, and not only did the quality of this recording rival the live broadcast, but it also offered superior editing capabilities, and Bing was ready to pre record his show for that entire season, but he and his team had two concerns. Would there be an adequate supply of record arding devices and if so, would there be enough magnetic tape to feed them? And the season was about to start, Mullen had only two pretty much homemade machines using those German parts, and then enter Ampex and three m. Ampex was founded in nineteen forty four in San Francisco and they produced small electrical motors and generators for the war effort. After the war, Ampex had to rethink its product line and the company founder decided to gamble its entire future on magnetic recording technology, so, working with Mullen, its engineers produced two prototype units that worked really well. Now the challenge was to go into production,

45:56 but Ampex was unable to raise the needed capital, and when Bing heard of the difficulty, he sent the owner a check for fifty thousand dollars, which was a considerable amount of money. Back in nineteen forty seven. Bing was determined to use this technology, and his commitment didn't stop there. He also invested money in Minnesota mining and Manufacturing that we better know today is three M and the company that was to produce a reliable supply of good quality magnetic tape had been Crosby as a partner. And the rest of that longer than I expected to talk story is etched into the history of radio than TV. Of course, recording, so Bing got his wish to record on tape and spend more time with the family and on the golf course while stuffing his pockets with cash.

47:08 When the deed. Purple fall. Oversleeping gone wall. And the stars begin to flicker in the sky, through the maze. Of a memory, you wander back to me, breathing my name. With a sign.

47:50 In the steer. Of the nive. Once again I hold you Ti, though you're gone, Your love lives on when moon light be. And as long as my heart will be lover, will all wis me here in my deed purple dream. Through the mess of a memory, you wander back to me, breathing my name with a sigh. And as long as

49:40 my heart will be lover, will all always meet. Be in my de. Firpol Dream. Bing Crosby, Deep Purple accompanied by Mattie Malnik and his orchestra, recorded for Decca Records on March the twenty second, nineteen thirty nine. The Greats.

50:20 I call him the greatest crooner of all time bing Crosby, then, can.

51:48 I canna say? Then? Don't do that?

52:51 On Victor Records. What a perfect combination by British born Raynoble and his orchestra. Recorded in London, England, February the twentieth, nineteen thirty three. I'm Jeff Bresler and this is the Make Believe Ballroom. As I mentioned before, I can be reached at Jeff at MakeBelieve Ballroom Radio dot com. That's Jeff at Makebelie Ballroomradio dot com. And one of those who reached out to us via the email route is one Cliff Coleman. With a K. I don't think I ever saw Coleman spelled with a K. But Cliff is out of Austin, Texas with a request, and his email reads, hold on waitered. I here it is, Jeff.

53:41 Enjoy the ballroom. Listen each week you play very little vaugh Monroe. He had a magnificent voice. Please play one of his records. Thanks, I'll be listening, and that is signed Cliff Coleman with a K and Cliff for you, Vaughn Monroe with an M. Racing Will them move h up in the midnight and then all to so it's all from you, racing with

55:26 the moon. I up in the midnight blue and then all to soon it's low from view, gazing at the star. I up in the clouds the great but just like them, move paid away.

56:19 In the blue. Heaven's I see. Your face smiling at my heart. Will never be free. Until we're back together, racing with them moves. That is what I always do.

56:59 Till Racing with the Moon Von Monroe and his Orchestra. Vocal by Von Monroe, recorded on Bluebird Records back in nineteen forty one. The beautiful baritone voice v. Monroe. Folks, we are out of time. Thanks for joining me. I will see you all again next week