Smiles, "The Cyclonic Song Hit"

(source: Jerome H. Remick & Co. ad. in Variety September 27, 1918)

Here is a song that bring joy to a weary heart--that fills to o'erflowing the bosom burdened with war-time anxiety. A song that hits on all six cylinders of musical success-for here is music with a captial E--the singingest, smilingest song sensation in a month of Sundays. A success? Well-you should smile. The greatest fox trot ever written.

Although Lee S. Roberts (1885-1949) lived all but around 15 years of his life in the San Francisco Bay AreaLee S. Roberts (1885-1949) lived all but around 15 years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, he achieved his greatest fame during 1910s when he lived and worked in Chicago for the QRS Company.

Roberts was already a prolific composer when he came upon the inspiration for the song "Smiles." He attended a business convention where he heard an inspirational speaker describe the importance of smiling. That brought to Robert's mind the lyrics that would become the chorus of "Smiles"

There are smiles that make us happy, and smiles that make us blue.

This phrase became the kernel for a melody that he jotted down on a borrowed piece of paper in 20 minutes. The following day he mailed the melody and a couple of sentences of lyrics to J. Will Callahan, a frequent collaborator. Callahan, who lived in Bay City, Michigan, had been a lawyer but turned to writing song lyrics because his eyesight was failing. He asked his wife to repeatedly play the melody on the piano, then after four hours he dictated the finished lyrics to her.

Roberts first self-published the song in 1917 and unsuccessfully tried to promote it. He then sold it to the Jerome H. Remick company - a major music publisher of that time. Initially, they also had trouble getting dance and hotel orchestras to perform it. The song's fortunes changed when legendary song plugger Jack Robbins found the published song sitting on the stockroom shelves at the Remick offices. He saw potential in the song and successfully promoted it leading to his own first great success.

Placement in the Broadway musical The Passing Show of 1918 was probably the decisive step leading to the success of "Smiles." This production was a variety show in eight scenes produced by the legendary J. J. Shubert at the Winter Garden. The show opened on July 25, 1918 and ran through November 9, 1918. It was a three hour whirlwind of comedic skits, songs and dance numbers and featured the brother and sister team of Fred and Adele Astaire. The music was credited to Sigmund Romberg and Jean Schwartz, but a number of other songs were interpolated into the show. "Smiles" was sung in the fifth act in the middle of the show by Nell Carrington with a girls chorus.

Cover to "Smiles" by Lee S. Roberts and J. Will Callahan (source: Dorothy Starr Collection)

It's hard to gauge the immediate impact of the song within the larger production. The song was not mentioned in the reviews of the show in the New York Times and Variety. That may have been because it was not included the production at the show's opening. It was only mentioned in passing in the Billboard review.

image source: Talkmachine Talk / New Victor Records August 1918

It was a released by Victor Records in August 1918 and according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories it was the best selling record of the week of September 9, 1918. This recording by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra featured vocals by Harry MacDonough. Gracyk believes that this was the first dance recording to feature vocals.

The Joseph C. Smith Orchestra, Harry MacDonough, vocals, performing "Smiles" (Victor 18473)

"Smiles" was also a 1918 hit for vaudevillians Albert Campbell and Henry Burr and operatic tenor Lambert Murphy.

Albert Campbell Henry Burr singing "Smiles" (Columbia A2616)

Lambert Murphy singing "Smiles" (Victor 45155) 

Prince's Band (not that Prince!) played an instrumental arrangement of "Smiles" the same year.

Prince's Band performing "Smiles" (Columbia A6077)

All four of these recordings are from the acoustic era of sound recording -- the period before the use of microphones and amplification.

Lee S. Roberts and Max Kortlander also teamed up to create a piano roll version of "Smiles"

By 1920 "Smiles" had earned its writers $60,000 - equivalent to a million and a half dollars today.

"Smiles" also had a rich afterlife. It was used from the 1920s as the theme song for the Ipana Troubadours' radio program. It was sung by Helen Morgan playing a burlesque singer in the early talking film Applause (1929). Judy Garland sang it in the vaudeville themed film For Me and My Gal (MGM 1942) and Betty Hutton sang it in Somebody Loves Me (1952). It was also used as a recurring theme in the film Ice Palace (Warner Bros., 1960). It also made appearances in Stella Dallas (1934), The Dolly Sisters (1945), What Price Glory (1952), Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952), Elmer Gantry (1960), and Ice Palace (1960).

In addition to being a hit song of Tin Pan Alley, "Smiles" became a standard to be interpreted by many artists over the years (to be explored in the next blog entry).

Bibliography:

Bloom, Ken. American Song: The complete musical theatre companion, 2nd ed., 1877-1995 (Schirmer Books, 1996.

Ewen, David. American Popular Songs from The Revolutionary War to The Present (Random House, 1966).

Ewen, David. All The Years of American Popular Music (Prentice-Hall, 1977).

Gracyk, Tim. Popular American Recording Pioneers, 1895-1925 (Haworth Press, 2000).

Green, Abel, "Top Songs for 20 Years," Variety August 21, 1935.

"Jack Robbins Dies; Music Publisher," New York Times December 17, 1959

Jasen, David A. A Century of American Popular Music (1899-1999): 2000 best-loved and remembered songs (Routledge, 2002)

The New York Times Theater Reviews, v.5 1912-1919 (New York Times, 1975.

Norton, Richard C. A Chronology of American Musical Theater (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Popular Music, 1900-1919: An Annotated Guide to American Popular Songs, Including Introductory Essay, Lyricists and Composers Index, Important Performances Index, Chronological Index, and List of Publishers, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, editor (Gale Research Inc., 1988).

Wickes, E.M., "The Doughboy Has Put Dough in Ragtime," Melody: A Magazine for Lovers of Popular Music August 1920.

Wickes, E.M., "It Pays to Be Different," Billboard June 25, 1921

The Modern Jazz Quartet

image source: San Francisco Chronicle October 5, 1954

The Modern Jazz Quartet first appeared in San Francisco on October 4, 1954 at the Blackhawk nightclub, 200 Hyde Street. Esteemed San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic, Ralph Gleason, wrote about their appearance:

The Modern Jazz Quartet ... represents the new approach to jazz. Schooled musicians, jazz men, too, they have brought forethought, planning and discipline to their music as well as the extemporaneous fire of jazz improvisations... The members of the group--John Lewis, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Milt Jackson, vibes, and Kenny Clark, drums--are among the most serious of the modern jazz men, and yet the charm of their music is that they are not so serious that they do not have fun.

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz characterizes the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet as "cool jazz" in a "conservative bebop style." They were all, in fact, seasoned bebop musicians who performed in Dizzy Gillespie's band. 

The Modern Jazz Quartet is notable for merging jazz, original a genre of dance music or entertainment, with elements of classical music. In that regard, they along with Duke Ellington and others brought jazz from the dance hall to the concert hall. This genre was sometimes called Third Stream Music.

advertisement from the San Francisco Ballet program

After a stint in the army during World War II, pianist John Lewis studied at the Manhattan School of Music. He soon joined Gillespie's group and later also worked and recorded with Illinois Jacquet, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He also worked with Miles Davis as a pianist and arranger on the Birth of The Cool sessions in the late 1950s.

Program cover for the San Francisco Ballet's performance of Original Sin

Locally, Lewis collaborated with choreographer Lew Christensen and poet Kenneth Rexroth in the creation of Original Sin, a ballet in two scenes, written for the San Francisco Ballet that premiered on April 14, 1961.

An advertisement in the program details the miniature scores published by MJQ Music Inc., Lewis's imprint.

We have several of the MJQ Music scores in our collection. These include several works by John Lewis:

Excerpts from The Comedy, 1957-1959, for solo piano, 4 trumpets, 4 horns, 2 trombones, tuba, percussion, and double bass.

The Golden Striker: 1957, for solo piano, bass, percussion, 4 trumpets, 4 horns, 2 trombones, and tuba

Jazz Ostinato, For jazz quartet (vibraharp, piano, drums, double bass) and orchestra.

Sketch: For double quartet (1959), for jazz quartet (piano, vibraphone, percussion, and double bass) and string quartet.

The Spiritual, for jazz quartet (vibraharp, piano, drums, double bass) and orchestra.

We offer several Modern Jazz Quartet albums as streaming audio. We also have the four vinyl LP albums available to borrow in the Art, Music & Recreation Center

The Last Concert (Atlantic, 1975). 

More from the Last Concert (Atlantic, 1981).

No Sun in Venice: original film score, by John Lewis (Atlantic, 1958).

Under the Jasmin Tree (Apple, 1968).

Bibliography:

Coady, Christopher. John Lewis and the Challenge of "Real" Black Music (University of Michigan Press, 2016)

Gleason, Ralph, "Oldest and Newest in Jazz In S.F. Spots This Week," San Francisco Chronicle October 7, 1954.

Gleason, Ralph J. Celebrating the Duke, and Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy, and other Heroes (Little, Brown, 1975).

Owens, Thomas, "Modern Jazz Quartet," in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, edited by Barry Kernfeld (Grove's Dictionaries Inc., 2002).

San Francisco Ballet. Spring Season 1961. Alcazar Theatre [program].

Schuller, Gunther. "Third Stream," in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, edited by Barry Kernfeld (Grove's Dictionaries Inc., 2002).

image source: album jacket for The Last Concert, photograph by David Gahr

Vintage Vinyl on the 4th Floor

We are very pleased to introduce a new collection of vinyl recordings to the San Francisco Public Library.  The Library has four "Vinyl Destinations" -- the AV Center on the 1st floor of the Main Library, the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Branch, the Marina Branch, and the Park Branch.

Up to 1989, with the temporary closure of the Main Library following the Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Main Library collected nothing but vinyl recordings.  There are still more than 2,500 records from that collection housed on the 4th floor of the Main Library in the Art, Music and Recreation Center.

While the resurgence of interest in vinyl recordings is exciting, the marketplace for new vinyl seems to only extend to popular music styles like pop, rock, rhythm and blues and rap.  The vintage vinyl collection offers genres of music that we cannot represent well in our new collection like classical music, musical theater, world and folk music, and spoken word recordings.

So after perusing the shiny new vinyl collection on the 1st floor, consider taking an elevator ride to the 4th floor to browse through our eclectic collection of vintage vinyl.

Regional Airplay and National Charts in 1966

The front page of the July 2, 1966 issue of Billboard magazine featured an article entitled "Detroit & L.A. Sales 'Happening Places'."  This article detailed the various the contributions of various regional markets to the national hit charts -- Detroit came on top owing to the song "Cool Jerk" by Capitols, though it's hard to imagine that the Motown label didn't play a role in its prominence.

San Francisco placed third with 7 chart lists.  The article makes special note of the San Jose-based Syndicate of Sound's song "Little Girl" "moving up the charts."

Indeed the song is shown in the 11th position on the weekly charts with a red star given to "sides registering proportionate upward progress" for the week.  (By the way, harkening back to an older era, Frank Sinatra topped that week's chart with "Strangers In The Night."  Representing the new era, The Beatles charted at no. 2 with "Paperback Writer.")

According to Joel Whitburn Presents Top 10 Singles Charts, "Little Girl" peaked at #8 during the week of July 9, 1966, squeezed between "Cool Jerk" by the Capitols at #7 and "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones at #9.  It repeated at #8 the following week of July 16 and then faded away.


According to the Billboard Book of One Hit Wonders, the Syndicate of Sound recorded "Little Girl" on January 9, 1966 at Golden Gate Recorders in San Francisco at 665 Harrison Street.  Leo de Gar Kulka opened Golden State Recorders in 1964 after moving north from Los Angeles and soon began recording many of the bands of the "San Francisco Sound."  In If These Halls Could Talk, Heather Johnson describes it as "one of the few music recording studios in town with a recording room comparable in size to established L.A. and New York facilities."

 source: John In Montana blog

The KFRC Weekly Music Charts 1966-1970 show "Little Girl" charting earlier in the Bay Area.  On May 25, 1966 it was ranked #11, June 1, 1966 at #9 and on June 8, 1966 at #14 on the station's "Big 30."  After that it did appear in the Top 30 again.  It achieved its peak of popularity in the Bay Area a month before its national success. 

This is an interesting time because radio stations were programmed locally and their record charts still reflected local tastes.  That same week "Don't Bring Me Down" by The Animals reached #3 on KFRC, but it never reached Billboard's Top Ten.

 The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders has a brief chapter describing the band's history and the creation of their hit song.  The lead singer recalled: "I had no idea how I would interpret it vocally.  It didn't really work putting melody on top ... so we agreed I'd do it, without a melody, but with attitude."

A black and white video from that time captures that attitude.

The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders by Wayne Jancik (Billboard Books, 1998).

Hall, Claude, "Detroit & L.A. Sales 'Happening Places'." Billboard (July 2, 1966), 1; 26.

If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour Through San Francisco Recording Studios by Heather Johnson (Thomson Course Technology, 2006).

Joel Whitburn Presents Top 10 Singles Charts: Chart Data Compiled from Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Hot 100 charts, 1955-2000 (Record Research, 2001).

KFRC Weekly Music Charts. 1966-1970 by Frank W. Hoffmann (Paw Paw Press, 2015).

Vintage Talking Books

Cover art from The Black Cat, read by Arthur Luce Klein

Today we are very familiar with audio eBooks - digital sound files of literary works that can either be streamed or downloaded.  Until recently spoken work compact discs were another popular form of talking book.  And, of course, audio cassettes were the format that was responsible for making the talking book such a popular medium.

These three formats all had the virtue of being portable -- they could be listened to through a car stereo, walkman or mp3 player.  The very first books on tape (audio cassette format) were introduced in 1969 and could have up to an hour of continuous recitation on a side.  Spoken books on compact disc began to appear during the 1990s and could contain up to 74 minutes per side (and had a higher audio quality).  Streaming audio appeared not long afterward and could present a continuous narration of any duration.

There is a pre-history to this consumer-friendly, portable form of enjoying talking books.  The earliest talking books were manufactured on vinyl records that played at the slower speed of 16 2/3 rotations per minute.  For a period of time, many record players had settings for 16 2/3 rpm, 33 1/3 rpm (the long playing record), 45 rpm (the single) and 78 rpm (the much earlier shellac record).

The rule of thumb with audio recording is faster speeds mean better sound.  This slower speed worked because the spoken word does not need to have the same rich audio spectrum as music.  A 12 inch disc played at 16 2/3 rpm could have an hour of music per side, whereas a 33 rpm record could own contain a half hour.  The Library of Congress began issuing records at the speed in 1962 to serve the blind community and later even issued recordings the slower 8 1/3 rpm speed.

A blurb on the back of The Pit And The Pendulum (1972)

We do not have any of these slower recordings in our collection, but we do have sizeable collection of 12 inch vinyl spoken word records played at 33 1/3.  These include plays, poetry, legends, speeches and stories.

You can browse our holdings of literature on vinyl by searching for the call number LIT PD (Literature Phonodisc).

Because of their relative brevity, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe could provide a fulfilling vintage audio book experience.  Below is a listing of Poe stories on vinyl in our collection.


The Black Cat; read by Arthur Luce Klein (Spoken Arts, s.d.).

A Descent Into The Maelström; read by Paul Hecht (Spoken Arts, s.d.).

The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar; read by Arthur Luce Klein (Spoken Arts, s.d.).

The Murders In The Rue Morgue; read by Arthur Luce Klein (Spoken Arts, 1970?).

The Pit And The Pendulum; read by Edward Blake (Listening Library, 1972).

The Pit And The Pendulum; read by Alexander Scourby (Spoken Arts, 1962).

The Purloined Letter; read by Arthur Luce Klein (Spoken Arts, s.d.).


Bibliography:

Dicecco, Mike, "A History of 16-RPM Records, Part Two: Audio Books,"  Antique Phonograph News
Canadian Antique Phonograph Society (May-June 2010).

Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Frank Hoffmann, editor (Routledge, 2005).

Couperin record label art

 Les nations - Editions de l'oiseau-lyre SOL.60014 [1960]

 Les nations - Telefunken AWT 9476-A [1968]

Chamber music of François Couperin, Titanic Ti-39 [1978]

One of the vicarious pleasures of enjoying phono discs is appreciating the record label design. Throughout the history of recorded sound, the companies that release records have created trademarked identities for their products.  Unfortunately, there does not appear to be reference book that thoroughly documents this practice.  The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound does include several black and white examples.

We still maintain a collection of several thousand long playing records.  Recordings of music by François Couperin, a French baroque composer and keyboard player, show us some striking examples of this artwork.  Baroque classical music is regarded as a refined art form and it has been released by some of the finer classical record labels.

The L'oiseau lyre logo features the distinctive lyre birds in profile as bookends.  The word Telefunken is of German coinage and is made up of the prefix "tele" (far-off) and "funken" meaning sparks.  Their logo features multiply symmetrical electrical bolts surrounding the brand name broken into three syllables inside a diamond.  Titanic is an American label that has specialized in baroque music.  The feature the eponymous ocean liner on their label art.

Our collection of long playing records is available to borrow from the Library.


Chamber Music of François Couperin (Titanic Records, p1978).

Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound by Frank Hoffmann, editor (Routledge, 2005).

Les nations / François Couperin (Oiseau-Lyre, 1960)

Les Nations: 1726 / François Couperin (Telefunken, 1969).

Sounds of the New Deal: The Federal Music Project in the West

Peter Gough is an assistant professor of history at California State University, Sacramento and author of Sounds of the New Deal: the federal music project in the west. Please join us for an author talk, Q&A, and book sales* and signing on Sunday, March 20th at 1pm. 

How the music of the people

—all people—

triumphed and reshaped America

 

At its peak, the Federal Music Project (FMP) employed nearly 16,000 people who reached millions of Americans through performances, composing, teaching, and folksong collection and transcription. In Sounds of the New Deal, Peter Gough explores how the FMP’s activities in the West shaped a new national appreciation for the diversity of American musical expression. From the onset, administrators and artists debated whether to represent highbrow, popular, or folk music in FMP activities. Though the administration privileged using “good” music to educate the public, in the West local preferences regularly trumped national priorities and allowed diverse vernacular musics to be heard. African American and Hispanic music found unprecedented popularity while the cultural mosaic illuminated by American folksong exemplified the spirit of the Popular Front movement. These new musical expressions combined the radical sensibilities of an invigorated Left with nationalistic impulses. At the same time, they blended traditional patriotic themes with an awareness of the country’s varied ethnic musical heritage and vast—but endangered—store of grassroots music.

Presentation will be held in the Latino/Hispanic Community Room, Lower Level of the Main San Francisco Public Library.

* book sales provided by Friends of the Library