Harry James born 15 March 1916

Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was a popular American musician and band leader, and a well-known trumpet virtuoso. One of the most popular bandleaders of the wartime era, Harry James is best remembered today for his colourful trumpet playing and as the husband of pin-up girl Betty Grable.  

Born in a run-down hotel next to the city jail in Albany, Georgia, Harry's parents were circus performers -- his mother a trapeze artist and his father the bandleader. James began playing drums at age seven and took up the trumpet at ten, performing for the Christy Brothers circus band.  

James' family later settled in Beaumont, Texas, and he began playing for local dance bands while in high school. In 1935 he joined Ben Pollack's orchestra, leaving in December 1936 for Benny Goodman. During his time with Goodman, James became very popular with the jazz crowd for his colourful, ear-shattering, trumpet playing. He became so popular that when he decided to leave Goodman in December 1938 to form his own band Goodman himself financed the outfit. 

Harry James and His Music Makers debuted in February 1939 at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia. They made their first recordings for Brunswick. Connie Haines was the female vocalist. In June of that year James hired an inexperienced Frank Sinatra as his male vocalist.  

The orchestra did well in New York, but its high-swinging sound wasn't well-received outside the city. A trip to Los Angeles proved financially disastrous, and the band struggled to make it through a booking at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. Tommy Dorsey was in Chicago at the same time and was having problems with his male vocalist. He offered Sinatra a job. With Sinatra's wife expecting and the band's financial future uncertain James let him go. He was soon replaced by Dick Haymes, who went on to become one of the top male vocalists of the era.   

In early 1940 James began recording with Varsity, a minor label. Although his records weren't selling well with the public he was greatly admired by other musicians. James, however, wasn't content with his financial picture and decided to adopt a new sound. He announced he was adding a string section. Horrified reactions from the jazz crowd convinced him to abandon the idea. However, in 1941 when he signed with Columbia the label's A&R director made the same suggestion. James followed through and recorded several schmaltzy ballads and semi-classical selections, including the now famous ''You Made Me Love You.'' Though jazz fans cringed the new sound proved popular with the public, and the band was on its way to stardom.  

                              

Haymes left the band in 1942, replaced by Johnny McAfee as lead male vocalist. James had gone through a string of female vocalists -- Haines, Helen Ward, Dell Parker, Bernice Byers, and Lynn Richards -- until he hired Helen Forrest in 1941. She turned out to be one of his most valuable assets. With Harry's sentimental horn and Helen's emotional singing the band was at its peak and soon began to receive movie offers.  

While working in Hollywood, James met actress Betty Grable. Though James was married to vocalist Louise Tobin at the time he fell in love with Grable and divorced Tobin. James and Grable were married on July 5, 1943. Shortly thereafter Forrest left the orchestra to begin a solo career. Helen Ward was brought back to replace her. Buddy DeVito was male vocalist. Around that time Harry's band began to suffer from the draft. James himself, who had been originally classified 4-F, was in danger of being reclassified as fit for duty. When he was called to take his physical in February 1944 he put the band on notice, and his radio sponsor cancelled his program. James was reclassified 4-F again, however, and he called back together some of his old personnel.  

The new orchestra continued to be successful, with Kitty Kallen as its featured vocalist, but Harry's interest were turning away from music. He had become a regular cast member on Danny Kaye's radio series, and he and Betty were devoting a great deal of time to raising their racehorses. He began to perform less and less. 

When the bottom fell out of the band business in 1946 James called it quits. He didn't stay away for long however. He formed a new outfit the following year and continued to lead bands off and on until his death. 

In 1983, James, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, but he continued to work, playing his last professional job on June 26, 1983, in Los Angeles, just nine days before his death in Las Vegas, Nevada. The job had become his final performance with the Harry James Orchestra. He died exactly 40 years after his marriage to Betty Grable (July 5, 1943), who was buried exactly 30 years after that date (July 5, 1973). Frank Sinatra gave the eulogy at his funeral, held in Las Vegas. . (info mainly from parabrisas.com)

Helen Forrest born 12 April 1917

 

 

Helen Forrest (April 12, 1917 – July 11, 1999) was one of the most popular female jazz vocalists during America's Big Band era. She was born Helen Fogel to a Jewish family in Atlantic City, New Jersey on April 12, 1917. She was the youngest of four children and the only girl; her three brothers were Harry, Ed, and Sam. The Fogels owned a little grocery store. But when Helen was an infant, her father became ill with influenza and suddenly died.

 

The two oldest brothers, Harry and Ed, were old enough to live on their own when Rebecca Fogel moved to Brooklyn with her two youngest children.
There, Helen’s mother met and married a housepainter by the name of Feigenbaum. Forrest recalled that her parents often asked her not to come home right away after school. As she got older, she began to realize that during the day her home was a brothel. Subsequently, she went to live with her piano teacher, Honey Silverman, and Silverman’s family. While Helen completed grammar school, she continued to take piano lessons, but when Silverman heard her sing, she suggested that Helen concentrate on singing instead. Although Helen did not complete high school, she sang in the school musicals during her years of attendance.

By the time she was fourteen, her older brother Ed had his own band. During one summer, she sang with her brother’s band in Atlantic City. Helen later decided that she wanted to be singer and left for New York City, where she visited song publishers and auditioned for a fifteen-minute air slot for a local radio show. During one of the radio spots, the story goes, a sax player thought that the name Fogel was “too Jewish” and therefore Helen Fogel changed her name to Helen Forrest. In 1934, at seventeen years of age, Forrest got her first job at WNEW, New York, singing commercials. During this time, she sang under anonymous names such as Helen, Hilee, Madlene, and Arlene. When she sang for WCBS, she became “Bonnie Blue” and “The Blue Lady of Song.” When her brother Ed, whose band was playing in Washington, D.C., called her to let her know that there was an opening for a vocalist in the Washington Madrillon Club, Forrest auditioned and soon after began singing in the popular supper club.

While performing at the Madrillon, she gained a reputation for her singing, and bandleader Artie Shaw came to see her. Shaw’s singer Billie Holiday was planning to leave the band, and in 1958 Shaw asked Forrest to go on tour. During the fifteen months she sang with Artie Shaw, his band recorded forty-one sides for RCA Victor’s Bluebird record label. In 1939, while still on the road with Artie Shaw’s band, Forrest married drummer Al Spieldock in Baltimore. Her husband remained in Baltimore, and Forrest resumed her tour. When Shaw dissolved his band, she went back to Baltimore but was soon asked to join Benny Goodman’s band. She told the Pop Chronicles "Benny would look right above your eyebrows, in the middle, right on top of the brow. He was a very strange man." During her two-year tenure with Goodman, she recorded fifty-three sides. In 1941, she joined the Harry James band. The musical alliance of featuring Forrest’s vocals with the band as accompaniment proved very successful. 

 

It was with the Harry James Orchestra that she recorded what are arguably her most popular numbers, including "I Had the Craziest Dream" and "I've Heard That Song Before" in 1942 and "I Don't Want to Walk Without You." Traveling with the band, Forrest was the only woman among eighteen or more band members. She fell in 

love with Harry James, maintaining a sporadic love affair until James married actor Betty Grable. In 1943, a few months after James’s marriage, Forrest left the band and appeared in clubs around the country. Her husband divorced her about the same time. Forrest’s agent teamed her up with vocalist Dick Haymes, and together they appeared on their own very popular radio program, running from 1944 to 1947.

Around 1945, Forrest met Paul Hogan, an aspiring actor, at a party. The two began living together and married in 1947. They later separated and divorced in 1956. In the late 1950s, she met businessman Charlie Feinman and married him in 1959. The couple had a son, Michael, in 1960, but the marriage was dissolved in 1961. She continued to perform in major supper clubs around the country, sometimes singing for movie sound tracks as well as performing in “big band nostalgia” tours.

She continued to record, achieving several hits as a soloist and several hits singing duets with Dick Haymes. Forrest recorded approximately seventy-four songs as a solo vocalist—twenty-two for Decca Records, forty for MGM, and twelve for Bell Records. In addition, she recorded for Capitol in 1955–1956, singing the hits she had sung with Harry James. From 1969 to 1974, she rerecorded some of her hits for Reader’s Digest and Time-Life as well. During various periods of “big band nostalgia,” radio broadcasts and shorts were rereleased of Helen Forrest with Artie Shaw’s band, Benny Goodman’s band, Harry James’s band, and Dick Haymes.

Helen Forrest was one of the first singers in the big band era whose vocals were featured throughout a full band arrangement. Before this time, big band vocalists usually sang in the middle of a song. The band would be featured for a full chorus, the vocalist would sing one chorus, and then the band would play another chorus. This arrangement usually confined the singer, not allowing much improvisation in the rhythmic phrasing or melodic line. As well, the song was usually set in the key that suited the instrumentalists’ playing, rather than the vocalist’s range. During the early big band era, few women vocalists had the confidence to ask for individualized arrangements. Despite an unhappy childhood, frequent illness, and personal disappointments, Forrest remained dedicated to her musical profession until the early 1990s, when arthritis forced her into retirement. Over the course of her career, she recorded more than 500 songs. Forrest also acted in several musical films, including Bathing Beauty and Two Girls and a Sailor, which both came out in 1944. She was a civil rights activist as well.

Helen Forrest died from congestive heart failure on July 11, 1999 in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 82. Her final resting place is in Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. (Info edited from JWA.org)