Al Bowlly born 7 January 1899

Al Bowlly (7 January 1898 – 17 April 1941) was a vocalist and jazz guitarist who was popular during the 1930s in Britain. He recorded more than 1,000 songs. 

He was born Albert Allick Bowlly in Lourenço Marques (today Maputo) in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. Al's father, Alick Pauli, was Greek by nationality. His mother, born Miriam Ayoub-NeeJame, was a Lebanese Catholic, though Al himself was raised Greek Orthodox. They met en route to Australia and moved to British South Africa. Bowlly was brought up in Johannesburg. 

After a series of odd jobs in South Africa, including barber and jockey, he sang in a dance band led by Edgar Adeler on a tour of South Africa, Rhodesia, India and the Dutch East Indies during the mid-1920s. His main role was as guitarist. He was fired from the band in Soerabaja, Dutch East Indies. Jimmy Lequime hired Bowlly to sing with his band in India and Singapore. When he left Lequime, it was with the pianist Monia Liter, the two of them travelling to Germany, where they played with Arthur Briggs and his Savoy Syncopators, Fred Bird's Salon Symphonic Jazz Band, and George Carhart's New Yorkers Jazz Orchestra. In 1927 Bowlly made his first record, a cover version of "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin that was recorded with Adeler in Berlin, Germany. 

He moved to Britain, where in July 1928 joined Fred Elizade's band that played at the Savoy Hotel, London until 1930. He went on to play with various bands on a temporary basis, before gaining more regular employment in May 1931 with Roy Fox, singing in his live band for the Monseigneur Restaurant, a stylish restaurant on Piccadilly in London, and later with bandleader Ray Noble in November 1930. During the next four years, he recorded over 500 songs. By 1933, Lew Stone had ousted Fox as the Monseigneur's bandleader and Bowlly was singing Stone's arrangements with Stone's band. 

                                   

After much radio exposure and a successful British tour with Stone, Bowlly was inundated with demands for appearances and gigs – including undertaking a solo British tour – but continued to make most of his recordings with Noble. There was considerable competition between Noble and Stone for Bowlly's time. For much of the year, Bowlly spent the day in the recording studio with Noble's band, rehearsing and recording, then the evening with Stone's band at the Monseigneur. Many of these recordings with Noble were issued in the United States by Victor, which meant that by the time Noble and Bowlly came to America, their reputation had preceded them. 

Bowlly performed in England with his band, the Radio City Rhythm Makers. By 1937, the band had broken up when vocal problems were traced to a wart in his throat, briefly causing him to lose his voice. Separated from his wife and with his band dissolved, he borrowed money from friends and travelled to New York City for surgery. His absence from the UK in the early 1930s damaged his popularity with British audiences, despite his association with pianist Monia Liter as his accompanist. His career began to suffer as a result of problems with his voice, which affected the frequency of his recordings. Noble was offered a role in Hollywood, although the offer excluded Bowlly because a singer had already been hired. Bowlly moved back to London with his wife Marjie in January 1937. 

Leslie Hutchinson, Spike Hughes & Bowlly

With diminished success in Britain, he toured regional theatres and recorded as often as possible to make a living, moving from orchestra to orchestra, working with Sydney Lipton, Geraldo and Ken "Snakehips" Johnson. In 1940, there was a revival of interest in his career when he worked in a duo with Jimmy Messene in Radio Stars with Two Guitars on the London stage. It was his last venture before his death in April 1941. The partnership was uneasy; Messene was an alcoholic and he was occasionally unable to perform. Bowlly recorded his last song two weeks before his death. It was a duet with Messene of Irving Berlin's satirical song about Hitler, "When That Man Is Dead and Gone". 

On 16 April 1941, Bowlly and Messene had given a performance at the Rex Cinema in Oxford Street, High Wycombe. Both were offered an overnight stay in town, but Bowlly took the last train home to his flat at 32 Duke Street, Duke's Court, St James, London. He was killed by a Luftwaffe parachute mine that detonated outside his flat at ten past three in the morning. His body appeared unmarked. Although the explosion had not disfigured him, it had blown his bedroom door off its hinges, and the impact against his head was fatal. He was buried with other bombing victims in a mass grave at Hanwell Cemetery, Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, where his name is given as Albert Alex Bowlly. 

A blue plaque commemorating Bowlly was installed in November 2013 by English Heritage at Charing Cross Mansion, 26 Charing Cross Road, described as "his home at the pinnacle of his career".

(Edited from Wikipedia) 

 

Ricky Allen born 6 January 1935

Ricky Allen (January 6, 1935 – May 29, 2005) was an American blues, R&B and soul singer from Chicago who recorded in the amalgam style called soul-blues, but he did so in the early 60’s, long before anybody gave that genre a name. 

Richard A. Allen was born in Nashville, Tennessee. It was in church that he started first singing gospel. Around 1957 Ricky received an offer from James Brown to play with him as a supporting act. But he turned the offer down because James didn't pay too well. Ricky started singing secular music because he couldn't earn any money from his gospel singing. He started hanging out with Earl Gaines and Larry Birdsong (the latter was also a schoolmate of his) and others in Nashville. 

During that time he was asked to go to Houston to record for Duke Records. Duke's owner, Don Robey, was looking for a similar singer to Atlantic's Clyde McPhatter and thought that Ricky could do. The intention was to record Ricky with a big band and put him between Bobby Bland and Junior Parker. His initial experiences at Duke were not the happiest and Ricky got fed up and went back to Nashville before recording took place. 

                                  

Ricky Allen's recording break was by pure chance. In 1961 he accompanied Bobby Little, Earl Hooker's drummer, to a Mel London-produced session with Hooker for London's Age label. When the session ended they still had studio time left. That's how he got his chance. Ricky explained, “I had already written “You'd Better Be Sure” and “You Were My Teacher”. I did these two songs”. “You'd Better Be Sure,” became his first big hit in Chicago. Two year later Ricky recorded “Cut You-A loose”, which became his biggest hit topping #20 on the national R&B chart and #126 on the pop chart. Ricky's band featured some of the best musicians in Chicago at that time, for example Frank Swan, drums; A. C. Reed, sax; Earnest Johnson, bass; Ivory Parkes, guitar. 

After Age folded, Ricky was recorded for a variety of labels in Chicago: USA, 4Brothers, Bright Star, Apogee, One–Way, Mel Records and Tam-boo. He still had several significant local hits in Chicago (“Going or Coming,” “Can't Stand No Signifying,” “Nothing In This World Can Hurt Me,” “It's A Mess I Tell You” and many more). Ricky was at the height of his fame from 1961 thru the mid-'60s as one of the most popular artists in Chicago's black community, rivalled by Muddy Waters and Junior Wells. Despite his success, researchers and reissuers have neglected him for over three decades. With the exception of a few lines in album notes and the occasional mention in books or magazines, nothing in depth had been written about him up to 2000. For over 30 years there was also only one widely known photo of Ricky. 

Ricky's entry in Blues Records 1943-70 boasts an impressive list of recordings (over 40) made during a time when most blues artists were struggling with changes in public taste. Failing to cross over to the new, white blues audience and no longer making contemporary R&B, Rick disbanded his band in 1974 and retired from music, drifting into obscurity, working in his laundry business. He made an attempt at a first comeback 1983. He recorded a single, “Hard Working Woman,” though can't remember for which label. He was not successful and had quit again. In 1993 he made a new attempt, starting a five-piece band. But after he had paid his band after some dates he was left with nothing himself. After that he started his limousine service. 

Ricky Allen was rediscovered by Jefferson, the Swedish blues magazine, which printed his biography in 2000. As a result of the rediscovery, Ricky Allen was booked for the 2001 Mönsterås Bluesfestival, the biggest festival in Sweden. When he played the festival, it was the first time Ricky had been outside the U.S.A., except for some touring dates in Canada in the 60's and also maybe the first time he ever performed outside of the black community. He was very well received and the highlight of the festival according to the local press. 

In 2002, Ricky Allen played at the Chicago Blues Festival, again very well received. He also made some occasional dates at clubs in Chicago. He was never recorded again. After that he started his limousine service. He drove his own car and was connected to a private stop. He was still driving his car up till his first heart attack in December 2004 after which his health deteriorated, and he died May 29, 2005, after a second heart attack. 

(Edited from Jazz News & Bear Family) (photo under 45 record scan courtesy of the artofsampling blog)

Elizabeth Cotten born 5 January 1895

Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987) was an American folk and blues musician. She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. NPR stated "her influence has reverberated through the generations, permeating every genre of music." 

Born Elizabeth Nevills in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Libba Cotten taught herself how to play the banjo and guitar at an early age. Although forbidden to do so, she often borrowed her brother's instruments when he was away, reversing the banjo and guitar to make them easier to play left-handed. Eventually she saved up the $3.75 required to purchase a Stella guitar from a local dry-goods store. Cotten immediately began to develop a unique guitar style characterized by simple figures played on the bass strings in counterpoint to a melody played on the treble strings, a method that later became widely known as "Cotten style." She fretted the strings with her right hand and picked with her left, the reverse of the usual method. Moreover, she picked the bass strings with her fingers and the treble (melody strings) with her thumb, creating an almost inimitable sound. 

Ruth Crawford Seeger

Libba married Frank Cotten when she was 15 (not a particularly early age in that era) and had one child, Lily. As Libba became immersed in family life, she spent more time at church, where she was counseled to give up her "worldly" guitar music. It wasn't until many years later that Cotten, due largely to a fortunate chance encounter, was able to build her immense talent into a professional music career. While working at a department store in Washington, D.C., Libba found and returned a very young and lost Peggy Seeger to her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. A month later, Cotten began work in the household of the famous folk-singing Seeger family. 

                      Here’s “Freight Train” from above LP 

                                  

The Seeger home was an amazing place for Libba to have landed entirely by accident. Ruth Crawford Seeger was a noted composer and music teacher while her husband, Charles, pioneered the field of ethnomusicology. A few years passed before Peggy discovered Cotten playing the family's gut-stringed guitar. Libba apologized for playing the instrument without asking, but Peggy was astonished by what she heard. Eventually the Seegers came to know Libba's instrumental virtuosity and the wealth of her repertoire. 

Thanks largely to Mike Seeger's early recordings of her work, Elizabeth Cotten soon found herself giving small concerts in the homes of congressmen and senators, including that of John F. Kennedy. By 1958, at the age of sixty-two, Libba had recorded her first album, Elizabeth Cotten: Negro Folk Songs and Tunes (Folkways 1957, now reissued as Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs, Smithsonian Folkways 1989). 

Meticulously recorded by Mike Seeger, this was one of the few authentic folk-music albums available by the early 1960s, and certainly one of the most influential. In addition to the now well-recorded tune "Freight Train," penned by Cotten when she was only eleven or twelve, the album provided accessible examples of some of the "open" tunings used in American folk guitar. She played two distinct styles on the banjo and four on the guitar, including her single-string melody picking "Freight Train" style, an adaptation of Southeastern country ragtime picking. 

As her music became a staple of the folk revival of the 1960s, Elizabeth Cotten began to tour throughout North America. Among her performances were the Newport Folk Festival, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the Smithsonian Festival. Her career generated much media attention and many awards, including the National Folk 1972 Burl Ives Award for her contribution to American folk music. The city of Syracuse, New York, where she spent the last years of her life, honored her in 1983 by naming a small park in her honor: the Elizabeth Cotten Grove. An equally important honor was her inclusion in the book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, by Brian Lanker, which put her in the company of Rosa Parks, Marian Anderson, and Oprah Winfrey. 

Cotten's later CDs, Shake Sugaree (Folkways, 1967), When I'm Gone (Folkways, 1979), and Elizabeth Cotten Live (Arhoolie 1089), continued to win critical acclaim. Elizabeth Cotten Live was awarded a Grammy for the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1985. She continued to tour and perform right up to the end of her life. Her last concert was one that folk legend Odetta put together for her in New York City, shortly before her death on June 29, 1987 at the Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital in Syracuse. 

Cotten's legacy lives on not only in her own recordings but also in the many artists who continue to play her work. 

(Edited from Folkways & Wikipedia)

 

Frank Newton born 4 January 1908

Frankie Newton (January 4, 1908* – March 11, 1954) was one of jazz trumpet's most individualistic, dynamic stylists who has been consigned largely to the footnotes and margins of the music's history.

William Frank Newton (he preferred “Frank” to “Frankie”) was born in Blacksburg, an African-American community located near Emory, Virginia. Blacksburg was named for and was the location of Emory and Henry College. Virginia researcher Jennifer Wagner believes he was educated in a segregated schoolhouse and stayed in school until he was 14. There are no indications that he got early musical education. 

In an interview, Newton said his first music was played: “…in Roanoke, Virginia, at a very early age, with a guy named Johnny Locklear, after which I left Roanoke with a banjo player, Ike Williams.” Newton then played in McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, (formerly Milt Senior’s Synco Jazz Band) before joining the Lloyd Scott band in West Virginia around 1926. 

The Scott band spent most of its time on the road, but got to New York City and spent two years playing in the Capitol Palace, a Harlem after-hours club. Newton spent the following few years on the road, playing with bands led by Scott, Charlie Johnson, Chick Webb, and Sam Wooding. His first recorded solo is in a song called “In A Corner,” with Cecil Scott and His Bright Boys in 1929. 

The first opportunities Newton had to record as an individual sideman, not as part of an orchestra, were provided by record producer John Hammond. Hammond had heard Newton at the Capital palace, and hired him for a gig in 1932 at the Mt. Kisco Country Club, north of New York City, with Fats Waller and others.

Onyx Club Band 1937. Newton far right.

In 1932, he joined Benny Carter’s Orchestra and, in 1933 he distinguished himself as a sideman on Bessie Smith’s last sessions. Newton apparently continued playing off and on with bands between 1933-1936 which included one led by Charlie Johnson, but there are no recordings of him after the 1933 Bessie Smith sessions until he recorded a session led by tenor saxophonist Art Karle in 1935. This octet resulted in 4 releases, but from 1936-1939 he appeared on scores of recordings, both as sideman and, starting in 1937, as leader. 

                                   

In 1938, Newton was brought in to lead the house band at the new Café Society, per the suggestion of record producer John Hammond to club owner Barney Josephson. Politically, the club and Newton were an excellent fit. It was the first self-declared integrated nightclub in New York City and became the habitué of leftist writers and activists. Billie Holiday was the featured vocalist and in the spring of 1939, Newton’s band recorded “Strange Fruit” with her; possibly the most powerful song about white-on-black violence in America ever recorded. 

In the first eight months of 1939, Newton had recorded for all three of the major labels (Columbia, Victor and Decca) plus two new independent labels (Blue Note, for which label he was the first horn player to record, and Commodore), all of which used the same business model: flat fees for the musicians, followed by extensive distribution of records, with all of the profits going back to the company and no residuals for the musicians (unless they were able to receive composer credits). 

Newton with Sidney Bechet

Around 1940, after having established himself as one of the foremost swing players in the country, he continued to play, but music no longer dominated his life. In the fourteen years until his death, he left only a handful of recordings. There are famous guerilla live recordings with Art Tatum at Monroe’s Uptown in 1941, then sessions in 1944 as a sideman on Mary Lou Williams’ recordings and a session in 1946 as sideman with vocalist Stella Brooks. While all these positive activities were happening, Newton was also drinking heavily. 

He’d been going back and forth between New York and Boston for gigs in the late 1940s-early ’50s, but eventually Newton’s drinking became too much for George Wein to handle and he stopped booking him gigs. Several sources say that Newton made his final appearance at Storyville in Boston March 16-29, 1953, but the sessions weren’t released and have never surfaced. In 1954, Newton tried to make a comeback, deciding to audition for a spot on the television show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Apparently he passed the audition, but before he could appear on the show he died on March 11, 1954, of acute gastritis. 

(Edited from article by Steve Provizer @ Syncopated Times) *(some sources give 1906 as birth year)

Helen Carr born 1922

Helen Carr (1922* –  September 20, 1960) was a jazz vocalist in the 1940’s and 1950’s who performed with Charlie Barnet, Stan Kenton, Buddy Morrow, Charles Mingus, Donn Trenner and many others. 

She was born Helen Maxine Huber in Salt Lake City, Utah. She started singing as a child, and realized there was money in singing for an audience at a very young age. So, even though her first job in high school was as an usherette in a theatre, her dream was always to become a singer. Her family later moved to Illinois, and in 1936, after her father’s death, Helen and her mother started traveling around the country to finally settle in Oakland, California. 

There is much speculation about her artistic beginnings, as there was a possible three other vocalists named Helen Carr. One who performed in an amateur vocal contest at the Gateway Theater in Oakland, another who worked in the Pennsylvania area and another who performed in the Broadway production of Caribbean Queen. All in all, a real source of confusion for music historians. It was not the same Helen though, because our singer took her last name Carr only after marrying Walter Carr in June 1941. 

There is no available information about what Helen Carr did during the first three years of her failed marriage, but it is certain that her life took a turn when she met Donn Trenner in San Francisco, in March 1945, a boy five years younger than her. By then, Helen was 23 years old, already separated, but not yet divorced from her husband, and had a four-year-old son, Gordon Carr, who lived with his father’s sister. Donn Trenner was the pianist for the popular Ted Fio Rito Orchestra, engaged at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco when he met Helen who was developing her singing career as a nightclub vocalist. 

In the fall of 1946 they were both living in New York and at the end of the year they married in Elkton, Maryland. Donn found some club engagements, but he claimed that he could only play with bands where a spot could also be guaranteed for Helen, or things simply wouldn’t work out due to her behavioral issues. In order to work alongside Helen, Donn organized a trio with guitarist Sammy Herman and bassist Joe Bianco, who under the name The Donn Trio and Helen made some disco appearances and promotional recordings at Nola studio. 

Work was scarce, and Donn disbanded the trio after four months to accept a job with Buddy Morrow, who was reorganizing his orchestra, and happened to be a favorite in musical circles. This new job allowed Helen to be the featured vocalist and sharing the vocal spot with singer Don Casanave. But this was short lived as they both moved to San Fransisco in 1948 to be near her son from her previous marriage. During February 1949 Donn and Helen went to Los Angeles to do a session for Dolphins of Hollywood, with Charles “Baron” Mingus & his Rhythm. Donn was the pianist and Helen was the featured vocalist in Irving Berlin’s ballad “Say It Isn’t So.” 

In May 1950, when Charlie Barnet made the couple an offer to tour the country with his band, which they did until July 7, 1951, touring from coast to coast. This resulted in Helen Carr’s only known filmed performance, a “Snader Telescription,” which also featured Donn Trenner playing piano. Subsequently, she sang with the aggregations of Georgie Auld and Stan Kenton, and in between she sat in with Charlie Parker and Chet Baker at the Tiffany Club. 

In 1954 Helen, gave up the band business to try her luck as a single. She appeared at the Crescendo club and elsewhere in Los Angeles, where she gained some traction, and Red Clyde, the West Coast producer for Bethlehem Records, signed Helen to the label. Her contract resulted in two excellent albums under her own name, as well as two songs she recorded as a guest singer in a Max Bennett date, with all sessions taking place in 1955. 

By 1957 her rocky marriage with Donn was at an end and Helen signed with MGM. She recorded only one single, in October, which included It’s Beautiful, and Love Is a Serious Business. She was backed by an orchestra conducted by LeRoy Holmes, and in an attempt to reach a broader audience the tunes and arrangements had a certain pop flair. The label pushed for promotion in radio shows, contacting DJs, and generally doing everything they could to give Carr a fighting chance and some exposure, but despite their effort, the record did not have the expected success and went largely unnoticed among the bunch MGM new releases. 

In October 1959, Helen Carr traveled West once more, as she was scheduled to appear at the then brand new Greg’s Hi-Life Supper Club in Bakersfield, California. That same year she worked with Charlie Barnet again. “My band activities continued to shrink. There were occasional weekend gigs, and once in a while MCA put together some dates in the East that made it profitable enough to go through the anguish of organizing a big band and enduring all the traveling the dates required.” During a 17-day tour with Barnet, Helen found out that she had cancer. 

Donn Trenner stated that during 1960 he visited Helen in Roosevelt Hospital, New York,  approximately two weeks before she passed away, at age 37. She was buried in an unnamed grave in Linden, New Jersey. On September 20, 2023 a Headstone was created to mark jazz singer’s unmarked grave. Even though she died so young and remained largely unknown outside of the West Coast, Helen left an undeniable mark as a jazz vocalist. Everyone who heard her sing was captivated by her completely natural talent and her individual approach to jazz. 

(Edited from Jordi Pujol album liner notes) (* since posting this bio I have found that she was born sometime in October)

Nick Fatool born 2 January 1915

Nick Fatool (January 2, 1915 – September 26, 2000) was a prolific American big band and dixieland drummer, variously with the orchestras of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Les Brown and Harry James. Also recorded with Louis Armstrong, Bob Crosby and Tommy Dorsey and worked in Hollywood during the 1940's. 

Albert “Nick” Fatool was born in Milbury, Massachusetts, in 1915. His parents were listed as being from Syria. After his family moved to Rhode Island, he played drums in Cranston High School and studied with George Ball. Just a few years later he was living in New York City and playing with the much-admired Joe Haymes Orchestra. A residency in Dallas with the Don Bestor Orchestra followed, then Fatool went straight to the top—joining the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1939. 

His driving but always musical hi-hats, backbeats, and brushes were integral to the orchestra’s rhythmic pulse at the second Carnegie Hall concert, the second Spirituals to Swing concert and on numerous “Camel Caravan” broadcasts. In 1939, guitarist Charlie Christian joined the Goodman orchestra. Fatool’s swinging rhythm was an integral part of the rhythm section that backed Christian on the classic recordings of “Rose Room,” “Seven Come Eleven,” and other sides. 

In 1940, after an acrimonious parting with Goodman, Fatool moved on to another top orchestra: Artie Shaw’s. There, he blended seamlessly with Shaw’s rhythm section. He is seen onscreen with Shaw and the orchestra in the 1940 film “Second Chorus.” During his stay with Shaw, Fatool participated in some of the orchestra’s greatest recordings—including “Concerto For Clarinet.” He also recorded with Shaw’s Gramercy Five, foreshadowing some of the licks which would later project him to the top of the list of “Dixieland” drummers. 

                                  

Following his stint with Shaw, Fatool worked with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra and then moved to Los Angeles in 1943. He quickly became a favorite with studio musicians and also with the jazz and swing musicians who settled in Southern California during wartime. Between 1945 and 1951 he recorded with specially-assembled recording ensembles such as the Capitol Jazzmen, Lavere’s Chicago Loopers and the Four-Star Rhythm Section as well as established bands such as Bob Crosby’s Orchestra and the Bob Cats. Later he recorded several sessions with Jess Stacy, Tommy Dorsey, Matty Matlock, John Scott Trotter and Glen Gray. He began an association with Bob Crosby, playing with him regularly between 1949 and 1951 and occasionally with Crosby's Bobcats into the 1970s. 

Nicknamed “Old Rub-A-Dub,” Fatool became a reliable and sought-after drummer in the Los Angeles music scene. Between 1944 and 1958 he played on sessions for the following Capitol Records artists: Andy Griffith, Andy Russell, Betty Hutton, Billy May, Jeanne Gayle, Charles LaVere, Dave Barbour, Dave Matthews, Dean Martin, Maggie Jackson, Ella Mae Morse, Frank Sinatra, Freddie Slack, Gordon MacRae, Jack Teagarden, Jerry Colonna, Jesse Price, Jo Stafford, Joe "Fingers" Carr, Johnny Mercer, Johnny Standley, Margaret Whiting, Marvin Ash, Nat King Cole, Paul Weston, Peggy Lee, Pete Kelly, Ray Anthony, Ray Turner, Red Nichols, Robert Mitchum, Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Andrews Sisters, The Dinning Sisters, The Pied Pipers, The Starlighters, The Capitol Jazzmen, and Wingy Manone. 

Fatool was an important member of Buddy Cole and his Trio which worked with Bing Crosby from 1954-1960. In the 1950s and 1960s, Fatool found much work on the Dixieland jazz revival circuit, playing with Pete Fountain from 1962–1965 and the Dukes of Dixieland, then continued to freelance around Southern California. He also developed a love of golf—enough to briefly become a professional golfer! 

During the 1970s, Fatool was involved with an extensive recording project for Time-Life: The Swing Era. For this multi-volume series, top Los Angeles jazz and studio musicians re-created the classic sides originally recorded in the ’30s and ’40s. Nick Fatool used many of the licks he learned from Chick Webb, Dave Tough, Ray Bauduc, and other great drummers, but also added his own interpretations to the drum parts. As the jazz festivals came to prominence, Fatool was heard with all-star combinations at the Sacramento Dixieland Jubilee, the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival and similar groups in the Los Angeles area. He gradually cut back on his musical activities in later years, to spend more time on golf courses. 

However, he toured Europe with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band and made his only recording as a leader on a septet jam that also included Eddie Miller, Johnny Mince and Ernie Carson. That music, plus a quintet outing headed by Bud Freeman from 1982, have been combined on the Jazzology CD Nick Fatool's Jazz Band & Quartet.  He passed away in Los Angeles on September 26, 2000, at the age of 85.

(Edited from The Syncopated Times & Wikipedia)

 

Earl Wrightson born 1 January 1916

Earl Wrightson (January 1, 1916 – March 7, 1993) was an American singer and actor best known for musical theatre, concerts and television performances. His regular singing partner was the soprano Lois Hunt. 

Wrightson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a Methodist minister. He studied voice at a local conservatory and then moved to New York City in the 1930s to study voice with baritone Robert Weede, who sang with the Metropolitan Opera. Wrightson's first job in New York was as a page for NBC. He married Alta Markey, and the pair had a daughter, Wendy. He later separated from his wife, although they never divorced. 

Wrightson lent his deep baritone voice to the radio, singing regularly on such series as The Prudential Family Hour and The Coca-Cola Hour, often for conductor Andre Kostelanetz. In 1944, he played Robert on Broadway in The New Moon. The following year, he had his only starring role on Broadway in The Firebrand of Florence. Unfortunately, the Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin musical was a flop, lasting only 43 performances. On tour and in summer theater, he also starred in Camelot, Kiss Me, Kate, Paint Your Wagon, I Do! I Do!, Man of La Mancha, South Pacific, Can-Can, Silk Stockings, Fiddler on the Roof, Gigi, A Little Night Music and The Sound of Music, among other shows. 

Wrightson with Irving Berlin

By the late 1940s, Wrightson performed on television variety shows, including Girl About Town and hosted his own 15-minute variety show, Earl Wrightson at Home on CBS Television, that preceded “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends,” and appeared regularly on “Girl About Town,” an NBC live musical program. His other major TV credit was “Paul Whiteman’s Goodyear Revue” from 1949 to 1952. 

                                   

Beginning in 1951, Wrightson's regular singing partner was opera soprano Lois Hunt, with whom he developed an intimate relationship. She had listened to his radio shows as a teenager and became a frequent performer on his television variety show. He won an Emmy Award as the host, for three years in the 1950s, of a CBS Sunday afternoon television show, The American Musical Theater. He also performed on other variety shows, such as Paul Whiteman's Goodyear Revue, and he was heard on shows hosted by Robert Q. Lewis, Jack Paar, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Johnny Carson. 

In the 1960s, Wrightson made several appearances on The Bell Telephone Hour, especially on their annual Christmas programs. Wrightson and Hunt continued to perform Broadway show tunes with symphony orchestras in concerts throughout the U.S., including appearances at Carnegie Hall. While performing at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. in the early 1960s, they received an invitation sent on behalf of Lady Bird Johnson to perform at her home for the wives of a group of Japanese government officials who would be attending meetings at the White House. 

While visiting the Johnsons' residence the evening before their performance, the singers were invited upstairs to meet the vice president. According to Hunt, Lyndon Johnson, suffering from a cold, greeted them "in his green silk pajamas with his initials, LBJ, embroidered from just below his shoulder to just above his ankle". 

Wrightson and Hunt recorded five albums together, and he recorded many more alone, including over a dozen studio recordings of musicals and operettas, often with conductor Al Goodman. He received the Handel Medallion from the City of New York in recognition of his artistic achievements.Wrightson's last major singing role was in 1980 as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music, together with Hunt, in a 97-city tour. 

He died of heart failure at his home in East Norwich, Long Island, New York at the age of 77. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)