CategoryBands and Bandleaders

Arthur Lally, Bert and John Firman

“Somebody Mighty Like You” (Two Versions; 1930)

“Somebody Mighty Like You” originated in the partially Technicolor 1929 musical film Paris, whose plot concerns an upper-crust American man who causes a scandal by falling in love with a French cabaret girl. Less than two minutes of the actual movie still exist, although the soundtrack survives on Vitaphone discs. Paris was based on the 1928 Broadway play of the same name, whose songs were all by Cole Porter. Strangely, very little Cole Porter material made it into the movie (some of it, such as “Let’s Do It [Let’s Fall in Love],” may have been deemed too racy). Instead, other songwriters, including Alfred Bryan and Eddie Ward, were brought in to write entirely new songs. Bryan and Ward’s “Somebody Mighty Like You” was introduced in the film by Irène Bordoni and Jack Buchanan (in his talking-picture debut).

I have not seen the full lyrics as they were used in the movie, but it is easy to get a sense of their contents by comparing different vocal refrain excerpts. There are two themes. First, the singer invokes the idea of an ideal lover that he has found in dreams, one who is “somebody mighty like [i.e., very much like]” the real-world lover that he is addressing.1 Second, the singer appears to be highly frustrated by the beloved’s lack of reciprocation; this theme seems to have been edited out of many arrangements of the song. As it happens, Maurice Elwin ended up singing two vocal refrains of “Somebody Might Like You,” one without and one with the element of discontent.

“Somebody Mighty Like You.” Words by Alfred Bryan, music by Eddie Ward (1929). Recorded in London on January 16, 1930 by the Rhythm Maniacs under the musical direction of Arthur Lally with vocalist Maurice Elwin. Decca F-1586 mx. MB-855-2.

Personnel: Arthur Lally-cl-as-bar dir. Sylvester Ahola-Dennis Ratcliffe-t / Danny Polo-cl-as / Joe Crossman or Johnny Helfer-cl-ts / Claude Ivy-p / Joe Brannelly-bj / Tiny Stock-bb / Max Bacon-d-vib / Maurice Elwin-v

The Rhythm Maniacs (v. Maurice Elwin) – “Somebody Mighty Like You” (1930)
(Transfer by Henry Parsons)

Maurice Elwin’s usually restrained vocals sometimes contrast with the hotness of the bands he accompanies, but that is not so much the case in the Rhythm Maniacs’ version of “Somebody Mighty Like You.” This version is smooth and mellow by their standards, contrasting greatly with the flip side, the booming and slightly bizarre “Jus’ Keepin’ On.” The song is arranged in such a way that Maurice Elwin uses the higher end of his range; his voice sounds gentle and appropriately dreamy. The B part uses the lyrics

If I fell in your arms, dear, would you complain?
And would you smile and coax me to fall again?

The theme of frustration is absent, and Elwin is able to make a 35-second vocal refrain memorable for its sweetness.

“Paris — Selection” (Intro. “Miss Wonderful” / “Paris” / My Lover” / “Somebody Mighty Like You”). Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London on May 13, 1930 by the London Orchestra (dir. John Firman) with vocalist Maurice Elwin. Zonophone 5637.

Personnel: John Firman dir. Max Goldberg-another-t / Danny Polo-cl-as-bar / ?E. O. Pogson-cl-as / Johnny Helfer-cl-ts / Bert Read-p / Joe Brannelly-bj / Billy Bell-bb / Rudy Starita-d-vib-x / Charles W. Saxby-or / Maurice Elwin-v

Paris selection: “Miss Wonderful,” “Paris,” “My Lover,” “Somebody Mighty Like You.” London Orchestra directed by John Firman, with vocals by Maurice Elwin. Charles W. Saxby, organ. Recorded May 1930. Zonophone 5637.
(Transfer by John Wright)

Later in 1930, the London Orchestra, one of Zonophone’s studio bands under the direction of John Firman, recorded a medley of tunes from the movie Paris, all but one of which had been written by Alfred Bryan and Eddie Ward (“My Lover” is a Yellen-Ager composition). The recording session took place in the echoey Kingsway Hall, and the band was accompanied by an organ — overall the sound is very different from the comparatively dead acoustics of the Rhythm Maniacs’ Decca recording. The medley begins with a brief instrumental snatch of “Somebody Mighty Like You” and ends with Maurice Elwin actually singing it. Interestingly, this time his B part lyrics are

Why don't she try to coax me? I'll answer yes.
Fooling around provokes me. Why can't she guess?

One would expect Elwin to sound impatient singing these lines, and so he does. He does not sound as if he is happily drifting into a dream; rather, he seems mildly annoyed. I say mildly because the difference between the two vocals is subtle. A reserved singer, Elwin seldom overacts, but when he does, he makes quite an impression.

There was only one other dance band recording of “Somebody Mighty Like You” made in Britain, that of Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (v. Sam Browne). There were quite a few good American versions in 1929-1930, including those by Larry Siry and His Hotel Ambassador Orchestra (v. Charles Murray), Wayne King and His Orchestra (v. Ernie Birchill), the Carolina Club Orchestra (v. Hal Kemp, Saxie Dowell, and Skinnay Ennis), Tom Clines and His Music (v. Jack Carney), the Badgers (v. Scrappy Lambert), Joe Curran’s Band, John Vincent’s Californians (v. Rodman Lewis), and Sam Lanin and His Orchestra (v. Irving Kaufman).

  1. Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh would use the same idea the next year in “Exactly Like You.” ↩︎
Henry Hall

“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” (Two Versions; 1931 & 1932)

“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” was the signature tune of Henry Hall and His Gleneagles Hotel Band. Hall had formed the band at the LMS Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland when it opened in 1924. They were frequently resident at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool and the Midland Hotel in Manchester during the off-season, but they always associated themselves first and foremost with Gleneagles.

The controller for LMS Hotels was one Arthur E. Towle, CBE, whose wife, Margery Lawrence, a fiction writer, penned the lyrics to “Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland.” Hall himself wrote the tune and arranged it. He had studied music at Trinity College of Music and had experience composing hymns for the Salvation Army.

“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland.” Words by Margery Lawrence, music by Henry Hall (1931). Recorded in London on October 11, 1931 by Henry Hall and His Gleneagles Hotel Band. Decca F-2614 mx. GB-3431-1.

Personnel: Henry Hall-sp-a dir. Eddie Cromar-as-bar-vn / Cyril Wookey-cl-as-vn / Burton Gillis-cl-ts / Henry Reed-p / Theo Farrar-sb / Arthur Haydock-d-vib / Maurice Elwin-v

Henry Hall and His Gleneagles Hotel Band
“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland (1931)
(Transfer by Henry Parsons)

We can hear Henry Hall’s gentle voice announce the tune “Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” at the beginning of the recording on Decca F-2614; he does so as if for a radio broadcast. Then the orchestra comes in, loudly approximating the sound of bagpipes. Allusions to native Scottish music are not entirely rare in British dance band recordings, but the use of strings to imitate woodwind instruments would be a clever effect in any context.

It is arguably the voice of Maurice Elwin that gives this song its greatest source of Scottish authenticity. Born in Uddingston and educated in Glasgow, he was one of the Scottish voices most frequently heard on British records. What he does with the vocal refrain is impressive. While I do not wish to be too hard on the lyricist, the words that made it into this arrangement are little more than a laundry list of northern topographical details. And yet Elwin, singing them softly, as if solemnly and reverently assessing the natural beauty of his native region, produces an effect that is deeply moving. I am not the first to observe Elwin’s ability to convey sincerity, but here he evokes a sense of longing that is less evident in his other dance band recordings. It is as if the music, which is unusually pretty, has given Elwin the opportunity to show off a new facet of his art.

Decca F-2614 was among the last records that Hall released whose label mentioned the Midland Hotel, Manchester. We can see that the label of Decca F-2777, which has take 4 of “Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” on it, lacks the hotel reference:

“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland.” Recorded in London on January 10, 1932 by Henry Hall and His Gleneagles Hotel Band. Decca F-2777 mx. GB-3431-4.

Personnel: Henry Hall-a dir. Eddie Cromar-t-as-bar-v / t / tb / Cyril Wookey-cl-as-vn / Burton Gillis-cl-ts / Henry Reed-p / Theo Farrar-bb-sb / Arthur Haydock-d-vib / Maurice Elwin-v

Henry Hall and His Gleneagles Hotel Band (v. Maurice Elwin)
“Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland”
(Transfer by Henry Parsons)

Note that the matrix for this recording is the same as for the previous transfer, even though the two were recorded three months apart. Take 4 was originally used for late issues of Decca F-2614 and later assigned to F-2777. It is understandable that Decca treated it as a remake, as it is very similar to the original. It lacks Hall’s announcement at the beginning, and Henry Parsons has pointed out to me that the tenor sax is featured prominently after the vocal — an anticipation of a slightly later trend in US dance band arrangements.

Elwin seems to sing the refrain with greater boldness in this take. I would be tempted to attribute the difference to microphone placement, but we happen to know that Elwin was obsessed with his physical relationship to the microphone,1 so any difference in vocal character was probably intentional. Personally, I prefer the earlier take as being slightly more subtle.

Around the time that the new take of “Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” was recorded, Henry Hall was negotiating to become the BBC’S new bandleader. Jack Payne was about to end his tenure there, and Hall would begin broadcasting with his new band in mid-March. There would be no more Gleneagles Hotel Band, but it is nice that they managed to record their signature tune before being disbanded. They were not the only ones to do so, though; there exists a January 1932 recording of “Come Ye Back to Bonnie Scotland” by the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, then directed by Howard Jacobs, with vocalist Anona Winn. There is also a solo recording of the song by Maurice Elwin on Zonophone 6072.

  1. Maurice Elwin, “Some Truths About Microphone Singing,” Rhythm, March 1934, 33. ↩︎
Arthur Lally

“Nobody’s Using It Now” (1930)

“Nobody’s Using It Now.” Words by Clifford Grey, music by Victor Schertzinger. Composed for the film The Love Parade (1929). Recorded in London on March 31, 1930 by the Rhythm Maniacs under the musical direction of Arthur Lally with vocalist Maurice Elwin. Decca F-1716 mx. MB-1136-2.

Personnel: Arthur Lally-cl-as-bar dir. Norman Payne-probably Bill Shakespeare-t / Jock Fleming or Ted Heath-tb / Danny Polo-cl-as / Joe Jeannette-cl-ts / Claude Ivy-p / Joe Brannelly-bj / Spike Hughes-sb / Rudy Starita-d-vib-x / Maurice Elwin-v

The Rhythm Maniacs (v. Maurice Elwin) – “Nobody’s Using It Now” (1930)

“Nobody’s Using It Now” is but one of several memorable numbers from the musical comedy The Love Parade, Ernst Lubitsch’s first sound film. In the movie, Maurice Chevalier plays a military officer in Sylvania, a Ruritanian state located somewhere in Europe. He becomes prince consort to the queen — “a husband, and nothing else” — his nights busy and his days empty. Bereft of self-respect, the boyish, sexy Chevalier sings to the queen’s dog about how he would like a position of greater responsibility, although comically he keeps appealing to his talents in the bedroom as relevant qualifications. “[He’s] just wasting [his] youth,” he complains, “’cause nobody’s using it now.” As is the case with many Broadway and Hollywood tunes, if you take “Nobody’s Using It Now” out of its original context, its lyrics constitute a generic love song — the singer sounds merely lonely, not bored and disrespected like Chevalier.

In the Rhythm Maniacs’ version of “Nobody’s Using It Now,” Maurice Elwin gets a mere 25 seconds to sing the vocal refrain, but it is nonetheless memorable for its boldness. Particularly noteworthy is his ascent into his upper register with “no, no, no, NO!” It puts Elwin’s performance into the same comical territory as Chevalier’s original (the latter goes implausibly low in his intro). Elwin’s quickly delivered vocal at the beginning of the recording sets the fast pace for this up-tempo and loud early Decca recording, whose arrangement is infectiously catchy.

There were many medleys inspired by The Love Parade and Maurice Chevalier’s singing in general, and the Rhythm Maniacs themselves would do a reprise of “Nobody’s Doing it Now” later in 1930 in “Maurice Chevalier — Selection” (v. Fred Douglas). There were other British dance band versions of “Nobody’s Doing It Now” in 1930 by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (who recorded a full version with Sam Browne on the vocals, and an instrumental excerpt in a medley), Cecil Norman’s Savoy Plaza Band (v. Cavan O’Connor), Bidgood’s Symphonic Dance Band (in a medley with vocals by Patrick Waddington, followed soon after by a full version — under the band name Al Benny’s Broadway Boys — with vocalist Sam Browne), Jack Payne and His BBC Dance Orchestra (who did an instrumental treatment in a medley), Nat Star (v. Tom Barratt), the Midnight Minstrels (dir. Stan Greening; as an instrumental in a medley), the Debroy Somers Band (v. Tom Barratt), and Jack Leon’s band (as an instrumental in a medley).